I don't own Katekyō Hitman Reborn!.

Shoutout to nanahikari2000 for being awesome and making my day! Hope you'll like this one. :)

Previously

Eyes steady and voice firm, she contrasted starkly to her usual self. "Take MASK. I want the whole network on it. First strings on the ready, Vongola will be right on our tails from the get-go. We need superb coordination to make sure nobody catches our trails."

"How long will this take?"

"A couple hours."

. . .

Fingers lingering on the door handle, she froze but for the barest of moments. "Watch out," she whispered. The door slammed shut behind her. "Try not to get caught." She hung up and turned around.

"Namimori Jr. High, class 2-B, seat number 17, Benivieni Fiona." The barcode tattoo by his glasses was the only thing she saw as he righted them on his nose with a slim finger. "I believe you have been caught."

.

.

.

.

Target X: Two Sides of One Coin

"Two hours is asking too much, even for you." The door had barely slammed shut when the laptop was stationed on the couch table, the master forger's voice filling up the living room once more.

Fiona grinned, blood pumping hot in her veins. "Not if you take the dirty shortcuts."

A brief silence. "This is borderline dangerous. Is MASK's network the only one you have left?"

"Pretty much."

He did not like the sound of it. "You shouldn't work outside regulations now that you're reinstated. This is the last second chance anyone will give you after Talvonziani."

She stretched, grin never leaving her face. "Don't worry. Nobody will notice a thing."

The prefect scratched the back of his head upon Hibari's arrival, pointing at the ground dappled with blood. "The neighbors heard sounds of fighting but by the time we arrived, this is all that's left."

It was very little: the blood, a crooked and bent trash can, hundreds of needles littered all over the paved streets. Hibari stepped up to the most prominent object, a jacket flung carelessly to the side. He bent down to check the pockets.

"Hibari-san... what are you doing?"

An assault without a victim. A pair of sunglasses slipped out of an inside pocket, confirming his suspicion. The apartment complex was too close to be coincidence. Ignoring the curious stares of his men, he continued rummaging and came across a bulge in one of the outer pockets. A mobile phone. Without a second thought, he flicked it open.

An unsent message greeted him on the screen, missing its receiver, all but two words quickly scribbled down.

Kokuyo Park

He checked the time on his watch, comparing it to the time limit. 1 hour and 59 minutes. Only just.

Tsuna was breathing hard by the time he reached the hospital. He flung the door to one of the patient rooms open. "Big brother! Are you alright?"

Ryohei's lids fluttered open, turning his head towards the new visitor. "Ah, Sawada. You're quick." Tsuna's breath caught in his throat at the sight of the many bandages; the tubes leading to a crimson blood bag, constantly dripping, pumping. Catching his wandering eyes, Ryohei chuckled although it quickly ended in a pained wince. "I look really pathetic like this," he managed to say.

Tsuna approached the bed, tugging at his spiky hair. "Why did this happen to you?!" Out of all the people to be involved, why did it have to be Kyoko-chan's big brother?!

Reborn was quick to change the question into something formidable. "How are you feeling?"

Looking proud of himself, Ryohei placed a hand over his chest. "Six bones broken, seven cracked..." He opened his mouth and pointed inside. "And look: I lost five of my teeth," he finished. Tsuna reeled back on instanct, especially when the boxer didn't seem perturbed by his injuries in the slightest. No, he shrug his shoulders instead, ever spirited. "I've broken more bones and teeth during boxing."

That's not a laughing matter! his mind screeched. "Even though I had my guard down, he was a fearsome man." Tsuna stopped in his frenzy to blink.

"You saw the culprit?" he asked. Reborn's expression darkened when Ryohei nodded, sick Leon curling around his hat.

"Yeah, he even knew my name." Did they come for him delibaretly then? He couldn't understand why anyone would involve the boxed in any sort of gang fight or whatever this thing had escalated into. "The uniforms are from Kokuyo Middle School, from the next town over."

"M-Middle School?" They're middleschoolers just like them?!

Strangely solemn, Ryohei nodded. "Yeah." His eyes found the smaller boy's, drilling into them. "You be careful, too, Sawada."

