CHAPTER III
"No matter how cold she is, she's always warmed and calmed me with her presence like the sun that illuminates all. Soothing me with her radiant smile like the moon that sooths everything. I'm a fool to be able to fall in love with a seventeen year old girl. But even so, I don't care the difference in our age. I don't care if this twenty four year old guy is in love with seventeen year old girl. Like universe that engulfs the sky, she enchanted me. I just want to be with her, even if… even if all of this is surreal…"
No doubts were on their mind as for this point. Everyone focused on what they were trying to achieve. As they sneaked inside the enemy's base, there was no turning back. Having both black and white spell, Irie Shoichi concentrate on the raid of Vongola base which it was faked by Hibari making Hibari the decoy himself and fought the entire army.
Even though Lal was weakened, she still fought Gingerbread with her might. Although in the end, Gingerbread was no Gingerbread, meaning that it was a doll to begin with. Because of it, they couldn't carry out their plan. The corrupted arcobaleno was supposed to be the decoy there, but at her current state, the plan was changed to Tsuna who volunteered to be the decoy. It's been 20 minutes since they left and Giannini was worried that the communication was blur. Blur enough to make him unable to determined their whereabouts and condition.
Fighting one Mosca was almost impossible, let alone fighting four of them. That's exactly what Tsuna did. And as the results, he was somewhat "kidnapped" by his enemy, Spanner. And when he awoke, he wore nothing but boxers since his clothes were wet. While Tsuna was safe with Spanner, Gokudera and Ryohei as well as Yamamoto and Lal was separated due to Irie Shoichi created the base like a maze. He shifted and moved the block to make them lost and fought his troops.
"…"
Tsuna wasn't able to talk much since Spanner was busy making him a contact lens for perfecting Tsuna's X-burner.
"Ano, Spanner-san"
"…"
"Spanner-san…?" Tsuna made a sudden move. And since he did it, the mini mosca beside him pointed its mechanical arm at him presuming that it would shot bullets at Tsuna. "HIEEE! O-O-Okay! I'll stay!" Tsuna put his hand on the air.
"What is it, Vongola?" Spanner finally answered. "Umm… why would an enemy like you want to help me?"
"…" Spanner just glanced at him, but no answer. Then, he got back to his work, ignoring Tsuna completely.
"Why don't you try to trust him, Tsuna?" a familiar voice was heard.
To his surprise, there was Reborn lying down next to Tsuna. But of course, that Reborn was a hologram coming from Tsuna's head gear. Rebon casually asked Spanner about the contact lens like he knew him, which was not. To help and encouraged Tsuna in the upcoming battle, Reborn knew there was something that had to be done. And with Giannini's help, Reborn make that happened by installing a hologram device on Tsuna's gear.
"Reborn…"
"Hm? What is it?"
"How's she doing?"
"She's doing fine. Although, she hasn't woke up yet. You don't have to worry. She's tough. Anyway, I think you should be more worried about your guardians"
...
"You shouldn't sleep at this place, milady"
"…"
"What are you doing in a place like this?"
"…"
"May I have your name now?"
"…"
"If you don't have anywhere to go, then come with me"
"…"
"All you need is to take my hand"
...
Yuki who was still unconscious before gasped as she awoke. "A dream, huh?" she felt somehow relieve. Then, all of the sudden, someone opened the door.
"Thank goodness, she's still asleep" Kyoko came with Haru.
"I wonder how Tsuna-san and everyone are doing right now" Haru talked with Kyoko while watching over Yuki.
"I'm sure they'll be alright" Kyoko tried to cheer up Haru. While watching over Yuki, they were having a little chat, and then they went to the kitchen to prepare lunch. They didn't know that Yuki was eavesdropping. Yuki's worried got rise as she heard the girls' conversation, but she knew that she couldn't help them and she had to trust them.
"So, are there any progresses?" Yuki suddenly heard Futa's voice outside the room.
"No. the communication is still off and we heard Yamamoto's scream. I have a bad feeling about this. I hope they'll come back safely" Bianchi was also there.
