AN: Hello again my dear readers, and thanks so much for the reviews! I totally didn't deserve them after my last chapter (can it even be called a chapter? -_-') So yeah, thanks for all you wonderful people who understood my plight!
To show my appreciation I wrote a long(ish) chapter for you guys today! I hope you enjoy it and don't forget to review!
WARNING: This fic may contain many clichés known to fanfic readers everywhere, but I hope that at least some of my ideas are original. If not—well, this is fanfiction people! We can't all be geniuses at literature!
Disclaimer: I don't own Katekyo Hitman Reborn or Harry Potter, they belong to JK Rowling and Akira Amano. If I did own them, I'd be rich and own a mansion or something.
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Death's Curse: Chapter 11
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"JUUDAIME!"
Thunk.
This was a typical morning for one Tsunayoshi Sawada. Get up, escape Reborn's latest assassination attempt/wake up call, and run out the door after snatching a piece of toast.
AND getting a fully grown teenager throw himself at him.
"Gukudera-kun! Would you please not throw yourself at me so early in the morning? I just woke up you know!"
Gokudera stood up, properly chastised and apologized for his over enthusiastic greeting. "I'M SO SORRY JUUDAIME! Did I break anything?!"
Suddenly he started poking him in random places, his back, his arms, his face...
"I"m fine Gokudera-kun!", Tsuna interrupted, hoping his eye wouldn't be the next target.
"Alright Juudaime! Let's walk to school together!"
They began to head to school, but stopped once they heard a familiar voice calling to them.
"HEY TSUNA! GOKUDERA! WAIT UP!"
Gokudera's happy expression left his face as he watched Yamamoto come closer to him and his precious Juudaime. 'The baseball-freak is here'.
"Hello Takeshi!", Tsuna's smile was showing as he greeted his friend, but the silent Reborn who had been walking quietly beside Tsuna and Gokudera could tell that the smile was slightly forced, as if he was trying to much to make it seem as if everything was normal, as if they hadn't been attacked the day before.
Yamamoto's smile also faltered as he realized the same, but quickly reappeared as he started talking to Gokudera, ignoring the insults the Italian kept throwing at him.
Tsuna and Reborn were now walking a few steps behind the two who were engrossed in their argument, and Reborn turned to Tsuna with a questioning expression.
"Are you planning on telling him what happened? He has a right to know you know. If he's going to continue being your friend and hopefully guardian (he ignored Tsuna's scowl) he needs to know the risks so he doesn't walk into dangerous situations blindly."
Tsuna's changing expression told him everything he needed to know.
"I'm not going to tell him just yet Reborn." He said irritably.
"I will eventually tell him, but only if he asks me himself, and if he looks ready to hear the truth."
Reborn didn't look convinced, but nodded thoughtfully. "Alright."
Finally Yamamoto and Gokudera seemed to have noticed them lagging behind.
"Hey Tsuna! Baby! It's getting late, we have to get to school in three minutes if we don't want Hibari-san to attack us for being late!"
Gokudera said nothing, but Tsuna could see that he was walking considerably faster than before.
'I see he heard of Hibari then, I wonder if he knows that I work with him in his office everyday yet.'
He hadn't joined the other members of the disciplinary committee in the last few days, around the time when Gokudera had arrived, and he knew that this was Hibari's way of letting him know he could take a break from all the stressful things going on lately and spend time with his new friends.
Tsuna looked at his watch. They were late.
"Gokudera-kun, Takeshi-kun! We're late!"
If any bystander had been walking by at that exact same moment they would have noticed that as soon as those words let the brunet's mouth, the three boys started running as if the devil was on their tail, and in their opinion, he might as well have been.
In their rush to get to school on time, none of them noticed the fedora-wearing baby walk off in a different direction, hoping to be able to send his newest report to Nono.
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Hibari had been understanding, he'd heard that they'd lost track of time and told them it was fine, that everyone had their off days sometimes, and then proceeded to give them cookies and ice cream.
Yeah, maybe in an alternate universe where impossible things happened, like Reborn not liking coffee or the the sky being purple.
