Disclaimer: It's obvious I don't own Amano Akira's Reborn, but what if Reborn owns me instead and that's why I feel such a need to write about it? :OO *x-files theme plays*
Chapter 9
Desperate Measures
- Recap -
"Why don't you just join a club that can teach you some form of self-defense if you're so worried about getting hurt in Sawada's imaginary mafia game?"
"Ooh! This means Hatsuka can introduce me to all sorts of strong hotties she gets to meet! Nice idea~! It'll be a nice change of pace, since Gokudera-kun got that mysterious hickey that everyone's talking about. The whole fan club is devastated. I should warn you, Hatsuka, if you two don't stop being so obvious, I won't be able to keep quiet and the girls might make you a target."
"I keep telling you, it's a bruise from a real gun's muzzle and he practically hates my guts. That stupid rumor is completely baseless and is ruining my life!"
- x –
"Tell Sawada not to forget to come to the gym after school and that if he doesn't show up, I'm going to search the ends of the Earth for him to the limit if that's what it takes to drag him over!"
- x –
"So if Scar Guy that's calling you out to a fight is Sasagawa's older brother, then that must mean he's found out about you crushing over his sister and this is supposed to be some kind of weird challenge over Kyoko's hand in marriage?! Isn't that a bit too soon?!"
"Definitely not! Don't think up weird stuff like that! Where the hell did you get that idea from?! And don't look at me like I'm some kind of ultra-pervert!"
"Then what else is it? I'm pretty sure that an overly-enthusiastic boxer wouldn't want to give his precious little sister to someone so spineless and scrawny-looking like you either way."
"How dare you speak to the tenth like that, you insolent woman?! Do you want me to end your meaningless existence?! How many times do I have to beat it into your thick skull until you finally learn to know your place!"
"This needs to stop! It's not my job to keep you happy and I'm not the one responsible for whatever stupid petty shit happened! That crazy Mafia-corrupted Future-Me is! Get this through your thick skull!
"Retard!"
- xxx -
Tsuna sat in class, pretending to pay attention to the teacher while trying his hardest to ignore the glaringly empty seat by the windows. He was also trying hard to avoid the pointed stare one of his classmates was blatantly throwing him over her shoulder. He recognized her as the intimidatingly social Kitamura girl that usually sat next to Mikami in class. He had noticed they talked often and had lunch together along with Kitamura's creepily emotionless twin childhood friends, so he figured that they must be close. Class was nearing its end but Mikami was still gone and Kitamura was acting highly bothered by that fact, despite befriending Mikami only at the start of the school year. The redhead was now staring him down, surely thinking Mikami's absence was somehow his fault.
Why does it always have to be me?! It was Gokudera who made her cry! I had nothing to do with it!
With a sigh, he figured that Kitamura wasn't necessarily wrong in holding him responsible, when the last she'd seen Mikami was when she took Tsuna away from the classroom to warn him about a fight that he didn't have the balls to refuse when Kyoko's brother demanded for it that morning. Then the thing with Gokudera happened because of the thing with Lambo's bazooka and...
It was complicated, but he was pretty sure that if he tried digging deeper, Reborn might turn out to be the initial instigator of yet another big mess, so he refrained from further digression.
The bell rang. People stretched and started chatting and getting up from their seats. Mikami had still not come back. Tsuna was starting to get worried. Was she really that upset? He'd honestly never seen her lose her temper that much, even when Reborn had put a gun to her head back when he tricked her into joining the Family. The thought of that day caused a sudden wave of shame to wash over Tsuna.
Truth be told, this entire time he was considering it his fault that she'd been forced to join the Mafia, because of his inability to persuade Reborn to give up on recruiting her and partly because of even allowing her to get this involved in the first place. He definitely should have realized her intentions of digging up their criminal ties sooner. It would have saved them all a lot of headache.
But in light of the aftermath, he was also ashamed that he was secretly glad it turned out as it did. With Mikami's big mouth sealed off by Reborn's "omertà", there was no way for her to get them in trouble with her Police Chief father. Even though Tsuna also wanted the Mafia out of his life, if Mikami selfishly tried to resolve the problem by enforcing her father's laws, it would only get them all killed by the Vongola and ultimately ruin Tsuna's disappointingly normal loser life, making him unable to see sweet Kyoko during their brief encounters at school so he could continue to despair over the fact that he'll never be cool enough to deserve her.
So, cruel as it was, Tsuna actually preferred that Mikami was kept silent and at bay.
He felt bad. The incident with the time-traveling and Gokudera's attitude must have been the last drop after this entire series of traumatizing events she'd been experiencing lately. No wonder Mikami was having an emotional breakdown when there was practically nobody on her side to help her get through this. There was no way to handle it. Keeping silent meant that she probably couldn't even complain to her friends about it. Although even if she did, he had no doubt that nobody would believe such tall tales about baby hitmen and middle school mafia bosses. He sardonically laughed to himself.
As the imposing tall form of Yamamoto and the creepily tail-waving sunny side of the usually scowling bomber Gokudera naturally gravitated towards his desk like unnerving satellites, Tsuna politely raised a half-hearted smile to them. But he also absently noted a foreign movement in his peripheral vision. Kitamura Rin was slowly standing up from her seat, eyes locked onto him with deadly precision as she started to close the distance.
Cold sweat tickled the back of Tsuna's neck as he sensed the oncoming threat. Mikami's redheaded friend looked like someone entirely troublesome to deal with, judging by her chatty showy persona, the odd choice of childhood best friends that were the cold and distant bookish Morisaka twins and the fact that she seemed to know everything about everyone in their year most probably thanks to some entirely unpunished invasion of privacy. Actually, just the fact that she was bold enough to change her hair into an unnatural color when she attended the same school that Hibari governed was enough for Tsuna to suddenly feel the need to avoid a situation where she would attempt to engage him in conversation about her mysteriously missing friend.
"Tenth!" Hayato called cheerfully, but Tsuna's entire attention was on how alarmingly close Kitamura was walking towards them. The girl was so focused on Tsuna that she completely missed to notice Gokudera and Yamamoto's proximity.
Tsuna knew for fact that the girl would in normal circumstances swoon to the point of temporary loss of brain matter which would distort her perception of reality for the duration of her entire brief interaction with them, as it usually happened with most of the girls that he sometimes noticed flocking his disturbingly popular better-looking friends. This only proved how driven this girl was to corner him over Mikami's whereabouts, that she was willing to ignore her idols for the benefit of squeezing some information out of him.
But even if Tsuna managed to get over his discomfort of talking to someone so overwhelming, there was no way he was telling her the three of them made Mikami so upset that she had to ditch class to compose herself, without expecting the nosy Kitamura to nitpick for more details on what exactly got her usually lackluster friend to snap. In which case Tsuna risked incurring her wrath over hearing how her Mikami had been taken advantage of by a criminal organization. He couldn't let Kitamura find out about the Mafia. He definitely didn't want a jabbermouth like her of all people hearing anything remotely hinting about him being the boss. He didn't want his life ruined along with his already slimming chances of getting to talk freely to Kyoko every day at school. He definitely wasn't having any of that. And he had to think of something, Kitamura was closing in fast.
"I-I need to go to the bathroom!" Tsuna nervously jumped up from his seat and zoomed past the bewildered Hayato and Takeshi and out of the classroom like it had suddenly caught on fire. The two stared after him in confusion without noticing the fiery redhead cursing under her breath a few feet away from them.
- xxx -
Bursting through the door to the rooftop, Tsuna breathlessly ran out into the open, only to find no one in sight. He'd been looking around for Mikami for a while now in order to bring her back and pacify her potentially vengeful friend Kitamura. The rooftop was the last place left that he could think of, but she was still not there. Groaning out loud, he threw his head back towards the sky and spoke out to no one in particular:
"Where the heck is she?!" Then, a rational thought. "She probably went home. That's what I would do. Like before."
Tsuna remembered the time before Reborn and the Mafia invaded his life. A time where when he met drawbacks, he found it easier to give up and retreat back to the safety of his room with a shameful slouch and the nagging of his mother. Maybe that's why his mom thought he needed a tutor. Maybe that's why Reborn happened. Was he actually starting to think that his low grades were the reason that sly little hitman managed to swindle his mother into letting him near her son?! He had to stop thinking ridiculous things like that.
"Who's making that pathetic noise?" As Tsuna unconsciously whined under his breath, a shadow loomed over him, making him jump out of his skin. He knew that dangerously low voice perfectly well, as did the rest of the student body in Namimori Middle. "Waking me up from my afternoon nap again? You better be prepared to face the consequences."
