Skull took in a deep breath, held it in, and let it go. He sighed, and opened his eyes. "Oi," he muttered, "Are either of you guys gonna talk?" Skull's eyebrow twitched as he stared down the two kindergarteners. Somewhat unconsciously, they both turned to face the threat; sweat collected on their brows and the backs of their necks, but they did not back down. It was rather admirable, Skull grudgingly admitted, and he would be impressed, if it wasn't for the stifling silence all around them.

... Silence…

Skull twitched.

It was still silent.

"Oi," he hissed, standing up and blackening the area with his fury, "WHEN ARE YOU GUYS GONNA START TALKING?!" Skull shouted, bowling Tsuna and Takashi over with sheer wind-power. Tsuna went head over heels backwards, but Takashi, being more used to his teacher(?)'s eccentric ways, managed to stick in place long enough to be knocked over by BowlingBowl!Tsuna. They rolled and slid and crashed into the back wall, ending Skull's mini-tantrum with a collective sweatdrop.

Skull twitched, again, as the observed human meatball against the back wall stayed in place, growing redder and hotter the more that time went on. Skull twitched, but then he sighed and moved forward, having thusly decided that these idiots needed an adult to deal with their shizillpops.

Skull plopped down next to the two blushing, silent boys. "Oi," he said, leaning over to look Tsuna in the eye, "You want to know why Takashi can't touch you, right?" Skull observed the boy until his head hesitantly moved up and down. Skull nodded decisively and turned to Takashi. "And you," he said, "You want to keep your friend, right?" Takashi blinked hard, twitched his lips like he wanted to speak, but ultimately let his head do the talking: he nodded.

Skull's eyes softened. "Kid," he told Takashi, "If you want to keep your friend, ya gotta let him in some. Okay?" Skull added softly, watching Takashi carefully for any trembling or tears. There was trembling, but that's all there was. Skull prodded Takashi gently with his foot. "Kid," he said softly, "It's your turn now."

It was like a damn had been broken. Takashi took a deep, shuddering breath (still somewhat terrified to be so close to his best friend right now), but told the story. Well, what he knew of it. Skull pitched in about Flame types and his suspicions about Takashi's own (honestly, they were but guesses: it was up in the air at this point if Takashi was a Storm or a Rain), but mostly let Takashi talk about the silver string he found in the morning, the sight of Skull practically glued to the cellar ceiling, and the terrifying practice followed by the even more terrifying revelation. Skull had to admit, he was a little nervous how the conversation would go, but Tsuna seemed to be taking it remarkably well. The more Takashi talked, the more animate Tsuna became – the deadpan over Takashi's endless fascination with a tiny piece of string (which nearly broke Skull's somber mask, to be honest, but he kept it, if only so Takashi could move past the humongous blush Tsuna's deadpan incurred) evolved into a full-on glare that was, thankfully, pointed at Skull and not Takashi. Truthfully, Skull was little peeved (and proud) that this little half-pint thought himself worthy of glaring at his sempai, but Takashi's relieved expression broke the tension.

… And then the silence re-descended.

Tsuna was too busy glaring at Skull and mulling over what he'd heard to really strike up a conversation, and he was the sort of person that assumes that everything is fine with their friends so long as their friends say nothing. In other words, Tsuna was ignoring Takashi in favor of Skull because Tsuna thought that the whole I-step-you-flinch-OUCH situation had been resolved.

Takashi, for his part, was one part terrified, the other part petrified. Not only was Tsuna ignoring him, but he was purposefully ticking off his sensei. The one that, not too long ago, blew them over with a yell. Seriously, shouldn't that be warning enough… ?

Skull was actually multi-tasking. He, much like Tsuna, was of the mind that this could all be resolved now that they'd talked about it, and was so more worried about Takashi's training regime than a measly little glare like Tsuna's. And it was within reason; truth be told, Skull had never taught anyone before. He had been utterly hopeless at school, to the point where he had been withdrawn from school early, and so had never had a one-on-one/classmate-teaching-classmate experience. Furthermore, during his tenure as a professional stuntman, strategist, and assassin, he was alternatively too high- or too low-class to pass on his knowledge to anyone else.