Quite the opposite happened actually, the actual events which transpired after Reborn nonchalantly walked away were that they had ran as fast as they could, only to find Hibari waiting at the school gates.
He had taken one look at them, especially on Tsuna's sheepish expression and demanded to know why they'd been so late.
Of course, Yamamoto had begun to try to explain, only for Gokudera to butt into the conversation and try talk over his voice. This only served to anger the skylark more and they both got 'bitten to death'. Tsuna's sheepish expression had become amused as he watched some of his only friends interact with one another.
Hibari then turned to him with an accusing expression, and Tsuna once agin smiled before he started speaking.
"I'm sorry Kyoya, we really weren't paying attention at the time, and we ran all the way here!"
Hibari's expression clearly told him his excuse was flimsy at best, and then Hibari spoke again.
"Stupid omnivore, I thought you were dropping your dame act, yet here you are, acting like a herbivore."
"Ah! I've been trying Kyoya, but you know 'old habits die hard' and all, I've been working on it; surely you've noticed the slow improvements to my marks at school?"
Hibari smirked. "I have. A few teachers even tried to convince the principal you were cheating somehow, but I 'persuaded' them that it was a bad idea, it would make them look incompetent after all; what kind of a teacher lets a student cheat without catching them in the act?"
Tsuna smiled at his friend's expression. "What kind of teacher indeed."
Hibari's small smile disappeared as he asked about the day before.
"Who were they?"
Tsuna didn't even bother asking who 'they' was. "They were the usual, assassins hoping to kill the son of the CEDEF leader."
"You're lying. I checked each of them over personally, and none of them even looked like professionals, some of them were even overweight. The guns were also made very badly and anyone aiming with them would have been way off target. Now tell me, why were they after you?"
Tsuna sighed and tried to excuse himself before too many things were revealed prematurely.
"Hibari, we've been friends a long time now, and I've never demanded to know any of you secrets, and neither have you. While I admit that I'm hiding something from you, you will learn the truth eventually, but I'm just asking you to wait until I feel like I'm ready to tell you."
The skylark's expression of neutrality didn't change, but he nodded.
"Don't be late to school again omnivore." With those words he turned and walked away.
Tsuna sighed once more, knowing that the conversation hadn't ended there, and that soon he'd have to tell his best friend the truth, or at least almost most of it.
He waited until Yamamoto and Gokudera woke up and they all walked into the school, Tsuna wondering how long their peace would last.
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The classroom was loud, the students having begun speaking the moment the teacher left to get some photocopies for their latest assignment.
Gokudera and Yamamoto were both with Tsuna at his table, talking and doing their best to ignore the other ignorant students who were trying to be quiet as they spoke of the newest developments regarding Tsuna's little group.
"-can't believe they're hanging out with him-"
"-yeah, Dame-Tsuna, I bet he's blackmailing them to be his friends-"
"-they shouldn't have to spend time with that loser-"
Both of Yamamoto and Gokudera's smile faltered as they heard the other students insulting their best friend. They didn't know what they were talking about! Tsuna was amazing, and a great friend!
Seeing Gokudera start to slip his hand into his jacket pocket, which was where Tsuna knew that he kept his dynamite, he looked sternly at him.
"Gokudera-kun, let them talk, their petty insults don't matter to me and they shouldn't matter to you either."
He relaxed along with Yamamoto, who hadn't even been aware of how he'd been acting as if a live bomb was about to set off in the middle of the classroom when Gokudera smirked and relaxed his posture.
"Of course Juudaime! They don't deserve to even be acknowledged by you, and I'll ignore them as well!"
Yamamoto laughed one of those infectious laughs of his, and slung his rm around both Tsuna and Gokudera.
"Yeah Tsuna! They're just jealous that you have such great friends!"
Tsuna smiled at him in gratitude, and Yamamoto also smiled at him.
Gokudera smiled, until he realized that Yamamoto still had his arms wrapped around both him and Tsuna.
"Hey baseball freak! Get your arms off of Juudaime! And let go of me!"
Just as Tsuna was getting ready to stop them before Gokudera took out his explosives, the teacher came back in, and they all sat down.