Blood drained from his face at the towering sight of Hibari Kyoya standing on top of the roof staircase overstructure, his form obscuring the sun as the black jacket draped over his shoulders drifted in the high wind like an ominous cape.
"Oh. It's you. That strong baby's acquaintance." The corners of Hibari's mouth moved as if to emulate a smile at the thought of challenging Reborn but to Tsuna it only looked like a rather unnerving sinister grin.
Tsuna gulped, suddenly finding himself unable to swallow. He felt that he had to say something to get out of there. However, the odds were against him as Hibari was standing right over the door to the staircase.
"Hey, uh, hello, I mean, sorry to disturb you? Actually, it's break time and students are allowed to go to the roof... I'm not crowding either, so I don't think I'm doing anything wrong? I don't mean to get into trouble! I was just searching for someone, not that you'd care about any of that, so there's no point in telling you this... What I mean is, I'm not braking any rules, just so you know!" he spewed out word after word hastily, making a nervous jumbled mess of his sentences. Yet by the calm calculating gaze on Hibari, he felt all of that gibberish was somehow miraculously understood. "Can I go now?" He tried to excuse himself like the little schoolboy he was. He didn't feel like he could take more of humiliating himself by trying to hold a decent one-sided conversation with the school's top delinquent authority.
Surprisingly, Hibari only let out a short huff of a laugh as he sat down on the edge of the overstructure, crossing his arms and legs as he made himself comfortable. That huff could also have been an affirmation, Tsuna couldn't tell for the life of him.
"Fine then. I'll let this slide just this once, since you know that guy. That way, he'll owe me." Another tug stretched Hibari's thin mouth into a creepy smile.
Dammit, even without being present, Reborn had managed to save his hide again. Tsuna let out a breath.
Bowing a tense thanks to Hibari, he hurried to scurry off towards the door. The sooner he left the head prefect's sight, the better.
"Hold it." Hibari's demanding voice stopped Tsuna in his tracks just as his head ducked through the shade of the building. He was just about ready to cry out in frustration but he was afraid that Hibari would beat him up upon hearing. "If you're looking for that small prey of a girlfriend of yours, she was just here a moment ago."
Tsuna missed his chance to get embarrassed over Hibari calling Mikami his girlfriend in favor of trying to digest the fact that the fearsome head prefect was voluntarily handing him actual useful information.
"Caught her skipping class, so I disciplined her and sent her off." By that he surely meant Mikami took some serious damage, Tsuna was sure as he winced, imagining what might've happened to the poor girl. She definitely didn't seem to have much luck today. Being found crying by Hibari of all people, just to get beat up for it, sounded like one of the worst things that could happen to a person in this school.
"T-thanks, but why are you telling me this?" Tsuna didn't for a second believe Hibari was doing this from the goodness of his big black heart, so he waited for a follow-up.
Clothes shuffled through the wind as the skylark descended from the raised building to land right in front of Tsuna's startled face and regard him with irritation.
"That small prey interrupted my afternoon nap with her annoying sniveling and still dared to demand requests from me, all while breaking a school rule. As I've heard, you're her superior, so I'll let you know as a treat that next time something like this happens, I won't just punish her again, I'll also hold you responsible. Such behavior is completely intolerable in my school. Am I clear?"
"C-crystal!" Tsuna didn't dare argue Hibari's reasoning, nor correct him that he didn't want to have anything to do with governing others, because the head prefect's dangerously close cold unblinking slits for eyes had him frozen in place.
"Very well." Hibari turned around sharply to return to his natural habitat, giving Tsuna some breathing space to realize something.
"You said Mikami wanted something from you? What was it?" Tsuna's gears were working. No matter how often he'd seen her squabble with people like Yamamoto and Gokudera, Tsuna couldn't possibly believe someone as easily frightened as Mikami would dare to make her situation worse by making demands to the formidable head prefect, especially when he was already in a bad mood. Not unless she had a good reason.
"Something about teaching her to fight. The small prey even kneeled before me." Hibari said with his back turned as he let out a huff that sounded like an amused snort. "But I have no time for the weak. That's why I made sure to give her a good beating as a free one-time-only demonstration. She should be grateful for that rare opportunity."
Tsuna sweatdropped. Hibari's line of thinking was as frightening as his reputation, if not more so. But this was no time to wonder about where and when Hibari's mind got so twisted. Tsuna now had to figure out why the hell did a passive-aggressive wimpy geek like Mikami want to learn fighting and how in the world did it occur to her that it was a good idea to ask Hibari of all people about it, right when he'd caught her skipping class. Tsuna hoped that Mikami's random sudden desire to become stronger wasn't for the sake of something ridiculous like planning on challenging Gokudera for the injustice she'd suffered, because then she was definitely going completely insane.
- xxx -
"Please let me join your club!" After school, a badly bruised Mikami practically banged her bandaged forehead against the ground as she bowed formally to the broad-shouldered third-year Captain Ohyama of the Karate Club, the only thing separating them being her neatly filled-out application. Behind him, sitting cross-legged in a neat row, were the other members with the same identical crew-cuts who exchanged glances as snickers traveled among them.
"Denied," was the swift cruel answer.
"Why?!" Mikami's head shot up as she demanded for reason. "Is it because I have no prior experience? Low grades in P.E.? Nonexistent stamina? Because whatever it is, I am ready to start working on it right away! Just name it!"
"That sounds like some really good attitude." Mikami's face lit up at his words. He was sure to reconsider! "But I regret to inform you that you're a girl."
A beat of silence passed as Mikami blinked stupidly, followed by another bout of the members' incessant snickering.
"What do you mean I'm a girl? That's obvious enough! How is it regretful?! Is this supposed to be a sexist thing?!" Mikami was starting to boil at this point, but the captain just calmly tapped onto her application form, where, on the very top, read "Men's Karate". Mikami's face flared scarlet as she felt becoming mute.
"Sorry. Nami-chuu doesn't have one for girls as it isn't expected to receive that many prospective applicants. None actually." The captain tried to put on a smile, looking pointedly away from Mikami. "We do appreciate your effort, though." He sounded completely insincere.
"Hey, Captain," mumbled a guy from the back, "what about—?" Someone shushed him. Several glares were directed his way for daring to speak. Fortunately, in her moment of humiliation, Mikami hadn't noticed that rather strange exchange.
"E-excuse me!" Mikami stuttered out as she snatched back her application, crumpling it in her hand. She stood up and bowed rigidly, leaving the clubroom as she practically left them all hanging. After that whole scene, all she wanted was to hide somewhere until all her shame evaporated like her chances of furthering her plans of joining a club that would teach her self-defense. Because as she realized after thinking back to the list of electives, each and every one of them were boys-only.
Whining out loud, Mikami was starting to think all her efforts had gone to waste. But just then, she had an epiphany.
- xxx -
Dressed in her P.E. uniform and with her bruises and arms bandaged, Mikami burst through the clubroom door, startling everyone inside as she waved an application form.
"Sasagawa-sempai, I'm the one you should be fighting instead of Tsuna! Because I'm joining the Boxing Club and I won't take no for an answer!"
"Mikami?!" Tsuna exclaimed from atop the makeshift boxing ring, wearing just a pair of boxers and boxing gloves. "What are you doing?!"
Mikami blinked, accessing the situation as she abandoned her ridiculous stance. The previously scary upperclassman with the scar that she hoped to fight and persuade to let her into his club was already knocked out of the ring and lying on the ground. Yamamoto was there, on the sidelines, which wasn't that much of a surprise in comparison to the strange sight of three more people that struck Mikami as too deadly to be allowed to walk the school grounds. These were the well-known to her hitmen Bianchi, Lambo and I-pin who were probably called over by Reborn to cheer for Tsuna the underdog, but it made Mikami cringe slightly as she made a mental note to avoid that general side of the clubroom. Even Haru was present, although she was from a completely different school.
Mikami had no idea who the hell kept letting these people in through the gates. She figured that either Reborn struck some deal with the head prefect, or Haru secretly had some top notch sneaking skills to get past the flawless security system that was Hibari and his Disciplinary Committee. Said girl was fawning over a practically untouched Tsuna with hearts in her eyes and from that Mikami realized that whatever fight she had hopes of breaking up was already over and done with.
"You used the Dying Will Bullet to kick Kyoko's brother's butt?! That's low, Tsuna," Mikami shook her head, crossing her arms.
"Don't start jumping to ridiculous conclusions when you've just arrived! He was on completely equal standing!" Tsuna yelled at her, annoyed. "And where have you been?! I've been looking all over for you! I thought you went home!"