Yuki snapped when she heard them. She gripped the bed sheets tightly and her mind was full of regrets. But at that moment, Yuki prepared to betray her own heart.
The fight was getting intense and intense. Yamamoto was knocked down by Genkishi and Gokudera still fought Gamma. As the time passed by, there were many events happened. Tsuna and Spanner were found out by Iris and another Gingerbread.
Tsuna fought Iris's minions hard, but her minions were tough and Tsuna got thrown to the wall really rough. So rough that he went through the wall. But to their surprise, Tsuna was just injured but not in a havoc state, which supposedly he was. When Tsuna was about to dash towards his enemy, Merone base alarm interrupted him.
"Ginger, Iris. We have a major emergency! There's an intruder annihilating everyone relentlessly. Speed up your work and finished the intruder!" Irie Shoichi commanded through their communication bracelet. "Don't worry, captain. Ginger and I will settle this quickly"
"The intruder is not something that can be taken care of easily! She even defeated most of our white and black spell"
"She?" Tsuna heard. All of the sudden, his enemy delivered a sudden punch, but Tsuna managed to dodge it. After he got the contact lens from injured Spanner, he fired a soft flame with his right hand to the back and increased both flame pressures. It took quite a time to bring the balance of both hands, but Tsuna managed to fire 200.000 Fiamma Volt from both hands. And as the result, he destroyed three blocks of space. And that, too, gave Irie a hard time to shuffle the base.
15 minutes later
"Vongola, that's one of the six funeral wreath, Genkishi"
"What? Didn't he fight everyone?"
"Everyone? You must refer to your guardians. Although they were pretty tough, they should probably be gone right now"
Tsuna's eyes widened and by his words, he flew straight forwards Genkishi. Nevertheless, Genkishi was the most powerful swordsman since that tragic day, also the bearer of mist mare ring. Tsuna fought him, but Genkishi himself made few strange moves as if he was paralyzed by something. And when he was in a pinch, Genkishi used his hell ring to draw out his full potential turning his flesh into a void skull.
Then, they punched their face at the same time. Each punch was strong, but later after fell into one of his illusions, Tsuna managed to draw more than 200.000 Fiamma Volt flame. Genkishi knew the dangerous he was facing, so he increased his size and used his blade to cut the X-burner. Still, Tsuna's X-burner managed to hit Genkishi, but he got escaped using the last of his power.
As Tsuna looked above, he blown four floors and he saw a white round device at the room, which was their goal to destroy it.
"Tsuna, this is it" the hologram Reborn had spoken, Tsuna nodded.
"Everyone, please be safe"
Right after Tsuna got into the place, he immediately spotted Irie Shoichi and those two Cervello women.
"Sawada Tsunayoshi, I suggest that you hand over your Vongola ring, if you don't want anything happen to them" Irie gave one of the Cervello girls a sign, then using a remote, a tube appeared from the ground with everyone inside it.
"Everyone!"
"I use a sleeping gas on them. If you dare make one more move, I will put them into deep sleep, forever. Wake them up" he ordered her. Using one button, Gokudera and everyone else had awoken, including the past Hibari who just arrived
"Tenth! Darn you, Irie Shoichi!" Gokudera was about to lit his flame, but the ring wasn't on him, the same goes with the others.
"I have your Vongola rings right here" the Vongola rings were on his hand. "So, what're you going to do now, Sawada Tsunayoshi?"
Tsuna whose deathperation will mode gone out was uncertain. But just when he thought everyone was there, Irie spoke "You should make this quick. Your other guardian is on her way here. And before she got here, I'll make sure you give me your ring"
"What are you- you mean Yuki? Is she really…"
"I thought you sent her here. But I must say, she's the best reinforcement anyone has ever had"
"No, you're wrong! Yuki is at our base infirmary. She not supposed to wake up! There's no way that she-"
All of the sudden, a blast came from ground floor and one of white spell men appeared injured. "This is bad, Irie-sama! The intruder is here and-" before he could say more, a person slashed him. Tsuna and everyone couldn't believe their own eyes. The universe guardian was there standing with an eye color that they could never forget.
