Sorry I didn't update this in August and that it's so short. _
Oh, and I just finished catching up with everything that's happened in KHR manga and anime. And I was so psyched when I found out I was right about what Daemon Spade's betrayal was! Man, I couldn't help but feel overwhelmingly happy when I realized I figured it out. But I guess it was obvious-ish? I don't know; correct me if I was wrong.
Disclaimer: I don't own Katekyou Hitman Reborn; Akira Amano does.
Hit and Miss
A field of dark, damp earth stretched as far the eye could see and back. On the earth's barren soil a single white blossom grew, covered in dark dust and drops of dew that strewn down pale cheeks from closed lids. "Master Mukuro…where are you?" the flower whispered, only answered by her own echo in the wasteland.
Then, another voice resounded in her ears. "Chrome…"
The flower bloomed and life came roaring back with a breath-taking wind. Standing in front of her in a meadow of green, a man stood. He looked down at her with mismatched eyes. "Hello, my cute and precious Chrome."
The blossom sprouted a stem and leaves unfurled as the pale limbs wrapped around the figure in front of her. "Master Mukuro! You're alright…"
A smile formed on her master's face as he wrapped his arms around her and gave her frail body a small squeeze. "I'm back, but not forever. I have something I want to show you…"
She withdrew from his arms and stared into his eyes curiously and expectantly. "What is it, Master Mukuro?"
The man slid his hand down her arms until only one hand remained in hers. He tugged her along behind him as the landscape changed into darkness.
Tension grasped his palm.
And he smiled, "Don't worry, my cute Chrome. I'm not leaving yet." He stopped at the center of several tomes and volumes of floating books and papers. From the floating references, he stole a scroll and handed it to the girl's free hand. "This is the blueprints of the Medici Laboratory in Italy and the place where I am right now. Give this to one of Tsunayoshi's friends."
His hands began to fade and worry shaped on the girl's face. "Master Mukuro…"
"Ku fu fu…" he chuckled. "Do not fret. I'm just returning to my game of hide-and-seek with Romulus Medici. However, I'm afraid the game will be over soon. Be sure to come for me when this little game of ours is finished. I'll be waiting, Chrome…"
The female Mist Guardian woke up with a start. She looked down at her hands, which were clutched around a thing, long scroll. "This is…" Then, she scooted over to the edge of the bed and searched for her roommate, who she found out on the terrace, soaking in the refreshing heat of the morning sun.
Rather than disturb her older roommate, she rushed out of the room in search of one of her boss's other guardians. The first she saw was the tall baseball player, who turned at the sound of pounding footsteps on the hardwood floor.
"Ah, hey. I thought it was going to be Gokudera. You see, I made a mess in the bathroom earlier when I was getting ready for some practice."
Chrome nodded, unsure if it was the correct response to his random statement. "Uh, please give this to Mr. Gokudera." She thrust the scroll in front of her, raised as she bowed for its presentation.
Yamamoto gave her a confused stare than changed the target of his stare to the scroll. He picked up the lightweight rolled paper and peaked through one end, only to see the floor. "What is this?" he asked as he held it as his side.
"I…found some blueprints of the Medici hideout. I was going to give it to Boss, but I didn't want to bother him if he was still sleeping. So I planned on giving it to Mr. Gokudera, but…"
Yamamoto clasped a hand on her shoulder and let out a hearty chuckle. "It's fine. You don't need to explain yourself. We're part of the same team, so I won't ask where you got it from. I'm sure Gokudera will be happy to hear that you found this." He held up the scroll as a notion to it.
Chrome nodded. "Then…I'm going to get ready for breakfast…" she mumbled as she turned and went back to her room.
"See you later then," Yamamoto smiled and waved with his free hand.
Past the room Chrome entered, a door swung open and Tsuna's Storm Guardian, wrapped in a towel at his waist scanned the hallway until he laid his eyes on Yamamoto. "Oi! Baseball nut!" Gokudera's voice growled as he rushed over to the Rain Guardian. The soap suds in his hair stung his eye, knitting his eyebrows even closer together as they stung. "Why'd you leave that kind of thing in the bath?"
Yamamoto laughed. "Sorry, Gokudera." Then he remembered the scroll in his hand after a quick glance downwards. "Oh! Hey, I got a copy of blueprints for the Medici's hideout."
Gokudera's eyes went wide and he snatched the scroll from Yamamoto, reading over the notes and scanning the diagrams. He looked up at Yamamoto with a dissatisfied grumble. "At least you've actually contributed something for once." Then he began his stomp back to the bathroom.
"Hey, that kind of hurt," Yamamoto laughed awkwardly as the wood door slammed shut.
Tsuna walked through the hallways of the Cavallone Mansion, searching for his blond mentor as he made his way through. He stopped in front of an open door and peered inside. His face paled as he saw Ryohei on all fours being ridden like a horse by Lambo.
"Don't you know how to run you stupid cat?" the baby grumbled as Ryohei whinnied like a horse.
Ryohei exploded, "Hey, little kid, I'm an extreme horse! Not a cat! See? Neigh! Neigh!"
Lambo broke out into a fit of laughter, "What a funny dog! He sounds just like a sheep!"
The color in Tsuna's face drained completely at that point, but he shook his head and came back to his senses. He walked in, pretending that he never heard Lambo mix up his animals. "H-Hey, uh…Did you see Dino?" Tsuna asked.
The older boy looked up at Tsuna, "Huh? Dino? Well…I think he went sparring with Hibari again—the lucky guy! If only Master was here! Then I'd be sparring all day long to the extreme, too!"
"Ah, is that so?"