"That's a really good question, Tsuna. She hasn't answered her phone once the last 500 times I called her," a small voice said.
Just then, Mikami noticed Reborn atop one of the ring's poles, wearing an elephant hat and a white beard over a boxer's attire for some odd reason that Mikami had no desire knowing about. When his words registered however, she blanched.
Her schoolbag was probably still in class where she left it with her phone inside. It probably rang the whole time through classes with its annoying anime ringtone until the battery completely gave out. So not only did she skip class, but she also managed to disturb all the lessons and ignore each and every one of Reborn's calls, the worst person to keep on hold. And did he say 500 times?! She was in over her head this time. She almost hoped she was back on the roof so Hibari could knock her out cold for the rest of the day with his tonfa. At least that way she'd have some form of a decent excuse.
"I'm terribly sorry, Sir! Please spare me!" She straightened up like a soldier and cried through her utter despair as she bowed furiously.
The door hurriedly slid open again as Kurokawa Hana entered with a serious look on her face.
"W-we've got trouble!" she said worriedly.
"What's wrong? Did something happen?" Takeshi immediately asked.
"The Karate Club is after Kyoko!"
"What?" Kyoko's brother jumped up to his feet.
"Kyoko-chan?!" Tsuna almost mirrored his alarm to the point where it was hard to tell who cared more.
"Wait. I was just with those guys!" Mikami said, thinking of what the hell would they want with someone like Kyoko. "They can't be after her."
"What? What's wrong?" And then Kyoko appeared at the door, looking as completely bright and innocent as usual.
Tsuna anime-fell. "She's right here, isn't she..." He was glad that it was all just a fluke but then a weird laughter sounded through the doorway.
"I know that mocking laughter!" Mikami gasped and they all turned to the large imposing figures of the members of the Karate Club as let themselves inside the Boxing Club clubroom.
"Prepare yourself, Sasagawa Ryohei!" they announced formally as they were even carrying with them a pair of banners that were usually brought on tournaments, like they were on some sort of crusade.
"Ohyama!" The boxing captain, who Mikami now figured was apparently called Ryohei, didn't seem to have expected this sudden visitation.
However, a much burlier and taller man came forth from behind Ohyama and inquired in an amused tone, "So you're Sasagawa Ryohei? My younger brother here's told me you're pretty strong."
"Huh?" Takeshi voiced. "By younger brother, you mean..."
"Namimori High School's Karate Club Captain, Ohyama Daigoro!" The taller male announced himself. "I'm here to fight you! Let's see what you've got!"
"B-brothers?!" Tsuna was confused. Did the younger Ohyama really fear the Boxing Club so much that he felt the need to call out his high school older brother to fight his battles for him? That was low.
"Excuse me, I was the one who came to fight him first!" Mikami interjected, jabbing a bandaged thumb at herself as she felt like these newcomers were stealing her spotlight. "Don't come ruining another one of my application attempts right after you didn't let me join your club!"
"You tried to join the Karate Club?!" Tsuna turned to her in disbelief. "Why in the world is someone like you deciding it's a good idea to be suddenly going around trying to pick fights and join all-male clubs?! It makes zero sense!"
"Sasagawa," the younger Ohyama ignored the babbling freshmen and continued on his mission as he pointed a finger at Ryohei. "If we win this match, the Karate Club will be free to take your sister!"
"Say what?! At this point, Tsuna was completely out of the loop.
"This is exactly what I meant," impatiently, Hana tried to explain, "They keep saying they want Kyoko as their manager, no matter what."
"Ever since our time, the Karate Club has always only been made up of stinking guys." The Ohyama brothers hugged each other dramatically as the older one told them their ridiculous tear-jerk story. "You don't know how much we've longed for a flowery female manager! In the name of my precious younger brother and his buddies, I won't hold back!" Their entire club cheered.
"Y-you can't force someone like that!" Tsuna protested as the younger Ohyama grabbed hold of a surprised Kyoko's slim wrist.
"Wait a minute, wait a minute!" Mikami came up in-between the two groups, attempting to interrupt the already haphazard conversation. "You guys just blew me off earlier and now you mean to tell me you're suddenly desperate for a female manager?! Why didn't you consider me for the job?! What am I, a doormat?! I won't stand for this!"
"Who's this barking Chihuahua supposed to be?" the older Ohyama stared stupidly at Mikami's ridiculous disheveled bandaged form.
"That's just some weird girl that came by earlier at the clubroom, thinking she could join," his younger brother supplied as the other Karate Club members snickered.
"What do you mean "weird"?!" Mikami snapped at him.
"Look, not to be rude or anything, but you can't seriously expect us to want someone as lacking as you as our manager. I mean, look at you!" Ohyama motioned towards her with his free hand.
"What's wrong with me? I can be your manager! It doesn't sound like that much hard work! And if you let me learn some of your moves, it'll be a win-win situation, as far as I can see it. So what's your point?" She was starting to get really fed up with these guys.
"Well for once, you're loud," one of the members proposed.
"And annoying," another followed.
"Not to mention flat-chested," a third one delivered the finishing blow as Mikami's mouth hung open in mild-shock that they'd dare say it.
"How rude!" Kyoko disapproved as Tsuna hid his face behind his hand as to not betray his exasperation with the situation. It was ridiculous.
"Let's face it. It's not that you're ugly or anything, it's just that you're painfully uncute for our more, higher, standards," Ohyama summarized as he brought a pouting Kyoko forward by the wrist. "While this here... This is the epitome of true elegance, as delicate as a flower. There can never be a match for Sasagawa Kyoko, the school idol. Sorry to be the one to say it, but honestly, you never stood a chance."
Fists trembling by her side and fire burning in her eyes, Mikami clenched her teeth as she tried to bite back her words, yet failing. It's not that she really cared about her looks, that much was obvious by the way she completely neglected herself in favor of her obsessions. It's just that these guys had some nerve saying all of that to her face, judging her by those messed-up standards. It was borderline misogynistic and she couldn't stand for something like that.
She was just about to throw all caution to the wind and dare to try and raise her fist against a seasoned karate captain when a yell sounded and a body fell to the ground, startling everyone.
"Like anyone gives two shits about that, you assholes!"
The entire room turned to the infuriated look of none other than Gokudera Hayato, supporting himself as he limply held on to the door frame.
- Earlier -
His boss was faced with a challenge, forced to fight a foreign adversary in just mere moments, yet here he was again, Smoking Bomb Gokudera Hayato, pathetically squirming in a bed at the nurse's office, just when his valued support was most needed. Curse that shitty sister of his for suddenly popping up at school like that. Had he known, he would have carefully calculated a number of alternate walking paths for him and the tenth to navigate the hallways so they wouldn't have to bump into her. Damn it all.
His stomach let out a fierce growl, interrupting his thoughts, and he doubled over in pain.
Damn conditioned response. He felt like Pavlov's dog. A shitty pea-brained dog, for fuck's sake! It was downright humiliating.
The door opened but he was in too much pain to care who entered. There was also a cold towel over his eyes that prevented him from seeing anything but greatly lessened the horrible sticky feeling of sweat on his brows, so he was actually glad to have it.
"You don't look too well," a horribly nondescript low monotone of a male's voice supplied a completely unnecessary commentary.
"No shit, S-sherlock," Hayato forced himself to say lamely despite the pain, as it somehow suddenly felt very important for him to be an asshole to this unknown guy.
"Don't like taking your meds, I see." At first Hayato thought he was being made fun of but then he heard the rattle of pills in a plastic bottle as the guy had apparently taken the liberty of lifting it off the small table beside the bed where a completely untouched full glass of water stood.
"That's because it's not something that can be cured with medication. The nurse is just a complete moron," Hayato seethed through his teeth again. "If they don't change staff soon, someone might die."
He wouldn't come to realize the wrongness of his words until his wish actually got granted by Shamal several days later.
"I'll have to agree. She keeps insisting that rubbing moisturizer on bruises somehow helps with the swelling. And she gets a salary at the end of the month for that. The wonders of placebo."
Hayato barely caught himself as he felt the beginnings of laughter in his throat, which would cause more pain to his already hurting mid-section, so it ended up short in a snort. Taking interest in this equally as sarcastic snob, Hayato lifted the towel from his face to say "Nice one." Who he saw though was surprisingly equally as plain and nondescript as his voice. It was some typically Japanese nerdy-looking guy that might or might not have been from his class, he couldn't really tell or give two shits about as it wasn't that important.