Tsuna gulped. But he had nothing to do with it, right?

Giving Tsuna the time until he was done, both with his visit and panicking, Reborn distanced himself from the commotion to answer a call. "Ciaossu."

"Reborn," the master forger greeted curtly. The baby hummed to himself. So she had been on the case since the beginning. Figures. "I've been asked to forward information to you." Yet she didn't report to him in person but through a middleman. That was strange. A grim expression ghosted over his childish face as he was briefed. So his bad hunch hadn't been for naught.

But something did not sit well with him. "Where did you get this information from?"

"I'm afraid it's sealed inside Davy Jones' Locker now. No Coin, no info." Which roughly translates to 'it's classified'. That little quirk of Fiona's started to annoy him now, adjusting everything to her epithet and own terminology, but there was certainty in the fact that she did not want her sources to be spread. She was undermining someone's or something's authority to get to the core of this mystery that much was a given and he'd bet his sick chameleon that she used outside sources to get her information.

Reborn squinted his eyes, staring at the wall. "Where is she now?"

Alessio clicked his tongue. "She went quiet. Any other questions you'll have to relay over Vongola channels from now on. Do not mention my name, please. I'm officially nursing a hangover, not working on a case."

Hopefully they had enough information to get on with the case despite. He hung up with a curt thanks, walking back to his protégé only to find a most curious scene unfold.

The vice-prefect of the Disciplinary Committee walked with the calmness of someone either accustomed to stressful situations or bound with the wisdom and abilities to resolve them. For the same reason he had specifically placed her into the Student Council, he bet on the latter, and suddenly he was certain that she left something behind.

"So, nobody's seen any sign of the head?" Kusakabe asked. Reborn found it a tad bit too clear for his liking; as if he wanted everyone to hear him. His student perked up on the question, snapping out of his panic attack much too easily.

The other prefect nodded. "He went to investigate the scene of an assault where there was no victim but then he quickly went away. He's probably gone after the trail of the enemy!" He allowed himself a triumphant grin. "So, really, it's only a matter of time before the culprits are totally annihilated."

Kusakabe nodded as the talking pair passed them by. "I see. Good."

Tsuna instantly picked up on that. "Did you hear that?"

"Yeah," said the stray classmate he chose to panic with.

"Hibari-san has gone to take care of the enemies!" The laughter of relief fizzed off his lips much too easily for his liking as well. Something didn't feel right with the whole case, its brutality.

The lull in assaults held roughly twenty minutes before they rolled in another victim. "Make way! Another Nami Jr. High student got beat up!"

Kusakabe did not look calm any longer the way he lay there in the stretcher, bleeding and hurt.

They had to take up the reins, fast. Reborn hopped onto the stretcher with the mangled body of the vice-prefect, prying open his mouth, ignoring all complaints. Four. Considering the speed of the attacks he saw it fit to reveal the secrets to his student. "There can be no doubt." Before any more people went quiet.

He sent Tsuna a sharp look. "The cause of all this fighting is you, Tsuna."

The boy took an involuntary step back. "What do you mean, I'm the cause of all the fighting?! I thought it was a gang fight between the Disciplinary Committee and some other gang!"

Reborn didn't flinch in the slightest at the loud outburst. Leon did suddenly shift into a green hammer ins his hands as he got startled, though. His condition left the lizard more sensible to his surroundings next to his newfound fragility. Reborn looked his student square in the eye. "Do you remember how many teeth all the victims have lost?"

They're counting down.

"How many...?" He couldn't just do all the talking, order action against the perpetrators. Tsuna had to learn himself, if he wanted to become a good boss. "Kusakabe, who was just beaten up, lost four, you said..." Reborn nodded and Tsuna continued. "Didn't Ryohei lose five? Before that..."

He was better off if he didn't know who the sixth rank was. Yet. Instead, the baby hitman picked up where he left off, placing the rails down for his student to follow. He could almost relate to the informant's line of work, different than he was used to as a hitman but there was little else he could do. "The first person who got beaten up lost all 24 of his teeth. Since then, each successive victim has lost one less tooth than the previous one." He paused to let the words sink in. "The perpetrators are counting down with teeth." Leon wiggled uncomfortably in his hands.