"Settle down everyone!" Seeing how everyone was ignoring him, the teacher put his fingers in his mouth and whistled.
The loud noise caught everyone's attention and they quieted down.
"I just wanted to announce that I just finished marking the results for the exam you all took a few weeks ago, and let me tell you, I was very surprised with the results".
As the teacher said this, some of the more astute students caught the looks he was sending to Tsuna as he said this, and wondered why the teacher looked so irritated.
"It seems a congratulations are in order, Sawada-san passed the exam with a perfect score!"
The student didn't know what to make of this, wondering what kind of joke the teacher was trying to pull, Dame-Tsuna getting a perfect score on an exam? It was unbelievable!
Suddenly Yamamoto and Gokudera began clapping for their embarrassed friend as he went up to collect his exam paper, and some of the girls from their fan clubs joined them in clapping for Tsuna.
As he received his exam, the teacher gave him a look as if saying 'I know you cheated somehow and I will prove it!'
Tsuna just sent his biggest glare back, and for a second the teacher stumbled backwards, not believing that such a shy student could glare so fiercely.
After he sat down, the teacher started calling the other student's names as they each went up to collect their exams.
Reborn watched silently while sitting on a tree branch outside, binoculars pointing into the classroom.
'You're much smarter than you look aren't you Tsuna?'
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It was the middle of the afternoon, and Tsuna was studying with the help of Reborn. The giant piles of explosives had proven to be a great incentive into making him get all the answers perfectly on the first try, he didn't want a maniac baby blowing up his bedroom thank you very much!
Reborn pointed to a new question. "Do that one now, and you have less than forty seconds".
Tsuna immediately began answering the complicated, but not overly so math question (hey, he'd done this before, but things deemed unimportant sometimes got forgotten, if he kept all that information in his brain, it would probably explode or something!).
Suddenly he sensed someone climbing the tree outside his house.
Quickly finishing the question, he tensed briefly and looked behind himself outside the window. Once Reborn saw him doing this he couldn't help but chuckle a little as he saw who was outside.
'So the Bovinos have finally tried to get rid of him huh? Can't say I'm very surprised.'
Tsuna didn't know what to think of the weird cow/baby hybrid which was currently sitting outside his bedroom window.
'Just what is that strange kid wearing?! Are those cow horns?'
He decided to do the same as Reborn and ignore the child unless he did something dangerous like fall from the tree or explode or something (from his experience, he knew weirder things had happened and would continue to happen).
Just as Reborn finished checking his latest answer, the baby cow jumped into his bedroom through the window and pulled out a gun.
He screamed in a high-pitched voice. "Die Reborn!",and shot the gun at the baby hit man, who didn't even acknowledge the fact that someone had just spoken.
Tsuna decided that Reborn could take care of himself, and sat quietly watching to see what would happen next. The cow pulled the trigger...but nothing happened.
Tsuna sweat dropped. 'Does this kid know exactly what he's doing?'
he kid started sniffling, and he looked like he was about to cry, when suddenly his mood turned around completely and he jumped up, yelling at Reborn with a cocky smirk on his face.
"Long time no see Reborn, it's me Lambo!"
Reborn just continued sipping his espresso and looking through Tsuna's homework. "Ah, I see that you did the second question on this sheet incorrectly, you see..."
The baby cow, Lambo; suddenly yelled again. "Reborn! Don't ignore me! I'll kill you!"
He charged at Reborn, but he only got a punch in the face for his efforts.
After getting his face off of the floor, he spoke again.
"I must have tripped".
'Yeah sure that's what happened', Tsuna thought sarcastically.
He continued, "I, LAMBO-SAN, 5 YEARS OLD, FROM ITALY, A HIT MAN FROM THE BOVINO FAMIGLIA, TRIPPED! FAVOURITE FOODS ARE GRAPES AND CANDY AND I , LAMBO-SAN, WHO MET REBORN AT A BAR, JUST TRIPPED~~~~!"
Tsuna was officially baffled, he sure as hell hadn't seen this one coming his way, but he figured that in his own annoying way, this Lambo was cute.