"Thanks, but I'm not one to talk. I'm here for a papercut, since I don't want to get my book bloodied. Though now that I think about it, it was the book that did this to me in the first place, so the bastard deserves it. Lucky for him, I still want to know what happens next, so I guess he's spared," he drawled out while he rummaged through some shelves of the nurse's cabinet and although what he was saying was completely not serious, his bespectacled face remained impassive as though he was some listless robot. "The Literary Club is a dodgy place, mind you."
Hayato didn't know whether to laugh or be weirded out by this guy so he opted for doubling up in pain on his bed.
The door opened again, this time with a force that almost sent it crashing as a stampede of only two feet barged in and threw itself at the nurse's desk, taking out a wide shoe box of rolled up bandages from the large bottommost drawer.
"Hi, Morisaka-kun," a painfully familiar annoying voice seemed to casually address the other boy.
Hayato's eyes shot open in shocked recognition as he whipped his head up to look at the skinny form of the infuriating geek girl that he'd vowed himself to maim the next time he saw her. A pain shot through his stomach again, crippling him just as he made an attempt to stand up. He almost fell to the floor as he curled up into a ball of curses on the bed. Somehow, she completely missed to notice any of that ruckus as her back was turned to him.
"Hey, Hatsuka. What's with the bruises? Fell down the stairs while reading manga again?" She and the listless Morisaka guy seemed to know each other alright. And just when Hayato was starting to think he was an alright guy, he said, "No, don't tell me. It's some mafia thing again, isn't it?"
Hayato's mind went blank as his eyes bore into Mikami's skull.
She didn't. She couldn't have. How dare she! That conniving snake! She told on them! Even when Reborn-san warned her and forced her into an oath of silence. She'd betrayed their secret to an oblivious bystander. Despicable! Even if it was just to some harmless book nerd from class, she'd practically ratted them out! Hayato knew she was no good, knew she had a loose mouth. You can never trust the daughter of a cop. Who knows whom else she's told. Her father might already be tight on their tracks, for all he knew, waiting for the right chance to get them. Why did nobody ever listen to him?! Why the hell did everyone else trust her?! Useless, annoying, backstabbing, her! How dare she betray the tenth like that?!
Hayato wanted to yell at her so badly, yet his voice died in his throat as he made an effort to breathe through his suffering. His perspiration increased profusely and he struggled to form cognitive thought. The adrenaline rush that followed his realization must have made his stomachache worse. He felt sick. His face crashed into the pillow and he could only listen with half an ear as geek girl and nerd guy exchanged words.
"I fought Hibari," Mikami told Morisaka as if it was the most normal thing in the world while she shamelessly rolled up her P.E. shirt and inexpertly wound bandages around her exposed mid-section.
Hayato froze on the bed. She wasn't lying. Her entire stomach was covered in what looked like bright purple tonfa-marks. And everyone who valued their own life in this school could easily distinguish these kind of marks and who might have left them there.
"And I need to take on the Boxing Club Captain before he manages to knock out Tsuna." Now she'd moved on to her arms, copying the way she'd seen the upperclassman cover his for support.
Morisaka's mouth was hanging open the same way Hayato's would have if he wasn't too busy writhing in pain.
"Do you have a death wish? A wimp like you has zero chance, you know," the boy supplied with the same tone as usual but this time some form of alarm could be registered in his stoic gray eyes.
"No time, gotta' go break up a fight!" And just like that she whizzed out of the nurse's office, the same way she came
"Well. She's finally gone off the deep end, that's for sure." Morisaka shrugged as if it wasn't any of his concern. He just helped himself to a small box of adhesive bandages from the pile of supplies that Mikami had left sprawled out across the nurse's desk. "Get well soon, I guess." He waved unenthusiastically as he left Hayato to his own devices.
He was alone again. The pain had subsided in light of the new information and he'd calmed down from his initial distress. Hayato had no idea what would someone as wimpy as the lame geek girl be doing getting into fights, but if his ears heard right, she'd just mentioned that she was off to help the tenth in his time of need. Was this some rare spark of good reason? Had geek girl finally turned around and realized where her true loyalties should lie? Just like he had, back then when the boss had saved his undeserving life. Just like the boss had selflessly protected hers.
Now that he thought about it, earlier today, before she made him lose it with her running mouth, she might have been trying to help the tenth all along. Dragging him away from prying eyes to warn him of the impending danger that was this boxing captain who'd impudently challenged the boss. And then trying to give him a pep-talk about always ending up in these kinds of situations. But who was she to talk to the tenth like that?! He couldn't allow himself to forgive her. She should learn her place, dammit, just like the stupid baseball nut. The two were downright infuriating.
Nevertheless, Hayato could see how maybe, just maybe, they weren't all that bad. They were terrible, yes, and it was a complete disaster that pathetic people like them had been allowed to join the family, that much was certain. But the tenth trusted them, for some unfathomable reason, bless his generous soul. And it was obvious they weren't taking the boss for granted, but it was seriously annoying how they refused to give him the proper respect, Hayato wouldn't catch himself dead doing that. It was a complete lack of tact and he sometimes chucked it up to their upbringing as they apparently didn't seem to know how to act in a mafia setting if their life depended on it. They had no sense of hierarchy, that was it.
But it was even more aggravating how they refused to listen when he kindly reminded them of their shortcomings. How else were other people supposed to know the tenth wasn't a man to be fucked with if his own subordinates didn't show him the proper respect. It was basic logic really. Jesus Christ, he had his hands full as a right-hand man. These people were such idiots most of the time.
So, thanks to her stroke of good conscience, Hayato choked it up to her idiocy and nothing more and absolved Mikami of her future self's transgressions.
He struggled to stand up from the bed without tipping over. If he left everything to her, he would be a joke of a right-hand man. He had a fight to join and, in the process, stop the wimpy geek from sacrificing herself out of sheer stupidity. The boss wouldn't forgive him if he left her to her own devices, after all, even though he wanted to. Hayato smirked sardonically at the irony. That geek sure had some luck on her side.
To be truthful, despite being the worst thing that happened to him in ages, her future self had remained in the mafia under the tenth's rule and adopted their manner of conduct in more ways than initially expected. That must amount to something. It talked about loyalty, it showed that the only thing she eventually managed to betray was his expectation that she'd finally gather the guts to cross them over and rat them out. It meant that despite what a pathetic little girl she was like now and no matter how lowly Hayato thought of her, she'd somehow gotten past some of her limitations like her uselessness and disobedience and grown into what looked like a full-blooded mafia. Miraculously so, in his opinion, if she was so sure of herself that she had no qualms about challenging him even. But that kind of confidence clouded her judgement, as she had the audacity to dare and leave a mark with her gun on such an ambiguous place that guaranteed he'd be ridiculed. The shitty old hag had probably planned it all along, he was sure of it!
Actually, it might have been that stupid crybaby cow kid's fault. If his disgusting sticky fingers hadn't initially stolen that ridiculous bazooka from the Bovino Family, and if he hadn't made it a habit of pulling it out each and every time he cried his fake crocodile tears, Hayato would have never met that horrendous woman. As he exited the nurse's office, Hayato reminded himself to knock it into the stupid little shit's skull next time he saw him to stop abusing the purple contraption. And maybe he could find a way to confiscate and destroy that chaotic menace of a weapon once and for all.
- Present -
Mikami couldn't believe her eyes. It didn't really sound like it, yet somehow she felt that Gokudera had come to her aid. It was a ridiculous thought, but she couldn't really shake it. She was still pretty mad at him for the way he pushed her to lose it in the empty classroom earlier that day, but right now, when she and the others were surrounded by a bunch of huge karate guys, she was actually genuinely glad to see the asshole bomber's sickly pale face. She could hardly hide the small smirk that tugged at her mouth as the odds had now turned in their favor. Even if said bomber looked a little worse for wear, like he was suffering from something. Why was he absent anyway? Wasn't he usually glued to Tsuna?
"Gokudera?!" Yamamoto also sounded surprised to see him.
"Hayato?" as did Bianchi, though some sort of concern was in her voice.
That's when it hit her. Mikami realized the implications of Bianchi being present. She whipped her head back around to stare wide-eyed at Gokudera. Was it wise to ignore his Bianchi-phobia?
"For the tenth, I can bear with it, even if Sis is around," Hayato struggled to speak. He was visibly having a hard time staying upright.
"That's always highly commendable, but you sure don't look like you're that up for it..." Mikami trailed off as he shot her a glare that forced her to shut up.
"Don't patronize me! Gah!" He tried to bark at her but a sharp spasm clenched his stomach and he had to bend over to lessen the pain.
