AN: This chapter is already fixed by my beta Fionlao, thank you. And thank you all who support this story, please continue to do so in the future.
Disclaimer: I do NOT own katekyo hitman reborn
AN: On a happy note, I'm done with end-term exams. On a bad note, only half of next chapter is already writen, don't know when is the other half will be done. Other happy note is that the next chapter probably will be a longer one than others, since it has more than 2k+ words already, and there are still a lot I want to add to that chapter.
And I was thinking of changing the story's name, should I? Any idea of its new name?
Chapter 7: The cat is out of the bag?
Three weeks have passed since that meeting in the hospital room; nothing happened much in that period of time. Chrome came out of the hospital a few days later and came back to school the next day. Even though she was not in the same class as him, Tsuna still meets Chrome during his lunchtime and sometimes on the way to school, too. She usually stayed with two other boys named Ken and Chikusa though. Tsuna wondered why she doesn't have any other girl friends and asked Yamamoto about it. He just shrugged and said that it was her choice and they respected it. Tsuna took it as a hint that he shouldn't look more into this matter and leave it alone. He did just that. Other than that, Tsuna felt pretty good about his new school life. He went to school, met his friends, had lunch with them and sometime they hang out together after school. All in all, it was much better than that time.
Being the next boss of the Vongola family, Tsuna's life was kept a secret from the mafia world and he had learnt everything at home rather than at school. So, the chance for him to meet and to make friends with other children his age was very little. Not that Tsuna tried to find any since that time. It was that one time; he had tried to go to a mafia school in Italy when he was young, much younger than him now that is. And it had ended so badly. It had hurt him so much that he avoided school ever since. But he knew that one day he would have to leave the protection of his home. In fact, he was surprised that Reborn hadn't kicked him to school sooner. Maybe his tutor did have a soft side?
Tsuna chuckled at that thought. Reborn? A soft side? Who was he kidding? Reborn will shoot him if he even find out Tsuna had thought like that about him.
"What are you thinking about, Tsuna?" Yamamoto asked from his left side; he was standing in between Tsuna and Gokudera. The three of them are on their way out of school; the school day had ended almost ten minus ago. Yamamoto had been in an argument with Gokudera about some (useless) things and leaved Tsuna to his thoughts. It looked like his laugh had broken that argument. Gokudera's attention was now on him too.
"It was nothing," said Tsuna, at the look of disbelief on Gokudera's face, he added. "Really, I was just thinking of something very funny, that's all."
"Well, if you said so," was Gokudera's reply before he turned back to Yamamoto and was about to continue his argument when the black-haired boy slammed a fist into his hand as if he has made an amazing discovery.
"Ah! I know, Tsuna was laughing at Gokudera." He said cheerfully, like it was the most normal thing in the world.
"WHAT?" Gokudera and Tsuna shouted at the same time.
"What the hell are you talking about, you baseball-idiot?" Gokudera said right after, glares at both Tsuna and Yamamoto.
"No, I did not laugh at Gokudera-kun, Yamamoto-kun. It was about Re...about my tutor. That's all, really." Tsuna said, waving his hands in front of himself.
"Haha, really? I just thought…" Yamamoto only laughed at the other twos' reactions.
"Your thoughts are stupid so stop thinking them, idiot." Gokudera cut in.
"Eh? How can I stop thinking? Only brain-dead people cannot thi…"
"Shut up, you moron, you…"
"Maa maa, no need to get mad, Gokudera. I was only saying the truth afterall."
'Somehow, I don't think saying that help.' Tsuna thought. He was about to try to stop them when his hyper intuition kicks in; it feels like someone was watching him. Tsuna looked around until he saw a tall black-haired boy standing under a tree, looking straight at him.
"Hibari-san?" asked Tsuna. Yamamoto and Gokudera stopped their argument (again) at the name of their other friend; they turned around just as Kyoya starts to walk towards them.
"Hey, Kyoya! How you doing?" Yamamoto waved, Gokudera glared; but both Tsuna and Kyoya remained silent until the latter came to a stop in front of them. They stared at each other, and Tsuna was starting to feel nervous; he didn't like the look on Kyoya's face at all. When there were no replies from the prefect, Yamamoto continued. "Um… Kyoya? Are you okay?"
"Oi, he was asking you a question, Te…" Gokudera's angry words were cut short as Kyoya took out his tonfas and swung it at Tsuna's face in an instant. It missed though as Tsuna bent down to let it pass over his head, then he quickly leapt away from Kyoya.