So, for all sakes and purposes, it was actually of vital importance that Skull ignored Tsuna's weak glare and worried about how in god's name he was going to teach Takashi. On one hand, he could continue down the route he'd seen Reborn follow, filled with (headache-inducing) lectures and pain-filled practical lessons, or Skull could forge his own path. On one hand, Reborn had achieved much, and the disciples that were forced on him by various famiglia always ended up being at the top of the food chain. On the other hand… the one time that Skull had fought against a student of Reborn, he had found a girl so warped and twisted beyond recognition, that he had abandoned the fight, filled with pity and sorrow for a girl who was so cursed by heaven. To this day, Skull cannot stand the sight of anything pink.

So getting back to the task at hand, it was probably better for Skull to forge his own way, rather than risk such a catastrophic failure. Especially, Skull thought as he glanced over at his 'disciple', in the case of children. Warping children, Skull decided with a shudder, was a deed so terrible he wished he was a god, just so he could fix this whole mess of a world.

(Ah, Skull smiled, But isn't that what got us into this mess in the first place?)

As Skull continued to mull over the possibilities (and return Tsuna's glare with a vacant, if oddly formidable, expression), Takashi gulped. It wasn't very loud, not to the room at large, but to Takashi it was everything. His emotions were all over the place, and, as he had discovered recently, that feeling of being out of control threw his ability clean out of wack. Takashi's head hurt and pulsed with the various creatures (serpents of anxiety, panthers for power, cows for childbirth, crows for murder) zipping and zoomed about the room in fantastic colors:

Zip. There went a purple tigeress chasing after a set of Easter eggs.

Zoom. There went a set of serpents, hissing and squirming as they tried to untie themselves from their serpent-esque knot.

Za- Takashi shut his eyes, trembling.

He knew it was foolish and weird and strange and a million other things, and he knew why he was out of control. It was silly, perhaps even more silly than having the mystical abilities Takashi possessed, but he was afraid. Deathly afraid, and a million other things besides. But most of all, sitting next to a cat-like (the glaring really only added to the image, like an indignant kitten upset that there was someone else drinking their milk) Tsuna, Takashi was afraid for their friendship. A lot had changed in such a short amount of time.

It was taking a while to sink in, all this new information, and to be honest, it felt like Takashi's head was going to explode at any second. The animals and wacky colors (Takashi's headache increased; the ceiling and the walls just joined the pulsing jambo) weren't helping any, and Takashi knew it was foolish and silly and a million other things, but he was trying to tie himself back together over Tsuna. To Tsuna. It was stupid and silly and not at all smart, like Takashi tried to be, but Tsuna had the potential to be the old and the new; what Takashi had had before (a beautiful friendship, a loving father, and a growing group of friends) he could have again... but only if Tsuna stayed. Truthfully, Tsuna was the only one keeping Takashi's world together, at the moment, considering everything that had happened recently.

So why wouldn't Tsuna say anything?!

O X O

… This sucked. Badly. I wrought this at night, when I was very much sleep-deprived and hungry to boot. I'm sorry, there was more I was planning to add, but then I got a bunch of projects (Killua: *coughs loudly* Read; she got sucked into Hunter X Hunter) – shut up! – and I actually forgot about this. Well, kind of. I did complete this early… and in my defense, I thought I had a job interview immediately after school today… plus a million other things on my plate. *sighs* I know this chapter was subpar and the pacing is bad, but I was writing with the mindset of what I would do if my best and first friend ever found out that I tried to commit suicide. Actually, scratch that, the situation was very different (we literally binged on Chinese and then watched Mad Max: Fury Road; it was awesome), but I thought the mindset worked well. Well, until I went back and reread my horrible work. T^T I'm sorry guys, this is late too…

R & R. Please and thank you.