"What should we do, Reborn?" Bianchi turned to her beloved, awaiting his guidance on the matter of the Karate Club.
"Well," the beady-eyed little hitman looked them all over as Mikami could almost swear he shrugged. "Just wing it."
"What do you mean, "just wing it"?!" Mikami shouted at him, flabbergasted. "What do you expect us to do?! These guys know karate!" she protested, although just a minute ago she was seriously considering punching their captain right in the face.
But that was all the Poison Scorpion needed to hear as she got ready to put up a fight. "Let's go, poison cooking!"
"Get 'em!" the older Ohyama bellowed to his brother's underclassmen and they immediately jumped into action with a "Yes, sir!" and a martial-arts battle cry.
Mikami yelped as one of them shamelessly threw himself to attack an inexperienced weakling like her and she barely managed to avoid an uppercut as she tripped backwards in her surprise and fell over lamely.
"Extreme rush!" Mikami heard Sasagawa yell and she winced as he punished the same second-year with a barrage of flying fists that made her change her mind about all those ruthless fights in Hajime no Ippo that she thought looked completely implausible.
Challenging the boxing captain in order to join his club seemed like a good idea in her head until she saw him in action. Not that she expected to win, but it was definitely the perfect way to prove her determination, something she failed to do with the Karate Club. After all, nothing could be worse than getting your ass kicked by Hibari and she'd already gone through that today, so nothing could faze her. Her bruised body had gone numb from the pain anyway and she could hardly feel anything, although she certainly didn't want to think about what sort of hell awaited her tomorrow morning when her body would finally realize the full brunt of the damage she had to endure. The head prefect's cruel "punishments" had some long-lasting effects like that, the repercussions of which revealed themselves more and more as time went past. Now however, as her mouth was gaping at two more karate members Sasagawa knocked out in mere seconds, Mikami was starting to realize the little error in her well-thought-out plan. She suddenly felt so lucky to have missed Tsuna's fight and a small sweat drop rolled down her face in relief.
Trying to get out of the line of fire as dynamite, gyoza clouds and blobs of unrecognizable poisoned food whizzed over her head, Mikami counted her blessings and carefully crawled through the plethora of feet that threatened to trample her. Her target destination was the sidelines where Hana and Haru seemed to be comically guarded by the small forms of Lambo and Reborn, the latter of which was smiling at Mikami with his trademark little smirk.
Anearby explosion almost sent her flying and she ducked her head and tried to hold back a whine of frustration. How was Reborn expecting her to put up with this kind of battle was completely beyond her. He was crazy. She had to get away, fast, before someone actually noticed her and decided to make her into mincemeat.
"Ah!" Mikami yelled as someone tripped over her and they both fell splat on the ground, with the other person sitting on top of her back.
"Oh, sorry, Hatsuka! Didn't see you there!" Takeshi laughed as he effortlessly flipped himself up to his feet and she glared at him through tear-stricken eyes. That hurt like hell on her horrible bruises.
"Watch where you're going! Dumbass!" Mikami jumped up, ready to claw him out, but froze when Yamamoto's eyes suddenly became dead serious.
She felt like shrinking in on herself. Was this the real Yamamoto? The one she suspected was hidden underneath the well-guarded façade of laid-back smiles and friendly carelessness? The one who'd ruined her precious friend Yuuchan with his cruel words? Had she finally angered him to the point where he was finally showing her his true colors?
Mikami suddenly felt frightened that Yamamoto was taking advantage of the hectic confusion of the fight to get back at her for all the times she'd allowed herself to badmouth him in front of everyone he was managing to deceive. She shuddered as he fisted her jersey and drew back his fist in what to her looked like slow-motion.
This was it. His petty revenge. And the worst thing was, he probably knew no one would believe a nobody like her that the school's popular baseball star would ever hit a defenseless geeky girl. Even people like Rin and the Morisaka twins would probably doubt her. They would all just think she was spreading some ridiculous far-fetched lie for the attention. The swell would be completely indistinguishable from all the other bruises she got from Hibari anyway. It was the perfect cover-up. This was Yamamoto's one time chance of a free pass.
"Don't move," he half-whispered in an uncharacteristically low tone and Mikami squeezed her eyes shut, fearing the worst as she was unable to move from the shock of this ridiculously unfair reality. He was top batter after all, he had the iron swing of a baseball god, or so the rumors went as she'd heard them from a fangirling Rin. Oh, how she hated her boy-obsessed friend's inability to see how evil this guy was in reality.
A whoosh of air zoomed right past her ear as Mikami tried to duck behind her arms to shield herself. But no impact followed. Instead, there was a sound of someone right behind her slumping limply to the ground and Yamamoto seemed to let go of her. Turning stiffly to the side, Mikami saw the bent-over form of some karate member clutching his most probably broken nose. She whipped her head back towards Yamamoto, staring at him wide-eyed.
"Yeah! We sure got him!" The airhead was grinning his usual smile with a hand casually scratching at the back of his head.
Mikami's blood boiled. How dare he scare her like that!
"Are you insane! I thought you were going to hit me!" She barked up at the tall male, kicking him in the shin, which made him wince and back up jumping on one leg while nursing the other.
"What?! What are you talking about?! Why would I ever do that?!" He tried to make excuses as she attacked him with lame attempts of slapping him across the shoulder.
"Never do that again!" she yelled as she humph-ed and turned her back on the poor oblivious boy, stomping away in the opposite direction with her head held up to salvage whatever remained of her crumbling dignity.
"OW!" Only to crash face-first into Gokudera's back and almost make him lose his balance. "What the hell do you think you're doing, you stupid geek?!" He angrily kicked a smaller-than-usual stray dynamite stick at his feet with its fuse frighteningly ablaze which had fallen out of his hand when she pushed him. It bounced off an unsuspecting karate member and before he could realize what was happening, it blasted off right at his feet, making him howl in pain.
"What the hell, Gokudera?! Shouldn't you be more careful?!" Mikami unfroze from her initial state of shock from the sight of that little lit tube on the ground and thought it wise to reprimand him.
"Argh!" Hayato growled into his facepalm. "You were the one who made me drop it, you idiot! You're in absolutely no position to tell others to be careful!" He was so thoroughly amazed by her incredulous stupidity that he almost regretted deciding she wasn't as bad as her future self. Her meager loyalty to the tenth be damned! If only his stomach stopped hurting...
"Said the suicide bomber!" Mikami fearlessly yelled back as she'd still not gotten over her frustration with Yamamoto. She also hadn't forgotten how Gokudera caused her to have a mental breakdown. He was probably indirectly at fault for upsetting her enough that she'd go cry on the rooftop which ultimately resulted in her being chewed and spat out by Hibari, so he deserved all the heat he could get.
What was the worst Gokudera could do anyway? He couldn't kill her in front of his boss. Especially not in front of Reborn, since she was part of the Family now. That would be treason, wouldn't it? And besides, she was trashed enough as it was, a little fight didn't scare her when her body felt this numb. Now that she'd already said everything she thought about him right in his face, got beat up by Hibari and was in the middle of surviving a full-on karate attack, she felt almost recklessly invincible to be still in one piece. In great pain and suffering with every little move she made, but still, in one piece. And funny thing was, she didn't even regret much of anything that happened anymore. She felt like she was on a really strange high that was probably the adrenalin that she rarely got the chance to experience with the general lack of physical activity she was experiencing with all that anime-watching.
"Who do you think you're talking to, you insolent brat?!" Hayato got in her face, a challenge in his eyes. The stupid geek was getting really full of herself, and just when he'd been considering reevaluating her contribution to the Family. She had some nerve to be undermining him again after that annoying little stunt in the wrecked classroom. The only thing keeping him from bashing her face in right now was the proximity of the tenth, several feet away from them and in perfect position to see him raise a hand against what was generally considered to be a girl, but was actually proving to be one of the biggest nuisances in his current daily life.
"You heard me, asshole!" Mikami met him eye-to-eye with the same fierceness as they growled angrily under their breaths, waiting for the other to make the first move so they'd have an excuse to start a fight.
"Don't ignore us, you brats!" Some guy from the karate club rushed at them in their moment of absence, only to come to regret ever thinking of interrupting that decisive moment of pent-up irritation.
"Shut the hell up!" The both of them yelled as two separate feet swung around at the unlucky intruder, smashing into both his sides with nearly equal force which made him tumble lifelessly to the ground where he remained squirming as he gingerly hugged his aching torso.
"Serves you right!" Hayato figuratively spat at his pathetic form, making a face of disgust.