"Hn," was all Kyoya said before he attacked, again.
"What are you doing? Please stop, Hibari-san! Whatever it is, I didn't do it... HIEEE!" yelled Tsuna as he continued to avoid the prefect's attack. His last yell snapped the others out of their shock; they quickly tried to stop Kyoya.
"Stop it, Kyoya." Yamamoto shouted as he used his baseball bat to stop one of Kyoya's tonfas.
"Yamamoto-kun!" yelled a surprised Tsuna. Then Gokudera caught Kyoya's other hand. "Gokudera-kun!"
"What the fuck is wrong with you? Suddenly attacking people like that, you could hurt someone." This time it was Gokudera who shouted, however it was more out of confusion and worry than anger. Kyoya had always been difficult to understand even after all those years they knew each other.
"Get out of the way." Kyoya glared at them; then he drove his knee in Yamamoto's stomach, forcing the boy to back away, holding his stomach.
"Why you…" Gokudera words were cut off by a tonfa to the face by Kyoya; the tonfa would have met its target if not for Tsuna who pulled him back.
"Please stop, Hibari-san. Why are you doing this? What did I do?" asked Tsuna when he dragged Gokudera to where Yamamoto was.
"…Nothing," said Kyoya after a second; he stopped attacking them for now.
"What! You mean all this was for nothing?" Gokudera yelled.
"I don't understand, Kyoya," said Yamamoto after he gets up.
"Me, too. If it's not for something I did, then why did you attack me?" asked Tsuna, again.
"Fight me," Said Kyoya as he brought his tonfas up ready to attack.
"What?" Both Yamamoto and Gokudera asked at the same time.
"Eh? Fight you? But, why?" Tsuna blinked, surprised by the request that came out of nowhere. Unknown to anyone though, his body became tense like it was getting ready for danger. Experience let him know that there are no good outcomes from something like this, and it was surely that Kyoya knew something about him now, maybe his background? Whatever it was, Tsuna better got out of here fast.
That's why; when Kyoya said nothing and attacked him again, Tsuna quickly grabbed both Yamamoto and Gokudera by their hands and ran as fast as he could out of the way of Kyoya's attack and out of the school in a few seconds. He left behind a yell of "I'm sorry!" before he was out of sight.
Taken back by surprise (although he did not show it), Kyoya let them go. But 'give up' was never a word in Hibari Kyoya's dictionary; he'll get the kid next time they meet.
Tsuna ran for a good five minutes before he stopped to catch his breath, Yamamoto and Gokudera took a few seconds to calm down and understand what just happened.
"Wow! Tsuna, that was amazing. How did you do it?" Yamamoto asked.
"Yeah, what he said. You're really full of surprises, Tsuna," said Gokudera.
"Ahaha… Thanks, but it was nothing," Tsuna laughed awkwardly. He didn't miss the doubt in Gokudera's eyes and carefully avoided to look at them. He knows he needed to give them an explanation for everything, soon. But not yet, he was not ready. He had doubt too, you know?
"I wonder what was with Kyoya? He is usually not like this." Yamamoto's words broke the awkward silence. He knew Gokudera wanted answers while Tsuna wanted to avoid it… He also felt curious too, but he'll let it down for now. Tsuna will answer when he is ready.
"Really?" Tsuna asked quickly, glad for a way out.
"Yeah, he usually only demands a fight with someone that is strong. No offence, Tsuna, but you don't look anything like a fighter."
"None taken; I know I don't look like...much. Still, why was he…?"
"Who knows what was wrong with that teme and who cares anyway?" Gokudera caught on with what Yamamoto wanted and chose to let it go, but he would get his answer sooner or later. He started to walk away. "Let's go, it's late and I still have a lot to do."
Yamamoto smiled at Gokudera's back, glad that the silver-haired boy listened for once. Then he turned to Tsuna.
"Come on Tsuna." He said before turning around to catch up with Gokudera.
"Wait for me!" shouted Tsuna as he ran after them, secretly thanking them in his mind.
But as fate hated Tsuna… Somehow, the next morning, he found himself (once again) running for his life from a certain raven-haired prefect. True to his word (in his mind) yesterday, the next time Kyoya met Tsuna, which also happened to be today… When the latter came to school, he attacked the boy right away. Not wanting to fight, Tsuna took out running (again) around the school, and Kyoya wasted no time in chasing after him. The two of them had been at it for five minutes now, having lost Gokudera and Yamamoto along the way somewhere. Students whispered with each other as they run pass; it was not everyday someone was able to out run their prefect after all.