Lambo seemed to realize that Reborn still wasn't listening, when he suddenly reached into his big afro and pulled out...a bazooka?! How did that even fit in there?
Lambo started speaking as he took it out. "Ta-da! It's the ten year bazooka! Those who are shot with this can, for 5 minutes, switch with themselves from 10 years into the future~~!"
'Time travel?', Tsuna asked incredulously inside his head.'How is that possible? I've never heard of such technology, the closest thing I've ever seen to that were time-turners...'
He looked down at the bazooka and seemed to have decided it wasn't worth it, so he put it back and took out a hand-grenade.
"DIE REBORN!"
He threw the grenade at him, only to have it reflected back and be thrown out the window along with it.
Tsuna, feeling concerned for the clumsy Lambo, stood up to try and look out the window; to check if the grenade had actually exploded. A few seconds later he saw the explosion happen, and turned accusing eyes over to Reborn.
Finally looking up from the work he'd been looking over, the baby spoke. "Relax Tsuna, that cow suit he was wearing should have been more than enough protection against such a weak explosive. Either way, it's the Bovino famiglia, they're a rather small mafia group. I don't associate with those who rank lower, it's beneath me."
Immediately Tsuna's small frown deepened, and he looked irritated that Reborn could act so high and mighty to those he thought he was better than, just because they weren't as powerful as him.
Tsuna scowled once more at Reborn, but the baby's pride wasn't allowing him to apologize for the egotistic remark, convincing himself that he had done nothing wrong.
Without a single look back, Tsuna turned around and went downstairs hoping to b able to help the other child, his protective instincts taking over.
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Lambo was crying. (What else was new?)
He didn't know what could have possibly gone wrong. All he'd ever wanted to do in life was become the boss of the Bovino famiglia make all of humanity bow down to him but after one of his most amazing creations had backfired a little (more like explode and destroyed two buildings), his boss had told him he had to defeat the super-first class assassin reborn, who he'd met before.
He remembered it like it was yesterday. When he had first been taken to that bar by his boss,he'd sat beside him in the counter. They'd spoken a lot, even though it had been their first time meeting. He'd been eating one of his favourite things in the world, grapes! And Reborn had been blowing bubbles with his nose (sleeping ~_~').
So he'd gone all the way to Japan to kill Reborn, but he'd been ignored! He, the Great Lambo-Sama had been ignored by Reborn!
So as he sat on the ground underneath the now badly burned and possibly dead tree, he saw the other guy Reborn had been with walk up to him and kneel down.
"Here you go Lambo.", the other guy said happily, handing him a piece of candy. It wasn't grape, but it looked good so Lambo immediately took it out of its wrapper and put it in his mouth.
As he took his time savouring his new candy, the guy took out a first aid kit and began to clean his cuts and bruises. Lambo was so happy! No one had ever cared about him before, apart from his mama.
He started crying again. Tsuna looked up, startled and wondering if he had hurt him somewhere, but Lambo seemed to be smiling as he cried, and so Tsuna picked him up and carried him into the house, smiling now that he knew Lambo was okay.
After he'd placed down Lambo on the couch and fetched a blanket for him, he heard him mumble just before he fell asleep.
"The Great Lambo-Sama wants to stay with onii-san, and we can take over the world together, and beat Reborn, and then people...will...worship...us.."
Tsuna smiled at the sleepy mumbles Lambo had uttered, and felt happy about his new nickname. Now he knew what it was like to feel like an older brother. He knew that from that moment on he would always try his best to protect Lambo, even if it was from a family that didn't seem to appreciate him tried to send him to his death.
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AN: And that's a wrap people! What did you think? For some reason I found writing Lambo to be extremely difficult, but I managed it in the end! I typed this out really quickly so there might be a few spelling mistakes, sorry about that. I must say this though, whoever invented spellchecking has my thanks! This chapter would have had many more mistakes than it has now if it wasn't for spell-check !
I fulfilled my promise and updated in less than a week! It wasn't even a short chapter like before either!
I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and in the next one we'll see the aftermath of Tsuna's small argument with Reborn. Will it be forgotten, or will it get worse? Find out on the next chapter of...Death's Curse!
PS: Don't forget to review!