"I found you, Tsuna" she said in relieved.
"Yuki… What are you…"
"Chronos Yuki. I want you to hand over your ring as well. And don't even try to surprise us again" Irie had sweated.
"Irie…Shoichi…" she muttered. She glanced at Irie solemnly, and then strangely, she chuckled. "Sure. Why not?" she threw her ring to him.
"Y-Yuki-san! What are you doing?" Gokudera protested.
"Yuki. Do you know what you're doing?" Reborn disputed.
"Who knows?" she replied.
"As expected from the 'judgment', you really show no doubts or fear" Irie said worryingly. "Sawada! Yuki! Don't worry about us! Just destroy the device!" Lal yelled.
"Wait a minute. Do you really wish to destroy your only hope to get back to the past? Yes, this device is the only way for you to go home. You know what will happen if you destroyed it" Irie threatened them. And just that, he left them. "I'll leave the rest to you"
Thus, the Cervello women were now taken the lead. When they did the countdown, Tsuna hurriedly removed his ring. When the countdown gone to "1", someone shot the Cervello from behind and to their surprise, it was Irie.
"Haah… finally. I'm not good in this stuff" the current Irie surprised them. "This way I can talk to you freely. I'm actually on your side".
"On our side? What do you mean?" Tsuna doubted. So, Irie told Tsuna everything about his plans, that all the events that have occurred was a plan devised by Shoichi along with future Tsuna and future Hibari in order to train their past selves to defeat Byakuran. And he also told them about the fight at Italy that was commenced by Varia.
"That's pretty much what happened. But there's something I need to ask, Chronos-san" Irie averted his eyes to Yuki. "Why did you give me your ring, knowing that I was your enemy?" with that question said, everyone else look straight to her.
"Because I don't buy your act. It's a total fake" she crossed her arms.
"Really?" Irie sighed. "I thought my act was good enough. I even fooled Byakuran-san"
"I'm not so sure about that. He's our real enemy, right? Then there's no guarantee that you've fooled him" Yuki furrowed her brow. "Anyway, Yuki. Trying to be a rebel? I told you to stay away from fighting. Do you want to kill us all?" Reborn got pissed.
"He's right. What are you thinking? You're not the type who would do such reckless thing. I was worried, really worried when they said that another intruder infiltrate this base. I was hoping that it would not be you, but-"
"I did this to save you, Tsuna. But it seems you don't need to be save" she averted her eyes.
"Umm… may I ask you something, Chronos-san?" Irie asked. "You were running havoc back there. Most of it is destroyed by you. But… do you still have your control?" Yuki nodded.
"Oh, well. That's good" Irie sighed in relief.
"Tsunayoshi-kun. There's something I'd like to give you. It's from you in this era" Irie placed his hand on the device and an orange box came out with a mark of Vongola on it. "It's your Vongola box. But you can't open it now. You need all seven arcobaleno seal to open it. You must enter the arcobaleno trials in order to get those seals. And since the arcobaleno are dead in this era, you will temporarily send back to the past. However, you only have seven days until you could get back here" Irie explained.
As Irie explained the further details, the past Ryohei had been swapped by his own future self. He appeared energetic as usual, asking Kyoko's whereabouts. After that, they got the news about the fight in Italy, telling them that it was successful. Then, Irie told them that they need to go back to the base first, and then came back to go to the past with everyone, but should be noted that once they got back to the past with Kyoko and Haru, they also have to return to the future because if they didn't, it would ruin Irie's plan.
"But how can we go out now? Enemies are outside" Tsuna bothered.
"I already took care of that" Yuki replied. "Wh-What do you mean "took care"?" Gokudera nervously asked.
"I think you all know" she smiled, which made them strangely felt bothered by the word "Took care". Alas, they managed to go outside without any enemies detected and they were able to go back safely.