"What the heck!"

"There's more," Reborn said. Alessio's voice ghosted in the back of his mind. It's uncertain how they got past our defenses but fact is that they did. Someone broke the Omertá to help these people. "I found a correlation. Take a look at this."

Tsuna carefully grabbed the piece of paper from his hands and read the twirly heading. "Namimori Junior High's Fighting Strength Ranking?" Big, brown eyes blinked uncertainly. "What about it?"

We're getting there. "You really are slow. The order of victims matches the ranking list exactly."

Big, brown eyes widened into something even bigger. "Eh?! For real?!" He watched him look over the list, check up on the names. Then he frowned, looking at the heading again and the signet above it. "This ranking list..."

Reborn nodded. "Yes. It's Fuuta's."

Tsuna looked at the baby with concern and confusion written all over his face. "What the hell is going on?"

Reborn settled in for a long explanation. "We Mafia have a code, the Omertá. It's a code that says, under no circumstances should a person reveal the secrets of his organization." Somebody broke the Omertá to help these people. Fuuta would never betray our famiglia. Alessio spoke the truth. "Fuuta's ranking lists are the entire industry's top secret. There's no way an ordinary person would have access to it. In other words, to get access to it means..."

To get past La Pescatrice, Vongola's last line of defense.

"Since the fourth-ranked Kusakabe was beaten, the third-ranked would be targeted next!" A simplified deduction but correct. He had the feeling there was more to it but he'd have to check up first. The color in Tsuna's face drained as he stared at the next name. "No way... w-what should we do, Reborn?!"

The baby pulled his hat lower. "Things are getting worse and worse. You go deal with it." Rank 3 — Gokudera Hayato. Technically he should be able to fend off his attacker long enough for them to pinpoint their enemies' location and take up real countermeasures.

"Me—?!"

"Yes." Davy Jones' Locker. An assault without victim. Someone got past the Mafia's intelligence defense line. It unnerved him. The master forger did the dirty business he usually avoided and the information stank to the sky. How did she even manage to get information at all when she was just recently reinstated? "I'm going to check out something that's bothering me."

Rank 6 — Benivieni Fiona.

Out of all times to be missing, it has to be now.

"That's your plan? Are you kidding me?"

She nodded. "Nobody can find out that the information is not coming firsthand from MASK. It'll have to look like he did his own research. His network operates outside Mafia law and if they knew it was me, I'd be shot down on the spot. MASK was involved in some heavy anti-Mafia campaigns, after all." She frowned, pursing her lips in thought. "But since someone outside the Mafia managed to get a hold of Fuuta and is currently in Namimori, we can turn the tables and place all blame on him once this is over."

"And then you'd say you planted men into their ranks to spy on their research instead of giving out confidential information yourself, I get it." Alessio cursed nonetheless. "You're breaking the Omertá with this. I should rat you out."

Fiona rolled her eyes. "When did I ever do something to compromise our family?"

The random arrangement of bottles and books crumbled under the bowling ball's weight and speed as it levelled its way past the crude nine pin-like obstacles. "So what'd you do with him?" The blond licked his lips once he was certain of his strike. "The Nami High Boss—what was it? Sparrow? Duck?"

The blue-haired boy sat as casually as always, this time on the broken and withered seats of the bowling alley, watching the other rearrange the pins. "I took him out." The ever-present smile on his face only broadened at the pleasant memory. "We'll leave him unconscious until we've gotten all the teeth."

"Hyaaa~," the blonde half-growled, half-yowled. "So, he's still alive? That guy!"

Mismatching eyes scanned the area, fallen apart as it was. "Where's Chikusa?"

The blond picked up the bowling ball again. "Kakipi's gone after the third-ranked prey." He gave the heavy ball a test swing. "It's getting more and more tedious, so he didn't know about his chances, he said." With a dash, the ball crashed deafeningly loud onto the alley, racing forward and taking every pin down with it.

Boom.