Mikami came to her senses at the uncomfortably painful feeling of her pulsating weak leg and gaped slightly as she realized exactly what had happened. She'd just kicked a guy almost twice her size and actually succeeded in bringing him down. With the added strength of the battle-seasoned Gokudera, yes, but she never believed she had it in her to try and do something like that. She acted completely on instinct, didn't even expect it to work, she was just so worked up that she just had to take it out on something if she didn't want to blow up on Gokudera again and sign her own death sentence. She wasn't that keen on violence, but that one kick, despite how much it also hurt her in return, actually felt kind of... good.
Mikami grinned, elated, and turned an uncharacteristically happy smile towards a mildly disturbed Gokudera. "Yell at me again!"
"What?!" Hayato stared at her like she was high on something. "Are you touched in the head?" Had the skylark damaged her brain or something?
"No, I'm serious! Throw any insult you can think of! Go on!" Mikami nodded her head vigurously, making him feel highly uncomfortable with the borderline crazy bright face she had going on, one that he'd never seen her show before. It was highly unnerving. "Consider it as revenge for earlier! Just think of all the things I said!" she urged him as he kept looking her up and down as if she was some foreign entity.
"What are you trying to pull here?! You can't fool me!" Hayato barked at her half-heartedly as he still couldn't get what was going on. "I don't have time for your weird geeky little games! We're in the middle of a fight, if you haven't noticed!" He turned his back to her as he sneaked a small dynamite into the robe sash of one of the passing karate members, which was admittedly a very neat little new technique.
Mikami made a face and crossed her arms. He was such a blockhead.
"Tch. Gay."
"..."
An explosion sounded in the background.
Hayato slowly turned back around, struggling to keep a level face.
"What did you just call me?!"
"A ball-less homo," she smirked at him, practically smelling the burning fuse on his head. "You don't have the guts to say it all to my face because I might tell Tsuna how gay you are for him. That's why you're always so all over him. There's no other explanation."
Hayato raised an eyebrow, then his face contorted into what Mikami could only recognize as his ultimate expression of ticked-off irritation, before he finally roared in his fullest voice:
"You insolent little shit! I ought to crack your skull wide open right now! Then maybe your stupid big mouth might finally stop yapping all that cancerous shit you've got going on in that geeky little messed up brain of yours!"
With each word, Hayato made slow sure steps towards her. But while Mikami did unconsciously walk the same steps backwards, she actually felt like laughing at how much she managed to rile him up with something so stupidly made-up on the spot. She could barely hide her amused smile and that angered the bomber even further.
"Oh, you think you're funny, do you? Well, let me tell you exactly how funny you are! You're a laughing stock! A complete loser! A geeky little loser with no life! A shitty geek that has no idea how to function! You don't even have any real friends to speak of!"
Mikami's smile faded as confusion overtook her. What was he on about? He wasn't supposed to know anything about her. He didn't give enough of a crap to notice she communicated with other people, since he made such an effort to loathe her entire existence.
Hayato grinned sardonically as he noticed he was getting to her, so he employed what little he'd gathered with his meager front-row observational skills. "The only people who'd willingly talk with someone as geeky as you are the class nerds and some annoying wannabe! And that's just because they have to sit near you in class, they don't have a real choice, and even they don't take you seriously!"
Mikami's breath stilled at that. It was true that neither Rin nor the Morisaka twins ever believed her stories, but that didn't really mean anything, did it?
Hayato gloated at sight of her hurt face. "All they ever do is make fun of you and you know it! They just keep you as a funny little mascot to entertain themselves! Because you're just some stupid loser that only talks about made-up fantasies, since you can't seem to get a real life! You're just a poor lame little geek girl that nobody wants to be associated with!"
Mikami knew this wasn't supposed to be getting at her, knew this was just the twisted view of Gokudera's cruel messed-up logic, but she had her fists stilled by her sides. Some of that stung. It wasn't necessarily true, but all of these were some really hurtful things that she might have thought about at some point.
"You don't know what you're talking about," she insisted childishly as she looked away from his victorious expression.
"Oh, do I?" Hayato's cruel smile grew exponentially as he dropped the final bomb. "Because I heard the way that Morisaka guy spoke to you and it sure as hell didn't sound like he had any kind of respect for you. He thinks you're a joke! He even said it to me once you left, that you finally went off the deep end! Like the brain-damaged little weirdo you are!"
Mikami was confused. When did Gokudera ever hear her talk with Morisaka-kun? Was it at the nurse's? Was he there?! Of course! His Bianchi-phobia! He must have been bedridden in the nurse's again! So he was actually eavesdropping on them the entire time?!
"Morisaka-kun would never say something like that!" she raised her voice as if also trying to persuade herself.
It was true she didn't know Morisaka-kun all that well since he was a little hard to figure out, but she was pretty sure he'd never say something like that behind her back. Especially to someone like Gokudera that she'd made pretty clear she detested. But... Now that she thought about it... Morisaka-kun was under the wrong impression that she had a crush on Gokudera. Which meant that... He actually really might have thought he was badmouthing her in front of her crush!
Mikami felt a vein throb on her forehead. Gokudera wasn't really her crush, but badmouthing her in front of a guy she detested was equally as bad. Morisaka-kun sure had some explaining to do. Because why would he even do that?! He wasn't one for drama and gossip. That was Rin's thing. And last Mikami remembered, he acted like he sympathized with the imaginary crush he thought she had on Gokudera, exactly because he had the very same very real crush on Rin. Didn't he know Mikami could easily ruin all of that? Not that she had any intention to, things like that repulsed her, but Morisaka-kun didn't know that so then why would he be willing to take the risk?
Then she remembered. That one time she almost let it slip that he liked Rin when they talked about summer vacation. So this was to get back at her? Did he have zero trust in her or was he just that protective of his secret? So petty. She was a little disgusted with him. No, she was seriously disgusted with him. Mikami now knew why Rin wasn't giving him the time of day. And yes, now she was being petty and she had every right. Because it seemed that the friendships she thought she had were really all just an illusion that she'd projected in her mind.
"What's wrong, geek girl? You gonna cry like the sore little no-life loser you are?" Hayato mocked her as he reveled in the huge mess he'd made. Mikami looked positively depressed with the way she was staring at the ground, listless. Maybe now, she'd finally leave him alone for good. No more weird little geek girl, running her stupid big mouth, the annoying pest.
"...this is it," she murmured, head bowed to the ground.
"Huh?" Hayato scrunched up his face as he couldn't hear a thing of what she was trying to say. "What, now that all your delusions have shattered, you don't even know what to say, is that it?" He grinned his cynical smile again.
"I'm going to kill him," Mikami pronounced clearly, with a deadly certainty that felt chilling even to Hayato, who pulled back from trying to peer into her shadowed face in hopes of seeing tears. Instead of tears, her face rose with frighteningly cold determination in her eyes and she practically pushed past Hayato as she took off with a heavy stride straight towards the center of the battle's onslaught.
"Kill him?" Hayato paused for a second, wracking his brain for how did an annoying pacifist like this lame goody two-shoes cop kid suddenly become so bloodthirsty. She was supposed to be depressed, disheartened even, not ready for blood! His plan had somehow completely back-fired. Was she off to maim that Morisaka guy? Then why wasn't she going for the door? That was the completely opposite direction!
Hayato looked at her again, incredulously. Almost at each and every slow but sure step she took, some poor karate member fell to his knees and Hayato shuddered at the completely heartless way a talentless weakling like her managed that – with a cruel merciless stomp kick right in the crotch, swiftly administered before they even managed to make notice of her presence.
Hayato couldn't help but wince inside at the sound of their suffering. The geek was leaving behind a straight line of men twice her size and ten times her fighting capabilities, who were holding their balls, groveling on the ground like a carpet made of pure agony. It was horrible.
Then, as he looked further ahead, past her walking form, he saw it. His precious boss had somehow ended up against the fearsome karate captain. Hayato gasped. They were too far away, he wouldn't reach them in time. But it seemed like the geek-gone-crazy was aiming right for them. Was she going to aid the boss?! So when she mentioned killing, she actually meant the karate captain?! For the way he insulted her or to help the tenth? Which was it?! Hayato didn't know whether to commend her bravery or roll his eyes, so he was left with a slightly gaping mouth. Because either way, she had really gone insane, for real this time. She was absolutely no match for the karate captain, he was sure of it. It was a suicide attempt.
But then Ohyama moved, before Mikami managed to come close enough. She was too late. The tenth seemed to shut his eyes closed and try to duck behind his boxing gloves. Hayato's spirit was about to drop.