Ryohei stared at Tsuna, who stood, looking down at his feet. "Is something wrong, Sawada?" he asked as he grabbed Lambo and crossed his legs. He set the boy in cow-print on his head and the small boy wreaked havoc on the teen's messy hair.
"N-No! It's nothing!" Tsuna shook his head. "Well, uh…If you see him. Can you tell him I'm going out?"
"Out? Are you going to do some intense, extreme training?" Ryohei asked as his spirit fired up once again.
"No! No! I'm not going out to train! I'm just going out to look at the sites a bit more. That's all."
"Then maybe you should go with Octopus-Head, too. You know, so you don't get lost or anything."
"Gokudera locked himself in the library and is studying really hard, so I'm going to go with Yuki-san instead. We'll be back before dinner, okay?" Tsuna smiled.
"Have some extremely great fun then!" Ryohei replied as he tossed a giggling Lambo into the air.
In the streets of Italy, Tsuna walked silently beside the taller, older, raven-haired woman next to him. This time, she was dressed in a white wide-brimmed hat decorated with a blue satin ribbon and in a white sundress, with a matching tie just under her bust. Her bulbous sunglasses covered a blind eye and a deep blue one.
The brunette glanced up at his companion, unsure of what to say. Although the problems between them were resolved, he couldn't muster up any courage to talk about anything and didn't even know where a conversation could start.
"Is something wrong, Tuna?" The guised woman asked in a low whisper. "You seem a bit nervous."
Tsuna scratched the back of his head. "Well, I guess I am a bit nervous…This is the first time in a while that I've been able to talk to you without anybody else around without anything crazy happening. I guess…I'm just anticipating something bad is going to happen?"
The woman couldn't help but smile and she rested an assuring hand on his shoulder. The brunette looked up at her. "Don't worry too much, Tuna. With me here, things won't go wrong. And even if they do, I'll be here to protect you."
Tsuna smiled back sheepishly, "Yeah, thank you, Yuki-san." He looked up at the blue sky dotted with wispy clouds, feeling a refreshing breeze blow over him. "It's a bit hard to imagine that such a beautiful and lively place has dangerous people lurking about."
Yuki's smile faded slowly as her hand slid to her side. "There's danger everywhere, and the more beautiful a place is, the larger the hidden threat is." She stopped in front of a flower boutique, bending in front of a bouquet of star cosmos. Her fingers brushed the soft pale blue petals until she was handed a trimmed rose from the florist. "In a way, towns and cities are like rose bushes. On the outside, you see beautiful flowers. And these beautiful flowers were created by hands that tended and sacrificed some buds' lives to nurture a rose. But, under the beauty lies thorns that not only try to protect the beauty, but hurt those who approach it, including the innocent tenders that get too close and learn about the secret thorns. Then, the tenders avoid the thorns and being attacked by them, and just admire the beauty." Yuki cupped her hand around the rose and let its scent fill her lungs. "But not all thorns are bad. A trimmed rose is a world that has forgotten that sometimes the dangerous things protect the beauty from being crushed because it's only a fragile flower." Her fingers encased the flower and crumpled the petals. When she released her bind, the petals blew away on a soft breeze, along with her hat.
"I'll get it!" Tsuna offered with a smile. He began running after the hat, snatching it only to trip over an untied shoelace.
"Tuna!" the black-haired woman yelled as she rushed over to the boy. When she reached him, he had already pushed himself onto his knees.
"That hurt a lot!" the brunette exclaimed as he checked his forehead, elbows, and hands for blood and scratches.
"Are you alright?"
Tsuna looked up at his disguised company and nodded with a smile, "I'm fine. It's just me being clumsy as usual."
A smile of relief graced the older woman's face as she pulled him onto his feet. "I'm glad you weren't hurt."
"It's alright, a little trip wouldn't have made too big of a—" Tsuna stopped at the familiar sound of a child's laugh and turned towards the direction it came from.
"Wa ha ha ha! You can't catch me, the Great Lambo!" a little boy cackled as he ran through the streets.
Ryohei was behind him a few feet, trying to catch up. "H-Hey! It's dangerous to run off far!" the boxer yelled.
"I'm the Great Lambo! Danger always avoids me!" he laughed. As soon as he made his exclamation, his dragging cloth tail got caught between his legs and he tripped on it.
Tsuna reached out to help the small cow-boy, but in the end, the toddler helped himself up, crying loudly and kicking up a scene. Then, from his black afro, he pulled a large purple bazooka.
"Ah! Lambo, don't play with that here!" Tsuna yelled as he recognized the logic-defying weapon.
"That's not safe!" Yuki exclaimed as she intervened, prying Lambo away from the bazooka's mouth as the child pulled the trigger. Pink smoke rose into the air.
Tsuna's face lost all color with what just happened. "Which one was hit?" he whispered to himself, still in disbelief with the recent turn of events. As the smoke began to thin, Tsuna saw the small cow-boy actually relatively calm and picking his nose. "Then…" He started to look for the ten year-older version of the Snow Guardian, but instead, found a small six year-old girl in Yuki's place. "Y-Yuki-san?" Tsuna exclaimed.
The small girl stared up at the brunette. Her brown eyes reflected confusion and a small amount of fear. "How do you know my name, big brother?" the little girl asked.
Tsuna's eyes widened in shock. "Yuki-san…"
End Chapter Ten
Thanks for sticking with me despite my horrible promise-keeping. (I swear I inherited this problem)
Okay, it sounds like I'm dropping the project or already finished _ But, I'm not..so, :P
Thanks again, review welcome as always, and…
~Love you all! X3
(omg, can't wait for ReboCon 2010)