After few hours passed, Tsuna along with Gokudera tiredly went to their room after five hours explaining everything to Ryohei. After realizing how bored he was just stay put with nothing to do on his room, Tsuna decided to take a stroll over the base. Just as he walked from a door to another, he stopped at Yuki's room. At first, he was hesitant to knock, but to his surprise, Yuki had already opened the door. "What is it, Tsuna?"
"No-Nothing, actually. I was just taking a walk. S-Sorry to disturb you" he was just about to leave, but then, Yuki stopped him. "It's okay if you want to come in" Yuki welcomed him, and so, Tsuna decided to enter her room. While at her room, neither of them said anything. Yuki continued her meditation and Tsuna was only staring at her awkwardly. Tsuna felt guilty that he disrupted her time, although it was Yuki herself that invited Tsuna to her room. Tsuna's eye view changed to the ring she was wearing.
"Want to know about this?" a question popped out from her mouth, and then Tsuna nodded. "What do you want to know?". "Tell me about your element. And its characteristic"
"This ring is different than any other rings. It's a universe ring upholds the name of universe itself. But unlike yours, which is harmony, mine is resurrection and eradication. Do you know what that means?"
"No… what does that mean?"
"It means I hold person's life and death. I can see that you're having a hard time to believe, but this element operates beyond our senses. Resurrection means I have healing ability and also I can bring living beings back to life or create lives. Eradication means I can obliterate anything with nothing but my command alone. It's a terrifying element and it can do the impossible things. Even the color is black"
"But I never heard any of this type of element before. Is there another ring that contains this element?"
"There's only one ring and one user. There's a history to it. But, only the bearer and the founder of this ring who knows the truth about universe and I'm not suppose to tell anyone"
"Who's the founder? So, this founder gave you the ring?". Yuki nodded "You already met him, Tsuna"
"Eh? Is it Reborn?"
Yuki shook her head.
"Ninth?"
She shook her head again.
"Where's he now?" Tsuna changed his question out of curiosity.
"In the sky" she answered indifferently. "I'm serious, Yuki. I won't ask him, I promise. I just want to see this person"
"Even if you want to ask him, you can't"
"Why's that?"
"He can no longer answer your question"
"Why?" Tsuna was strangely pushed her with his non-stop question. Even he didn't realize that he was pushing it way too far. Yuki stared at him with her straight-serious look for a moment.
"He's dead"
Tsuna saw the unpleasant look on her face. So, Tsuna excused himself and left her room.
As he continued his walk, he couldn't forget the look on her face. Since he thought about it too much, he didn't realize that he was walking to the kitchen. There, he spotted Reborn alone. Seeing Reborn all alone, he asked him few questions. "Ne, Reborn. Don't you think that Yuki is mysterious?"
"Geez, after all this months, you just realize that now? No wonder you're Dame-Tsuna" Reborn sarcastically said so while sipping his espresso. "That's not what I meant, Reborn! Sometimes, she may look like tough and cold on the outside, but there is also some kind of barrier around her that keeps her away from anyone. When I saw her tearful eyes, I can tell that there's something that may have cause it, and not a good one. Tell me, Reborn. What kind of past does she have?"
"Did you say all of those according to your intuition?"
"I don't think so. It's something that I felt…"
"I don't know much about her past. Ninth is the only person who she opened up with, like she looks at him as a grandfather she always wanted. But, what exactly happened before you got here, Tsuna? What did you say to her?"
Tsuna told everything what happened and what conversation he had with Yuki. About her explanation about universe and about the founder she spoke of. "So, she didn't tell you too? So, it's still a mystery …" Reborb mumbled.
"What are you talking about? You mean, she didn't tell anyone, including you? What about ninth?"
"No one knows about it, Tsuna. Even ninth doesn't know. Well, keeping secrets is her best interest. No need to think about it. She's perfectly fine. And I suggest you should stop asking her about the founder. Based on your story, I'm sure this founder is precious to her. Asking it will only hurt her more"
"So, everyone's ready?"
"Yes, Irie-san" Tsuna confirmed. "Good. Remember you only have seven days to get all of the seals. Then, returned to Namimori shrine. Is that clear enough?" Everyone nodded.