Although, running was not something you could use forever, that's why Tsuna had put a lot of thought in this last night, to consider all the possibilities of dealing with Kyoya. Eventually, he had decided to fight; after all, there was no point in hiding when they do go to the same school and could come across the other at anytime. Tsuna may not be as strong as Kyoya, but he is not weak either, there was no way he would go down easily. A suitable battlefield would help a lot too. That was why he had taken off the minute he saw Kyoya, and Tsuna was sure the prefect had caught on by now.
And caught on he did. Kyoya had first chased after Tsuna with the same thought as everyone else that the boy had run away from him, out of fear. That is until the boy took a turn to the right when there are still a road ahead and ran along the back of a building they just passed; that finally, Kyoya started to understand. Before his form disappeared around it, Tsuna's eyes caught Kyoya's. And boy, those eyes made Kyoya surprised. There was no fear anywhere in it; those wide, bright eyes took in a calm expression and narrowed to make it become a fierce glint. If it had been anyone but Kyoya, they would have freezed right at that moment, out of surprise. But since this is the feared and respected Disciplinary Committee Leader of Namimori, all Kyoya did was blink once, although in that time Tsuna had already disappeared around the building. As Kyoya continued to chase after the boy, his mind was working on what he had just seen. Now that he had put his mind to it, it didn't take Kyoya long to notice the way they were going, or more exactly: the target of their race. Namimori is his school, so Kyoya knows it like the back of his hand; and the way they were going, they would soon come to one of the many training rooms, also used as battlefield in this school.
Namimori high school, no matter how it looks normal outside, is still a school for the mafia. Fighting between students is a common thing that happens everyday here. PE classes (excluding the Normal class) are used to teach students how to fight, how to survive and be ready for the mafia world outside of the school. Training rooms were built to serve this goal; most of them were made by materials that are much harder than the normal one. In fact, the school buildings were made by the same materials; to limit the damage of all the fights that happens here. Each of the training rooms has a different set up for different kinds of fighting. The room Tsuna and Kyoya were heading to, was at the location to the north of the school. It was a tall, big gym with 1/3 of it buried under the ground, not that you can tell if you only look from the outside. The walls were incrusted with glass plates in the side of chalkboards, light coming in to the room through them at daytime. The inside of the gym was filled with water like a giant pool: large pillars with different height were placed randomly around; some of the pillars touched the top of the gym, while others were only halfway, or shorter. Needless to say, the fight in this room were to happen on the pillars, the loser was the one who fell in the water, or that was the idea of most fights anyway.
This training room was also the second farthest away from the class buildings, so it took Tsuna and Kyoya 10 minutes to get there. Why Tsuna had chosen this room, Kyoya didn't know and didn't really care. He got to fight the little herbivore (or was it carnivore?), was all that mattered. The reason would be revealed soon anyway.
When Tsuna ran past the open door of the training room, which had been kept open at all times, he stopped and bent down, hands on knees to catch his breath, and to calm his heart also; for, this is the first time he had accepted a challenge of a fight from a member of another family, and this was not just any member either.
Hibari Kyoya, brother of the current boss of the Hibari family, famous to the world as a bloodthirsty fighter, was also the heir of his family. No one knows why Hibari Rinka chose her brother to be the next boss when she should've given that title to her future children; but it had happened and nothing would change it now.
This fight was not just a fight between two students, but it was also a fight between the heirs of two powerful families, whoever wins would affect their family a lot. Although there is no one here to witness the fight, and Kyoya didn't really send Tsuna a challenge, this fight would probably not matter much, or so Tsuna hoped. He wasn't looking forward to hear from Reborn if the hitman found out about this, especially if he lost. That would be really, REALLY bad; so hopefully, this match would end in a tie or god help him.
"Hn, you done yet, herbivore?" Kyoya's voice brought Tsuna out of his thoughts. He looked up and saw the prefect standing on a pillar two meters away from the water, near the center of the room. It seemed that Kyoya had ran pass Tsuna when he stopped, having no desire to wait for Tsuna to get in the field first.
'Keep calm Tsuna, you can do this, just keep calm.' Tsuna thought as he took one lasting long breath before straightening himself up.
"Alright, I'm ready," said Tsuna, his eyes took on that look he showed not too long ago, the look of a fighter.
Kyoya smirked.
Once again, review please?
