Woah. What…1500 views… 10 reviews… 48 favourites and 71 follows! HOLY CRAP! XD I can't explain how happy I am! Thank you so much!

If you didn't know, a lot of my stories have been put on HIATUS, some discontinued, some deleted, but this is just the only way I can organise my stories. I'll be focusing on some stories, including this one.

Do you like the omakes? Are there any stories that you want me to update? Do you have any questions? Just tell me via PM.

WARNING: adult Acrobaleno, fem!27, some violence/blood, may contain swearing and if you don't like, DON'T READ.

Disclaimer: I do not own KHR.

…

"Neh, Alejandro-san, where do these dolls come from?" asked Tsuna. She stared at the beautifully made humanoid doll. She reached out to touch it, but Alejandro quickly interfered. Her eyes started to water in worry, thinking that she had just done something wrong. The Vindice looked away, unable to face the girl. He took a breath and spoke.

"These are handmade dolls and they're still drying from the paint," he said. The girl understood and instantly brightened up now knowing that it was because the doll's paint would have been ruined if she touched it.

"Then what's its name?" she asked.

"… His name is Gingerbread," he replied.

"That's really sweet! Then is Gingerbread very sweet?" asked Tsuna. The Vindice hadn't exactly thought of having his doll of having its own emotions. It would be a good test but because his flames weren't exactly the happiest of them all, the doll would end up having dark thoughts or plot revenge on everyone around it. He usually used Gingerbread as a puppet and there were countless amounts of the same doll. All the other had broken from the pressure of the night flames, so it was near impossible to do so.

"I don't know." The little girl pouted at his reply, but when Alejandro had to attend a meeting amongst the Vindice members (otherwise a mission for the day), she decided to look for things to do.

She paced around the cool room, made to dry dolls that Alejandro made quickly and to make sure none of the dolls' materials would wither away.

She resorted to waiting for the doll to dry. The room was underground so she couldn't look out the window at the sky, her favourite thing to look at besides the garden. As the minutes stretched in an hour, she sighed and made up her mind. Something about Gingerbread kept bugging her. She was sure that it was dry since the shine of wet paint had disappeared into the sheen of dry paint. To be sure she that Gingerbread was dry, she used the brush that Alejandro used to paint Gingerbread.

Grinning, she took Gingerbread's hands after making sure he was dry. Giggling to herself, she played with the doll, always smiling to herself.

"You know, Gingerbread, I wish you can be a real person!" she said out loud. The puppet doll was leaned against the door. There was a glowing light coming from her palm just as she finished speaking. Something told her that she should give it to the doll. A bit confused, she obeyed that 'something' and reached her hand out in which the glowing orb of light floated towards the puppet, right where the heart would be. The light began to glow brighter, so she shielded her eyes with her hands.

After the light subsided, she cracked an eye open and brought her hands to her side to inspect the differences of Gingerbread. It seemed more realistic, the joints were no longer there, the eyes weren't as glassy and there seemed to be something similar to the sounds of breathing except it was so quiet that a normal person could not hear it.

"Boo!"

"HIE!"

Upon hearing the shriek from the girl, Alejandro who had just returned ran to his room only to stop at the entrance and guffaw at what happened.

"You're alive!" exclaimed Tsuna in shock and happiness.

"Did you get scared? Hehe~" Gingerbread said.

"U-uh… sort of?" Tsuna giggled while Gingerbread smiled brightly, just like the sun.

"Don't worry, Tsuna-chan! I, Gingerbread the Magician, will show you a magic trick!" he exclaimed as he stood up properly on his own two legs. Alejandro, who was overviewing everything, was beyond surprised. Who knew the girl had the ability to do something like that? He stayed back, knowing that it was not the right time to interfere.

"Can I have a countdown?" asked Gingerbread, twirling around.

"3… 2… 1…!" said Tsuna, eagerly waiting for his performance and then was struck with horror. Gingerbread had crumbled to pieces like a real doll.

"Gingerbread? Why-"

"Boo!" The girl shrieked once again, and there, behind her, was Gingerbread, completely fine.

Alejandro, still spying, frowned. The doll had the ability of the sun's flames of regeneration. How the doll was able to do so- Wait. It was a doll, a container of some sorts. Did the girl even possess sun flames? He would have to inquire about it and report it to Bermuda later, but for now, he wanted to enjoy the show that played right in front of him.

"How did you do that?" asked Tsuna, very curious.

"Don't you know that magicians never tell their secrets?" Gingerbread smirked as Tsuna pouted and then soon noticed the presence of another person. "Eh, it seems like someone is here!"

Just as Alejandro was about to portal away, a large spider was placed onto his face, its beady eyes staring right into his. From the element of surprise, he yelped falling into the door, desperately trying to pry the spider off his face. With the snap of his fingers, Gingerbread's spider disappeared into sun flames.

"Wow, is that another magic trick?" she asked, not really worrying about the Vindice who lay on the floor huffing and puffing.

"Yep~ oh, it's master! Welcome back!" said Gingerbread referring to Alejandro.

"Gingerbread…" he growled.

