A/N: Sorry all for the late update - I've been taking extreme advantage of summer vacation to laze around as much as humanly possible (it's super hard to work up any kind of work ethic whatsoever when I have no school schedule to keep me on track - more so than usual). Anyway, I have to thank you all for the reviews I've still been getting, and all the support for my story.
Just so everyone is clear - the current votes for Lambo's pairing:
Fon: 21
Dino: 22
Xanxus: 34
Hibari: 36
Mukuro: 46
Reborn: 48
But considering since I posted that poll, I've written a few more chapters, and everyone has gotten a more clear view of Lambo's character, I've decided to create a new poll to vote on (especially with all the responses to the Omake I've gotten - there are a lot of Xanxus/Lambo shippers among the reviewers). I'm also going to eliminate Fon and Dino, because while I do like the characters, I think that fewer options to spread the votes between will help me get a clearer view of all your opinions.
Anyway, regardless of the poll, I hope you all enjoy the newest chapter!
Keeping Your Character - Chapter Fourteen
Lambo jerked awake from her spot on Tsuna's floor as said middle-schooler rushed through the door, slamming it behind him. She nearly leapt to her feet in anticipation of sudden danger, but relaxed upon seeing the source of the noise was only her rather wussy charge. She gazed blearily up at him, absently wiping a bit of drool away from her mouth as she watched him zoom about the room, frantically picking up dirty clothes and discarded popsicle wrappers.
"Since when did you care that your room's a pigsty?" she asked groggily, her napping in the sunshine disturbed by his noisy motions.
"Since Yamamoto-kun is coming over to do homework!" Tsuna snapped hurriedly, now gingerly picking up an ominously stained comic book.
"And you want to hide the fact that you're a total slob?" Lambo offered, propping herself up on her elbows as she woke up a bit more. 'Still, Yamamoto visiting for homework.. this means that the next chapter has started… that stupid one where no one can answer question seven,' she thought absently to herself. '…so it'll be boring.' She turned her attention back to her hapless charge. "You know, Tsuna, honesty is the best policy in most friendships," she told him sagely.
Tsuna surprisingly only spared her a brief irritated look, instead of letting himself get swept into a dizzying fit of indignant incredulity. Lambo pouted slightly at not getting a reaction, but soon twisted her body back into a comfortable position on the pillows she had snatched from Tsuna's bed, ignoring him once again. She promptly jerked her head back from the pillow upon detecting a patch of wetness caused by her drooling. Internally grumbling, she flipped the pillow over, grabbing another one to curl around, and quickly drifted off back to sleep.
What felt like only mere minutes later, she was once again roused from her slumber by a loud greeting being yelled downstairs - and a shriek of surprise from Tsuna at seeing Gokudera there, in addition to the invited guest. Upon snapping her eyes open, she was immediately met with the sight of two pools of pitch black, soul-sucking evilness not two inches from her nose.
She restricted her knee-jerk reaction of blasting Reborn with enough electricity to power a small town to a simple blink.
"Did you want something?" she asked evenly, not bothering to move from her sprawled position on the pillows - though she did shift the newest drool-spot away from her cheek. Apparently Tsuna had been too frightened of her potential reaction if he had tried to move her, and had instead skirted a small perimeter around her nest when he cleaned.
She saw the constant smirk hidden behind his innocent baby face grow a little wider.
"Dame-Tsuna and others are coming here in a few seconds to do summer-school homework," he stated, habitually stroking Leon's small green head.
"I know," Lambo told him with a somewhat disgruntled tone. "He woke me up from my nap when he started cleaning."
"Don't give them any help," Reborn ordered bluntly.
Lambo raised an eyebrow at him, the words 'Why would I even want to do that?' going unsaid. Instead, she shrugged an affirmative, and lazily snuggled back down into the nearest pillow. Reborn, apparently satisfied with her response, sat himself comfortably on one of the out-skirting pillows of her little nest.
Before she could actually return to her slumber (intent on ignoring the close proximity with a pint-sized death machine), the bedroom door slammed open, and three middle-school boys poured into the room.