Tsuna spun around at the sound of an explosion. Could it be?!

His legs were quicker than his mind, following in the general direction he'd picked up the sound. It just had to be Gokudera! Another explosion, this time closer. He slid rightward into an alley, stumbling over his own feet before he caught himself and continued on. Thoughts spun in circles inside his mind, screaming at him Gokudera is the third target, Gokudera is the third target! He had to hurry and warn him, even if they're in the middle of a fight. He had to do something to prevent his friend from getting hurt like everyone else. Gokudera probably hadn't even heard of anything suspicious happening to the students.

Rounding the corner in anticipation of a bloody battle he was met with an unexpected sight—the bomber languidly stretched out on the street, puffing a cigarette.

"Gokudera-kun!"

Gokudera startled from his relaxed position. "Boss! Why are you here?"

Tsuna couldn't believe his own feelings when relief washed over him, unraveling the tight knot that had nestled into his chest the moment he lay an eye on Fuuta's list. The weight on his shoulder suddenly felt much lighter. Gokudera was completely fine! "Ah, uh... I just thought what if and stuff..." Even his mouth couldn't work properly anymore, the tenseness from before gone so quickly, it left him all wobbly on his knees and in mind. "Some rumor said, um, that Gokudera-kun was targeted by the Kokuyo Jr. High guys..."

"You came especially because of that?!" The infinite happiness appearing in his eyes was as genuine as his own one must've been at the sight of him. "Sorry for the trouble! I just took care of the guy!"

He just took—

"EH? Then it's true!"

Gokudera nodded like a little, praised puppy. Tsuna was lost for words once more. That's some way of turning on your attacker... Gokudera is really strong. He shrug it off. All that mattered was that his friend was alright. They could deal with the attackers afterward, once they found Yamamoto and met up with Reborn again. Yamamoto is the second-ranked fighter, he reminded himself. They had to think of where to find him if he wasn't at school either. Maybe at home? Where did he live anyway?

Still with a rare grin plastered to his face, Gokudera pointed out next to them onto the open street. "He's down there somewhere..." His words trailed off as his eyes jumped from one shop to the other that lined the street. "Wha—? He's not there!"

Tsuna snapped out of his thoughts. He followed his gaze but only saw smoking and battered stone and concrete.

"You saved me a lot of time."

Tsuna couldn't hold back a startled cry.

The boy before him was as battered as the street; olive uniform shredded and the skin beneath bleeding raw and red against pale. The white beanie was splotched with dark soot from the dynamites' impact. He shouldn't be able to stand at all, let alone walk towards them as he did, looking as threatening as ever.

Scary, Tsuna inadvertently thought, blocking all other thoughts out. This was their enemy. The ones behind the horrid attacks, behind Kyoko-chan's brother confined to a hospital bed with five teeth extracted in a cruel and painful manner.

He only wants to hurt us. Actually hurt us.

Gokudera shifted back into a fighting stance. "Please be careful! His weapons are yo-yos!" W-Weapons? Just thinking about being stabbed, pricked, cut, exploded or punched made his knees shiver and legs feel like lead.

"Even if you say that, I'm too scared to move—!"

Whatever happened next escaped his whole notice. The moment he saw the lean boy raise his bloodied arm for an attack, Tsuna snapped his eyes shut, arms raised over his face in some sort of mock-defense. He heard Gokudera yell, himself scream, the sound of taut threads stretching and spinning—but nothing hit him.

He cracked open one lid only to see the back of his friend in front of him, covering his body with his own, taking the full attack. No, Tsuna thought with wide eyes as reality sunk in. No! This was Gokudera they were talking about, he didn't—couldn't—lose this easily!

But the voice that came out of Gokudera's throat didn't sound like his own; short of breath, in pain. "Tenth... please escape." What was he saying? He couldn't just...

Gokudera fell to his knees. Tsuna stared in horror. "Gokudera-kun! Are you all right? Gokudera-kun!" All this blood. No. No.

Tsuna couldn't move. This was too much for him too handle. He was just a normal boy. Why did he have to get dragged into this, had to listen to Reborn, had to meet Fuuta and know about his lists—why did Gokudera have to defend him?