"Sorry master, didn't know that you were the person~ So Tsuna, what do you want to do now?" asked Gingerbread, "I can play with you now!"

"Eh… Well, since Alejandro-san has come back, we can all play together!" she beamed.

Alejandro felt like it was going to be a long day. And with the addition of Gingerbread in the Vindice mansion, there was more trouble to clean up (and paperwork), there was another person to feed (and paperwork), there was another person to help when injured in some way despite being a doll (and paperwork) and there was more paperwork (and did I mention that there was also more paperwork?)

…

"Pipupipipu."

"Um… Pino-san, will you play with me?" asked Tsuna.

"Pipi." Understanding him, she tugged on his large bulky arm and pulled him to a room.

"Pipupipi… Pipupupi."

"S-sorry, Pino-san, but I can't understand you that well. I just get this sort of feeling of what you mean, but if it's not about yourself, I can't understand." She saddened a bit but then instantly brightened up. "That's why, I'm going to teach you to read and write!"

There was silence.

"Don't worry! It'll be fine!"

Yeah, when a, now, seven year old girl teaches a hundred plus year old Vindice who has only ever thought about revenge and hatred on a certain person, how to write and read a language they can understand, is very okay. Okay, not that okay.

"Pipupipipupipi!" he exclaimed.

"Well, I know you can understand Italian and Japanese… and everything else, but I don't feel like the others can fully understand you. What if you had to speak with someone outside of here?"

Big Pino didn't say anything.

"Exactly, so I'm going to teach you! After a while, I could understand Italian and I'm still learning how to write it but, you can learn with me!" she said. The room they were in, was in fact the room where Tsuna received lessons from the female Vindice, Elma, to learn the languages she knew and along with the education standards of a child. Well the education standards of a genius child.

She received a grunt of agreement and so the lessons began.

…

"Tsu-" started Elma as she walked into the room, to see two people instead of one.

"Pino? Why are you here?" asked the female only to stare at the child. Ah… it's one of the girl's whims. Just like what happened to Jack, Lotterio, Bermuda, Alejandro and me… it's either gonna be Jager or Small Gia next.

"So do you want to review what we did last time?" asked the Vindice. The little girl nodded and encouraged the other Vindice member to follow on. Elma soon found it that it wasn't as hard as she thought it would be, until something else happened.

"Um… Pino can you get the oil?" asked Lotterio who was preparing a dish of some kind. Instead of being replied with "Pi" or "Pu," there was a sign as well as the "Pipi" of agreement. On the sign, was a hand written 'Yes.'

Surprised at this sudden development, Lotterio found it quite easier to understand Pino especially when asking him of his opinion.

"So how did you get this sign thing?" asked Lotterio.

[Tsuna.] He wrote. [And Elizabeth.] (1)

"Elizabeth? Who's that?"

[I don't know.]

…

"Thank you for the food!" said Tsuna as she dug into her dinner. The flavour was spot on. "Pino did you help make the food?"

[Sort of.] She smiled, her assumption correct.

"Thank you, Pino, thank you Lotterio!"

…

Omake- The Heart to Heart Talk-

"Gingerbread."

"Yes master?" replied Gingerbread. Tsuna had just left.

"What do you think?"

"Of what? Your reaction to me? To the spider? Or to Tsuna-chan?" asked Gingerbread mischievously. The Vindice member, groaned and did his best to ignore his own creation's antics.

"Of this. How did you feel when Tsuna made you become alive?" asked Alejandro.

"Huh. Since you asked, I didn't feel anything really… but I guess there was one thing." He seemed to ponder in deep thought and a light bulb appeared above his head when he figured it out.

"Happiness!" he said, "That's the word!"

"Happiness?"

"And sadness too."

"Sadness? How?"

"Well… I thought it was fantastic and all being able to move about freely by my own, but… it's also sad that I probably won't be able to be a real person. I'm a doll after all," said Gingerbread, "and being made by you single handily, I probably have some traits that rubbed off on me."

"Really then? You think yourself as a doll?" Gingerbread nodded in reply.

"Okay, think about it this way," suggested Alejandro, being as kind as possible. "What does Tsuna think of you?"

"I dunno really. A friend, I suppose?"

"Exactly. And friends accept each other. So she accepted you as a doll, but I think she accepted you as something with life."

"How is that possible?" Alejandro quirked an eyebrow.

"Well, we're Vindice and she's a human, now is that possible?"

"… Okay, you have a point there," replied Gingerbread, "but you know, I can't think of it that way… I just want her to be happy with herself and perhaps continue being her friend."

"Exactly. All you have to do is just believe in yourself. If you don't think yourself as a real living friend to Tsuna you may as well go back to being the doll you once was."

Surprised at the sudden change of attitude of his master, Gingerbread only nodded. The Vindice sighed and left the Gingerbread with his own thoughts.

Believe in myself, huh?

...

1 – So do you know where this Elizabeth comes from? Hehe, gosh it's been a while since I saw that anime.

Sorry, it's a bit shorter than usual, but the next chapter will wrap up the Vindice and Tsuna times together and start some of the plot, HOPEFULLY!

Thank you for reading, and it'll be awesome if you review/favour/follow!

Zaira Swift.