Gokudera's puppyish expression upon being invited into his 'beloved Tenth's' room slipped rapidly into his habitual scowl - though perhaps with even a bit more venom in it than usual - at the sight of the black-haired hitwoman lounging on the pillows.
Tsuna sweat-dropped at the sight of his self-proclaimed right-hand man trying to bore holes in his bodyguard's skull with just his glower. 'He definitely hasn't gotten over the Bianchi pictures…' the brunet thought nervously.
Yamamoto, in sharp contrast, aimed his usual amiable grin at her. "Hey, you're Tsuna's bodyguard in the game! Lambo, right?"
Lambo, not having the heart to be a complete ass toward one of the few non-hostile people in her life, deigned to actually articulate a coherent answer, despite the sleepiness fogging her brain. "Yeah." She shook her head slightly. "And you're Yamamoto."
It wasn't a question, but Yamamoto answered a cheery affirmative anyway. Then, noticing the look his silver-haired classmate was shooting her, spoke up, "Hey Gokudera, why're you glaring at Lambo-chan like that?" he asked inquisitively. "Isn't she the one who went to all that effort to give you pictures of your sister at school when you were homesick?" an inkling of disapproval at the perceived ungratefulness made its way into the normally carefree boy's tone.
Lambo smirked slightly at vibrancy of the red hue of rage and indignation on the bomber's face. It was a close call for the baseball player - only Tsuna's hasty intervention kept Gokudera from lighting up a few sticks of dynamite and shoving them somewhere unpleasant. Well, that, and Lambo threw her most drool-covered pillow at him, and the wet slapping noise seemed to stun him into incredulous inaction for the few seconds needed for Tsuna to divert his hostile attentions.
The rest of the 'chapter event' zoomed by in Lambo's perception. Perhaps it was a good thing she was slipping in and out of sleep though, because all the fuss they made about such a simple question probably would have frustrated her into just yelling the answer at them - and considering Reborn would see that as 'helping them with their homework'… Well, it's a good thing she was too sleepy to get riled up.
It was also a good thing that her face was covered with a pillow when Haru called Bianchi in for help, so instead of starting a brawl, the pink-haired nuisance simply assumed that she was just another one of Tsuna's friends from school, and left without a fuss when she was determined to be of no help.
(And another good thing was the fact that Tsuna stopped the others from waking her up in an attempt to see if she could help with the question…)
The next time anything worthy of note happened was a few days later. Surprisingly, instead of another event of the manga taking place, the 'adventure' instead took place on one of Lambo's days off.
It all began with an idea from a disgruntled bomber.
Gokudera had walked to Namimori Middle School, in order to escort Tsuna (and consequently Yamamoto) back home after the brunet was finished with his summer catch-up classes. They had just reached the gate of Tsuna's house when it happened.
"Don't be so handsy with the Tenth!" Gokudera snarled at Yamamoto - who was guilty of the 'crime' of slinging an arm around Tsuna's shoulders as they walked.
Yamamoto was distracted from replying when his sharp eyes caught a familiar figure across the street. "Hey, isn't that Lambo-chan?"
Gokudera's irritated glare turned murderous as he spotted the hitwoman walking in the direction they had just came from, head bobbing slightly to the music spouting from her bulky headphones. "Yes," he ground out between clenched teeth.
"Hey, how come she isn't body-guarding you today, Tsuna?" Yamamoto asked curiously.
Tsuna actually smiled slightly as he remembered the reason. "Lambo has the day off today," he said blissfully. 'I have the rest of the day to myself!' he thought to himself ecstatically as he moved to go inside, intent on spending the rest of his Lambo-free day lounging on his bed, reading the manga she usually stole from him.
"Tch," Gokudera scoffed. "When it comes to the Tenth's safety, there shouldn't be any breaks. But I suppose I shouldn't expect much from such a suspicious person."
"Suspicious?" Yamamoto asked inquisitively. "Has Lambo-chan played on an opposing team before?"