He'd only tried to help. And when he heard of a fight, he never imagined... he never thought it'd...

"He's broken," the scary guy said, not once flinching in pain despite his heavy injuries. Tsuna felt his body shiver in response. Unnatural. Scary. Dangerous. The impressions rained down on him, rooted him on the spot. "Now, come with me."

It's my fault. But if I don't run away, I'm dead...! Yet he couldn't. Like a mouse looking back up at the cat cornering it, he simply couldn't move from fear.

His face hit the floor as something heavy rammed into his ribcage and sent him slithering across the concrete. "This is called sliding into base. Safe!" The cheery laugh was like music to his ears, shattering the barrier of fear.

"Yamamoto!"

The tall baseballer gave him a warm, reassuring smile. "I was walking by and heard the ruckus." We're saved! No, not quite...!

"Gokudera-kun!" Tsuna shook the bomber by his shoulders but he was fast unconscious and ever-bleeding onto the street. Turning him to his side he saw that he'd taken the brunt of the needles to his chest. The uniform turned crimson red. "We have to do something!"

Yamamoto's expression turned dark as he nodded. "This guy..." He met the opponent's gaze head-on, the usual cheery eyes hard and mirthless. "He's not the quiet type, is he." Tsuna had never seen him lose his temper. The sight sent shivers down his spine.

Despite the injuries, the other didn't flinch back nor did he look intimidated. "You're in my way," he said instead, reaching back for another attack, twisting his arms hard and angry that the yo-yo's came at them with unstoppable speed and a long arc.

Yamamoto cut the threads clean in two.

Tsuna's face derailed in shock upon glancing the sharp blade in the teen's hand. Since when did he start carrying his bat around?!

Their enemy looked fazed for but the barest second before his hand went up to right the glasses on his nose. "I see. You're Namimori Jr. High, 1-A, seat number 15. Yamamoto Takeshi." Tsuna blanched. Yamamoto was placed second on the list, the next target after Gokudera. Did he seriously plan to fight him in the state he was in? The small boy's hand searched for the bomber's jacket, grabbing a handful of it.

Yamamoto's eyes turned cooler at the mention of his name. "What of it?" The grip on the sword tightened. They couldn't start another fight now. Gokudera wouldn't make it. They had to stop.

"Over here! This way, officer!" Their heads snapped around at the sound of footsteps and yells. A group of uniformed policemen ran towards the battle scene. "What are you boys doing?!"

The bloody and beaten boy turned his gaze back on Yamamoto. Tsuna couldn't get over the look in those eyes, completely unmoving and detached no matter the situation. "You're Ken's target. Fighting you would be a pain." And just like that he turned around and left battle ground, leaving them to watch him go with apprehension. Neither attempted to follow him. The battle was over.

"Hang in there, Gokudera!" Yamamoto's voice cut through the silence, blade turned bat again and lying forgotten on the ground. They'd won. Tsuna watched the blood cling to his hand where he'd held onto the soaked piece of clothing like a drowning man to a wooden plank.

But at what price?

"That would be a great help, Dino."

"It's for my little bro. Let me know if there's anything more I can do." The male paused on the other end. "But this one is troublesome."

Reborn nodded. "If they're the same ones that are causing this incident, then I can understand why they're using odd methods. They just broke out of prison and don't have any information on us."

"Yeah. Your informant is on the case to find out how they managed to get a hold of Fuuta." Dino chuckled at the small victory. "He falls under her jurisdiction after all."

Reborn gave a thoughtful hum. Really now. A missing person is able to continue working.

She'd have some explaining to do.

A/N:

A tough one to write (and keep semi-correct in context). But so many ideas flowing together! Technically Ryohei's attack and hers happen in a very short timeframe of each other, even though hers happened belatedly. Maybe Chikusa lost his way, who knows?

Lots of mystery. Lots of fishy terminology. Lots of Reborn, which is surprisingly fun! He's onto her, uh-oh. Thanks for reading and the lovely reviews! :) My brain has turned to mush and needs recharching now. Over and out.