"Counter-punch, Tsuna!" a small voice called out to him—Reborn's—and Tsuna instinctively listened to the command as his hand shakily shot out in front of him while he simultaneously tried to brace himself for the pain that he surely expected to come.
But there was no pain. As Tsuna tentatively opened his eyes, the oh-so-fearsome Karate Club Captain was sprawled across the ground with a throbbing cheek. How did that happen?
"He did it!" Gokudera's voice snapped him out from his trance. "As expected of the tenth!"
"Tsuna-san! That was amazing!" Haru yelled from the sidelines, animatedly punching the air. "A super dangerous punch filled with love for Haru!"
"Don't just randomly add in stuff about love!" Tsuna yelled back at the ridiculous girl and the action brought him back to normal. He looked back at the knocked out body on the ground. "D-did I do that?"
"Yep," Reborn stepped forward to stand beside him. "Without any help from a Deathperation Shot."
Tsuna slowly turned to him as it fully sunk in that it was true. He'd done something never to be thought possible for someone as talentless like him. It was a miracle.
A hand dropped on Tsuna's bare shoulder, startling him when he was just in the middle of smiling bashfully to himself. A strangely quiet Mikami walked past him and just when he was about to ask her what she was doing, she cold-bloodedly dropped a carefully-aimed foot right onto the karate captain's crotch.
"Ooh!" A collective groan filled the room as the poor guy woke with a start just to wheeze and roll over so he could lay on his face and muffle the whine that escaped him, whole body quivering as he clutched his broken treasure.
Hayato put a hand over his face, knowing fully well that he might have caused that completely unnecessary rampage. The geeky lunatic was just too much.
"T-that was a little over the top don't you think?" Tsuna addressed the issue carefully, a nervous laugh under his breath as he slowly stepped away from the suddenly imposing girl.
"Aah! That felt good!" Mikami turned with hands on her sides and a perfectly innocent bright smile, as if she hadn't just destroyed a growing man's future chance of ever thinking about having children without bursting into tears. "Thanks, Gokudera! It really worked!" She turned cheerfully to a totally stumped Hayato.
"What?!" All eyes bore into him and he panicked, putting up his hands in defense and shaking them fiercely to deny all affiliation. "Don't pin this on me! You're the crazy one!" He pointed rudely towards her, hand shaking angrily with how unjustly she was trying to blame him for all this mess.
And then, looking at her suspiciously bright happy face, Hayato froze, realizing just what a fool he was. She didn't seem to be mad anymore. Meaning that she never really believed everything he said. She just used him to get her mad enough to be willing to hit people. That's why a disgusting pacifist like her was suddenly so strangely inclined on violence. She was testing how rage affected her, using it to get through this fight and get back at the Karate Club, the petty brat. Why else would she be so happy to get insulted when she usually annoyed him to death for the littlest wrongly put word. He'd been so blind to play into that. Those men's suffering was really entirely on him. Not that he gave a crap about them but it was downright infuriating that he hadn't noticed how he'd been blatantly taken advantage of by some lame geek.
Hayato's shoulders slumped as he stared into space with utter disbelief on his face. Then, pointing at Mikami again with rejuvenated fervor, he yelled angrily, "You tricked me! You wanted me to get you angry enough to get back at the Karate Club for dumping your geeky ass, didn't you!"
"Well, when you put it that way..." Mikami looked away awkwardly, knowing it was probably a bad idea to play Gokudera of all people like that.
"I can't believe this, you little shit!" Hayato made an attempt to pounce her but was somehow magically restrained by the nearby Takeshi.
"Come now, Gokudera, I doubt it was on purpose," he tried to curb his anger, unsuccessfully because Hayato trashed even more in his grip.
"I'm gonna' smash her stupid face in! Look at how pleased she is with herself, the stinkin' geek!" he yelled.
"How else was I supposed to survive a fight like this! I'm not used to it like the rest of you lunatics! So as far as I'm concerned, everything goes as long as I avoid getting beat up!" Mikami yelled back, completely unapologetic.
"Let me at her!" Hayato tried to pull away from Yamamoto's firm grip around his shoulders, but only got amused laughter in return which was making him even more annoyed with his circumstances. "It's not funny, you idiot! Quit it!"
Tsuna sweatropped beside the pouting Mikami, deliberating whether this was supposed to be just another fight or if this back-to-usual behavior actually meant that Gokudera and Mikami had finally made up with each other in their own way, if that was ever even possible. It was hard to tell and too much of a bother, so he didn't put any further thought into it.
"What's this, Hayato?" Bianchi joined in on the conversation, uninvited. "Threatening that poor girl, are you a little kid to express your feelings that way? I'm happy you're starting to explore the wonders of love but I don't remember you being raised like this." She genuinely looked sad to be witnessing such behavior from her little brother.
"Wha—?! No—! I—! You—!" Hayato sputtered, face going through different shades of purple as his stomach dived into painful somersaults and he started foaming at the mouth. Takeshi confusedly let him slide down into a ball on the ground as Hayato was rendered completely mute and immobile.
"What's wrong? Did I say something to embarrass you? Was I supposed to keep it to myself?" Bianchi fussed over him, making the situation even worse.
Mikami and Tsuna exchanged looks of understanding and sighed. This was a lost cause.
"That..." Ryohei was shaking in what looked like excitement as he looked over the fallen remains of the Karate Club on the floor. "That was extreme!" He punched the air as his eyes sparkled.
"Don't say it like it's a good thing! She annihilated half the Karate Club's masculinity! That's borderline assault!" Tsuna snapped at him.
"Let's call it the Nutcracker Blitz Attack," Reborn suggested, pretending that he was really thinking about it.
"Don't make up such a ridiculous name for it!" Tsuna protested, appalled at the notion.
Reborn smirked. "Regardless, it seems that Mikami has finally warmed up to the idea of using brute force. Looks like we're making some progress after all." He was positively gloating in light of the wonderful results his latest little plan had brought into fruition.
"No way!" Mikami rejected that thought, crossing her arms as she seemed to put her nose up in the air. "Those assholes deserved it, that's all!"
"They deserved the beating, not the mutilating," Tsuna muttered to the side, looking away from her.
"And so, the bonds in the Family have grown stronger," Reborn nodded to himself, pleased with the outcome.
"Family?" Ryohei took an interest in his wording. "What's this "family" thing?"
Reborn spared the boxing captain a glance as he threw a suggestive smirk to Tsuna. "An extreme guy like him will be useful, don't you think?"
"Huh?" Tsuna voiced, too tired from all the unnecessary commotion to get what was Reborn on about.
Unfortunately, that temporary lapse of attention had caused him to entirely miss his chance to prevent Ryohei from joining the Mafia and he'd later come to regret it.
- The same night -
Mikami cursed. She was in the middle of haphazardly reapplying fresh bandages over her stomach and she accidentally tightened some knot that she had no idea where it came from. It was silly really, how she'd been trying to fool herself that the numbness of getting "bitten" by Hibari would continue throughout the night. But unfortunately, reality was shaped differently and all her bruises started practically screaming right when she got back home. Even her legs were hurting as she sat cross-legged in the middle of the room. She'd obviously strained some weedy muscle when she tried to take part in the fight against the Karate Club. Good thing her parents worked late, because she would have had a lot of explaining to do.
She was honestly fed up. These instances where she was left feeling weak and battered at the end of the day had to stop. Going around trying to join overbearing clubs and attempting to fight random people only made her reaffirm her belief that she wasn't built for this. She was just a no-good wimp like Tsuna. No, even Tsuna was better off. He had Reborn with those bullet enhancements. He was a better person even, always making sure to protect the innocents without even thinking if he was endangering his life or not. Mikami however was a small-minded weakling that felt the need to insult people, rib on them, a mistrustful asshole who had to rely on some miraculous burst of anger to even dare to attempt to hit someone back. She was almost the same level of asshole as Gokudera, except at least he could carry his own weight in a fight. She on the other hand, was just pathetic. The douchebag bomber was probably right for most of the things he'd said to her. She felt sorry for herself.
The crazy battles that Reborn dumped upon them on a daily basis were gradually getting more and more dangerous and her inability to keep up was becoming glaringly obvious. She couldn't rely on Tsuna to always save everyone, he had too many people on his hands now that yet another weirdo was in danger of joining the Family. But Mikami didn't trust anyone else enough to depend on looking out for her, because even though they've been spending a lot of time together, they were still all a bunch of lunatics who could barely keep themselves intact. It was becoming clear that something had to be done, that she had to change, had to find some way to be able to defend herself. And after today's misadventures, Mikami was forced to come to terms with the discouraging fact that learning any form of hand-to-hand combat was beyond her reach.