"The mafia isn't a game, baseball-freak!" Gokudera hissed. "But the thing is, we don't know anything about her. For all we know, she could be an enemy spy waiting to assassinate the Tenth, or hold him for ransom, or even just collect information on him."
"How would you know that?" Yamamoto wondered. "She could just be on our team, you know."
A light bulb seemed to go off over his head. A smirk appeared on his lips.
"I'll just have to do some spying of my own then," Gokudera declared, eyes glued to Lambo, who was bent over to examine a flower growing near the sidewalk. "Today is her day off, right? That means it's a perfect opportunity to see what she does when she isn't posing as a bodyguard!"
Tsuna's eyes widened in dread, hand frozen in midair where it was about to push open the gate. "I-I don't think that's a good idea Gokudera-kun!" he nearly squeaked. 'I don't want to think of what Lambo would do if she found you stalking her! Plus, I don't want to have anything to do with her today - even though it's technically her day off, it's also mine!'
"Don't worry Tenth!" Gokudera beamed at his 'boss'. "You're a great boss to worry over your right-hand man, but I definitely need to know if she can be trusted with your safety!"
Yamamoto laughed cheerily. "So we're playing a spy game today?" he asked merrily, oblivious to Tsuna's mounting horror.
Suddenly, Reborn popped out of nowhere, clad in a ninja-like suit, with a black mask covering most of his head. "The first thing to remember when stalking someone is to never let the target out of sight," he told the boys, a small finger pointed toward Lambo.
The middle-schoolers looked to see the bounty-hunter a few feet from walking around the corner, and out of sight.
Gokudera immediately hurried after her, 'stealthily' ducking behind a few obstacles when he thought she was going to turn around. Yamamoto grinned slightly, and followed at a more leisurely pace, much less tense about the whole thing than Gokudera.
Tsuna lingered at the gate to his house, glancing longingly at his bedroom window. However, when his hand reached once again to open the gate, he was halted in his tracks by the now familiar noise of a gun cocking. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw ninja-Reborn holding a couple of menacingly shiny shuriken.
"Now, now Dame-Tsuna, a boss should never let his subordinates endanger themselves without keeping an eye on them," the tiny tutor stated menacingly.
Tsuna nearly cried, but headed off at a run after his two 'subordinates' anyway.
Lambo, though relaxed and content with having a day off, hadn't survived long enough to become renowned as the Black Sheep by being oblivious to somebody following her.
Or, in this case, somebodies.
Gokudera was concealing himself the best, currently slouching casually against the wall of an alley, the hood of his jacket pulled over his head as he smoked a cigarette. Lambo could still feel his eyes drilling into the back of her head suspiciously. Yamamoto, on the other hand, was simply walking casually around the shopping area, occasionally looking with interest at the items for sale - she could tell that he was only following her for the sake of 'playing' with his friends.
Tsuna, quite frankly, sucked at tailing someone. He was noticeably jittery as he nervously darted through the crowd of milling shoppers, and Lambo could see him sweating bullets in the reflection of the window she was staring at. Of course, some of the nerves could be attributed to the fact that she could also see Reborn in the reflection - and he was currently stroking his pet chameleon, as though he was seconds away from morphing Leon into a weapon and launching an assault on his hapless student if he failed his 'mission'.
Needless to say, it wasn't helping Tsuna with his already nonexistent 'stealthy' stalking.
Lambo repressed a sigh as she walked into her favorite manga shop. She took her time deciding on a purchase - not because she was being frugal (though she was a pretty money-conscious person), but because she was mulling over the issue of what to do with her middle-schooler stalkers.
Her best bet as to why the three boys were stalking her was that Gokudera suggested it. Being the only one of the group to grow up with the mafia, he was naturally a much more suspicious person than the other two - and while she would normally commend that trait in any aspiring mafioso, it was really freaking annoying when directed at her. Plus, Yamamoto wasn't exactly the spying type, and Tsuna had probably enjoying the break from her as much as she had from him.
She let her eyes rove over the bookshelves, and couldn't help but also reflect upon how grateful she was that this universe had all the same manga as her previous one (excluding Katekyo Hitman Reborn!, of course). Not only was it a familiar form of entertainment, but she had actually earned some money by betting on what twists in the storylines would happen. Plus, considering she was actually in the universe of a manga, it helped her come up with unpredictable combat maneuvers - which was why she mostly read shonen.
Exhaling slightly through her nose in slight exasperation - after all, she had been enjoying the break from the same people who were now following her - Lambo grabbed the newest edition of Shounen Jump, and walked to the cashier.
She'd just do her usual routine and ignore them for now. After all, she wasn't feeling particularly playful at the moment with her good mood from the time off ruined.
Plus, she could always just get revenge on them later. 'Revenge is a dish best served cold', as the saying went. (Then there was 'an eye for an eye'… maybe she'd return the favor and stalk them when the least wanted it… the idea had merit.)
Shrugging, she paid for her merchandise and left the manga store. She'd figure out something later, when she felt more like it.
"Target is moving toward a small, suspicious-looking shop. Seems to cater to the needs of small animals. Over," a voice crackled through the speaker of a clunky walkie-talkie.
Tsuna stared blankly at the communications device in his hand (Reborn had pulled them out of nowhere with his usual defiance of the laws of physics and logic, and foisted them upon his hapless student - because 'A good Mafia boss always knows what is going on during an operation.'), wondering how the small, cheery pet shop was 'suspicious'. Even to the mind of Gokudera, it seemed like it would be a far stretch. There were small, impossibly adorable puppies in the window for God's sake!
"Huh. I wonder what kind of pet Lambo-chan has?" Yamamoto wondered curiously.
"Gah! You stupid Baseball-Freak! Didn't I tell you not to mention any specific names! You never know if she might be tapping into them somehow! And respect proper communications protocol!" Gokudera snapped. "Over," he added as an afterthought.
Tsuna sweat-dropped as Yamamoto simply laughed good-naturedly in response. "Haha, Gokudera-kun, I didn't know you took games like this so seriously. You must have played spy games a lot when you were little!"
While his self-proclaimed right-hand man fumed (silently, for once, in order to not alert their stalkee that they were following her), Tsuna stared contemplatively at the pet shop, considering Yamamoto's previous question.
What kind of pet would someone like Lambo have?
Immediately, the picture of some nameless, rabid terror came to his mind, drooling acid and gesturing menacingly with tentacles the size of telephone posts. Tsuna's brain nearly wilted in dread - considering the oddities that he had been going through lately, he wouldn't put it past her to have some eldritch abomination as a pet. And he definitely wouldn't put it past her to sick the thing on him. Maybe the pet shop was suspicious. Maybe Lambo was buying raw meat for some carnivorous beast. Maybe it was even human meat. Had there been any odd disappearances around Namimori lately?
He was shaken from his anxious stupor by the cheery bell above the pet shop's door as Lambo exited the building, a small bag with the shop's logo slung around her wrist. He froze as her gaze swept her surroundings and seemed to linger on his hiding place for a moment (crouched behind a small advertisement panel on the sidewalk), before sighing in relief as she continued walking with no negative reaction.
Obviously, he hadn't been noticed, or she would've done some unspeakable horror to him.
Tsuna's eyes nearly bulged out of his sockets when he saw what his bodyguard was doing instead of wreaking a terrible vengeance upon him.
She had taken a sudden leap into the air - much higher than was 'normally' possible - only to catch a bright yellow balloon. She landed with barely a sound, and with a smile, turned toward the tiny little girl who had lost it. The girl sniffled slightly, but released her distraught grip on her pigtails in favor of retaking the balloon Lambo handed her. The girl gave her 'hero' a brilliant smile despite her puffy eyes and tear tracks, and skipped back toward her mother, who was haggling at a small fruit stand a few feet away.
Tsuna goggled at the sight. A small wheeze of disbelief puffed from his throat, as he was to shocked to actually say anything. His evil bodyguard, doing something out of the kindness of her (small, black, vengeful, ruthless) heart? Impossible!
"Dame-Tsuna, you could learn a few things from Lambo," Reborn commented after popping up behind his student. "A Mafia boss should always endeavor to be loved by the citizens of the territories in which he operates - even if he's doing terrible things when they aren't looking."