In this depressingly unfortunate situation, she was left with only one last thing to do.
"Beep. Beep." An open tone sounded while she was barely managing to hold her cellphone between her ear and shoulder as she was still struggling with loosening the poorly wrapped bandages.
"Come on, Shinji. Of all the times you could've picked not to answer right away..." Mikami muttered under her breath.
Truthfully, what she needed him for was to be himself for once and gullibly believe the far-fetched story she was about to tell him. Because in this household the top-university-attending sister-loving poster-child older brother Shinji, as her parents saw him, was a far better authority than the seemingly lazy internet-obsessed underachieving always-complaining little sister Mikami. And the way that system worked when Mikami wanted to get some point across was that everything had to go up the ladder. Shinji was obsessed with his precious cute little sister, Mom adored her outwardly picture-perfect valedictorian son and Dad couldn't possibly say no to Mom's rare sweet loving wife side, especially when she usually always had her strict straight-laced business lady face on. But in the end of course, the big scary boss cop had the final word in every family matter, and since Mikami was at the bottom of the food chain, she had to go at this one step at a time.
It was going to be mind-numbingly tedious, as always. She was hardly looking forward to having to deal with her annoying stupid brother. She had no idea how the rest of this family so foolishly persisted to consider him to be the epitome of a model young man. It was unfathomable.
Her phone sounded a beep as someone inhaled excitedly on the other side, managing to make Mikami cringe before the conversation had even started.
"MI~TAN~SU~!" the speaker erupted and Mikami nearly dropped the cell to the ground because of the volume. "OH, HOW I'VE MISSED HEARING FROM MY SWEET LITTLE SISSY!" Shinji could still be heard practically singing from joy. "IT'S BEEN SO LONG, I ALMOST THOUGHT YOU'VE FORGOTTEN ABOUT ME!"
"DO YOU HAVE TO YELL, YOU BRAIN-DAMAGED JOKE OF A HUMAN BEING!" Mikami yelled back. She had half a mind to hang up on him right then and there but she had to remind herself of her objective and calm down. Clearing her throat, Mikami continued in a more level tone of voice, "Look. I'm calling you for something serious here. So no goofing around, okay?"
She could practically hear Shinji's gross smirk behind the phone. "Mittens, if you're thinking of finally admitting you've fallen for me after I nursed you back to health over the summer, I won't judge you, even though it's forbidden. So there's no need to be so nervous, because Brother is so happy~!"
Phone shaking in hand, Mikami struggled not to crush the device in her fist as she seethed, "Shinji, will you fucking quit it for once!"
"It was just a suggestion..." He sounded like a kicked puppy.
"As I was saying," Mikami ignored him, her eyebrow twitching. "I've been having a bit of trouble lately and I'm probably going to regret this, but I need your help."
"Trouble?!" Shinji gasped dramatically. "Is it a stalker?!"
"A stalker?" Mikami repeated incredulously, the ridiculous image of baby Reborn watching her every move and keeping her on speed-dial against her will popping into her mind. "Actually, yeah, you could say that."
"Oh no! I knew this time would come! I just knew it!" Shinji cried into the phone. "You're growing up too fast! I don't like this!"
Mikami sweatdropped, holding in her impulse to gag in favor of keeping up the perfect ruse she was presented with. "Yeah, yeah, he's this seriously shady guy that's been following me around lately. Doesn't seem like he'll leave me alone anytime soon so I'm starting to get a little bit worried." An understatement that Shinji didn't need to know about for his own good.
"That's not good! Why haven't you told me earlier?!" Shinji had definitely fallen for it, judging by how genuinely concerned he sounded. Mikami tried to make no sound as she grinned behind the phone. "Don't worry, Mika-chin! Brother's coming back on the first train home to protect his precious little sister! I knew I should have dropped out of university sooner!"
Mikami's grin died right on the spot as she did a double take. "What?! No! Wait a minute here! Are you stupid?! There's absolutely no need for you to do that! Never has been!"
"This time apart from you has really proven to be a big mistake!" Shinji was relentless.
Her plan was backfiring. Shinji dropping out of university to come back and glue himself to her again would be the worst thing to ever happen in the history of her life. Not only would she have to say goodbye to her sanity, but Mom and Dad would forever blame her for ruining her idiot brother's beautifully bright future. And while she didn't care about Shinji's lame career prospects, she couldn't have all that pressure suddenly dumped upon her. She had to fix this right away. It was time for desperate measures.
"Calm down, Brother! Let me explain!" Mikami whined desperately, an act she inwardly despised with her entire being.
And as if struck by lightning by that single magical pronoun, Shinji practically melted inside. "Yes, Mika-chan~?" He was rendered completely docile, ready to hear and listen to whatever his cute little sister had to say about the matter.
"This guy's not that much of a problem. But just in case, I just need you to convince Mom and Dad to give me a taser or something, alright? Cause no arms shop's willing to sell to an underage kid," she told him, feeling exhausted to be talking to her difficult brother for so long.
But Shinji's support on the matter was highly important because Mikami was definitely not trustworthy enough to be able to convince her parents all by herself. Even if it was for a non-lethal self-defense weapon, they might think she was just going to use it for cosplay, needlessly goof around with it and get in some sort of trouble. Like that time in sixth grade when they were called to a parent-teacher conference because she and Hikaru cut some preppy girl's hair with scissors while they were reenacting a Final Fantasy fight in the middle of an Arts and Crafts class.
Both her parents and Shinji considered Hikaru to be the main reason for the start of her teenage rebellious streak with the low grades, disobedient tendencies, internet addiction and refusing to touch anything remotely girly. It wasn't really fair in Mikami's opinion, when the last one was definitely all her brother's fault for grossing her out when she finally realized he had a huge unhealthy sister obsession. Shinji and her parents always made a face when Mikami mentioned she still kept contact with Hikaru after he moved to Tokyo, but it secretly brought her a bit of pleasure that who she chose to be friends with was something they had absolutely no control over.
And that was the main issue. Control was something highly valued by her job-obsessed parents. But with refusal to always do chores and homework or follow in her disgusting older brother's footsteps of a poster child, certain commodities were not so easily attainable. Mikami had fought tooth and nail to inherit Shinji's old computer when he got a brand-new laptop for his high school graduation and now she was going to do the same for acquiring some sort of self-defense weapon so she could live through this mafia-infested mayhem. Even if that meant bending over backwards to be nice to this perverted joke of a sibling that she couldn't believe she was actually related to. If Shinji the favorite called Mom and Dad, telling them how worried he was for his little sister's safety, he was probably going to make it sound convincing enough to maybe even talk them into giving her one of her dad's police guns. Though she hoped not, cause that was a little bit too much.
"Just no dropping out of anywhere, okay? Cause it's going to be my fault and I'll probably cry." The words tasted disgusting on Mikami's tongue, but it was probably half-true. She was going to cry out of misery because of all the trouble she'd have brought upon herself. "Please promise me!" she demanded childishly, making a completely not matching scrunched-up face that she hoped he couldn't see through the line.
"Anything for my sweet Micchan~!" Shinji sang, happy that he could help with something in his dear sister's time of need. Mikami was just about to sigh in relief that her plan had worked without much of a fuss, but then he whined out, "It's too bad though, because I was really looking forward to going back home so I could hug you in front of that horrible stalker and yell at him that you're mine!"
"Ugh! I can't believe how disgusting you are!" Mikami groaned out-loud, revolted once again by her stupid brother's incessant clinginess. That was exactly why she hated to have to rely on him.
"Wait! No! Don't hang up! I love y—" Shinji's whining was cut off abruptly as Mikami threw her cell furiously at the bed.
"For fuck's sake! Can't he be normal for once?!" She pouted at her anime-poster-covered wall. "Stupid Brother!"
- Omake -
Hikaru: *over the headset as they're playing Realms of Runetale* So you and Bomberboy finally hooked up, eh?
Mikami: WHAT?! EW! NO! *horrified* What gave you that gross idea?!
Hikaru: I just heard about the hickey last time we spoke with Prez. And by the way, what were you thinking, skipping class and asking him to teach you to fight?! Are you suicidal?!
Mikami: No! That was—! Wait. Did you just call Hibari, Prez?! And why the hell were you talking about hickeys and school gossip over the phone like a bunch of schoolgirl besties?! Get a hold of yourself, Hikaru! You're slipping!
- A/N -
Happy birthday to me? :D
Just so you guys know, reviews are accepted as presents. ;)