Before Tsuna could comment on how wrong that was, one of the other boys spoke up.
"Wow, Lam - I mean the target sure is nice, isn't she?" Yamamoto commented with slight admiration. "Over," he added quickly, trying to stick the 'rules of the game'.
"…it must be a trick, Tenth!" Gokudera declared, voice dripping in astonishment. "She must be altering her normal behavior for some reason! Maybe she knows we're here, and is trying to thro us off our guard!"
Tsuna, despite his stunned state, couldn't help but disagree. "Gokudera-kun, don't you think she would be trying to, um, kill us if she knew we were spying on her?" he offered somewhat tentatively.
There was silence for a moment, as they both recalled her previous acts of revenge. They were still finding pictures of Bianchi around the Middle School, and Tsuna's pillow had yet to stop smelling of squished worms.
Before Gokudera could begin to grovel shamefully for voicing an opinion in conflict with his beloved boss's, he was halted in favor of following the target - who was quickly moving out of sight.
They stealthily (not really in Tsuna's case) trailed after her as she left he shopping district, winding through the narrow streets of the suburbs until the area started to look familiar to Tsuna.
'Are we headed toward the school?' he thought in puzzlement, knowing that Lambo rarely went toward Namimori Middle School. 'And why would she go there on her day off, of all times?' he wondered.
Suddenly, Lambo ducked into a barely visible alcove, which Tsuna recognized as the place where the school dumpsters were located (he had been shoved into them on more then one occasion).
The three boys exchanged glances, before carefully tiptoeing to the mouth of the small alley, peeking inside to see what Lambo was doing.
Their face all blanked over at the sight that met their eyes. Lambo was crouched down in the middle of the alley with an unprecedented soft smile lighting up her normally apathetic face. Surrounding her on all sides were eagerly mewing little kittens, all clamoring for some of the food in the bag she held on her lap. She held out a handful of food, gently stroking the tiny creatures that ate it trustingly from her palm. From the wild cats' attitude toward her, she had obviously been there many times before.
Tsuna's brain nearly died then and there. The image was so contrary to the usual picture Lambo presented that he could barely comprehend it. After all, he knew her to be someone with little to no mercy or care for the wellbeing of fellow humans - to see her treating the small litter of kittens with such a delicate and affectionate touch nearly fried his synapses. Especially since the animals - which almost always had great survival instincts - seemed to adore her.
The boys were broken from their extreme befuddlement by the sharp clicks of confident footsteps coming up from behind them. Turning around, Tsuna was horrified, Gokudera pissed, and Yamamoto bemused at the sight of Hibari Kyoya standing there.
"You herbivores are trespassing on Namimori territory," the prefect stated steadily, settling into a loose stance with his tonfa. "School hours are over, and none of the clubs have functions that last until now." A dark aura radiated from the leader of the Disciplinary Committee. "For loitering, you shall be bitten to death."
Tsuna managed to catch a glimpse back into the alleyway, only to find it void of his bodyguard, the kitty kibble clumped on the ground in a small pile. Despite her absence, he got the distinct impression that she had just blown a raspberry at him, just before his attention was diverted by the sensation of a tonfa colliding with his ribs.
So in the end, they found out absolutely nothing about Lambo, except for the facts that:
A - she had a tiny iota of empathy for little kids in distress
B - she had a soft spot for small, furry animals
C - she knew they were following her the whole time (she confirmed it when she stated that it was no wonder Tsuna didn't have a girlfriend if he was in the habit of stalking girls)
D - she was very, very good at getting revenge (even when she wasn't trying - though they didn't know that it wasn't on purpose that they had been led into the Hibari-trap)
In short, they learned nothing 'suspicious' about her, and all they received for their efforts was the tar beaten out of them by a certain prefect for trespassing on Namimori property after school hours were over.
And after they managed to drag themselves away, the kittens in the alley gained themselves another caretaker in the form of said prefect when he noticed them. What was it with near-sociopaths and their soft spots for small animals?