CHAPTER 17

NOTES: "Japanese" | "Italian" | 'Thinking' | [Text Messages]

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Katekyo Hitman Reborn

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Contrary to what you all might think, I am actually alive... just having difficulty continuing writing any fics as I keep getting drawn into another fandom before coming back, lol.

It's been what, 6 months? 7 months? Since i last updated. For that I apologize. This chapter's quality might not be on par than the rest, but I hope to get better soon. [P.S. This fic has completely derailed from my outline. I won't guarantee regular updates, but I'll try]

[ Ring ]

Reborn frowned when his phone rang. Why was Mukuro calling so quickly? Hadn't he just began explaining about 10 minutes ago?

"Ciaossu Mukuro, did you inform Tsuna already?"

"He knows Baby," Mukuro hissed accusingly. "He knows how to use his flames."

Reborn stilled. Tsuna can already use his Flames?

"He believed it was just magic," Mukuro explained without prompt, knowing very well what the silence meant. "...and that he learnt it from his childhood friend."

He frowned, "Who is that childhood friend?"

There was a long uncomfortable silence on the phone before— "Byakuran."

"Oi Baby, has he always been this weak?" Xanxus asked, disgusted at the strength of the other 'candidate.' Everybody knew who the next Vongola Boss would be.

Said other 'candidate' was lying down on the floor, twitching as blood pooled from his wound.

"Ienari has always been weak. Winning against him during the Ring Conflict won't be an issue," Reborn said tonelessly.

Xanxus snorted, "Mammon, get rid of the illusion. Clearly, it wasn't needed."

The floating baby merely clicked their tongue but the wound and the blood instantly disappeared.

"Investing in him is pointless, Viper," Reborn informed the fellow arcobaleno. "Wasting your illusions on him is also pointless."

The baby paused before they turned towards the shrunken baby, "How did you know it was me?"

"Did you really think you could hide from me? Not to mention that there aren't that many illusions that can create such realistic illusions and harm."

The hooded baby grumbled under his breath.

"Do we even need to fight this boy?" Lussuria asked, an eyebrow raised. "Already, I can see him loosing."

Reborn huffed amused, eyes flashing vindictively.

"Oh, he's useless. His supposed guardians aren't, they might give you a brief struggle, but nonetheless, he is completely and utterly hopeless."

"Whatever trash," Xanxus finally said, after observing the still unconscious figure on the ground. If it had been anyone else, they'd already have woken up. It wasn't even a real wound, just an inflicting on his mind. 'Mini-boss would have been standing within a heartbeat... rather, he would have broken through the illusions, much less allow anything to hurt him.'

"We're leaving."

Reborn observed the way Xanxus held himself. This Xanxus really was different from the other world. Then again, that could be attributed to how he'd only been frozen for 4 years in this world.

Maybe, this world's Xanxus had learned how to control himself... or he wasn't planning for Tsuna's guardians to crash the Ring Conflict and take over.

The latter reason seemed more likely.

(The thought that maybe Xanxus would have remembered didn't even cross his mind)

Ienari woke up with a gasp, mind flailing as he was assaulted with the memories of what had just happened prior.

"Reborn!"

'He wanted me to die,' his mind screamed at him, even as his body was still learning how to function. 'He wants me to die. He left me to—"

"Stop yelling people's name Baka-Nari," a voice called from his right and Ienari couldn't help but tense. That voice was belonged to that goddamn traitor—

"Clearly you need more training."

Ienari bared his teeth in alarming savagery. He had just been stabbed and all that baby cared about was training?

"It was an illusion."

Just what was the point of the ba... did he just say illusion?

"I did, Baka-Nari."

That voice clearly didn't sound impressed with him.

"I'm not. You collapsed after one illusion."

Now, the voice just sounded insulted.

"I've never met someone so weak before. Even useless-Dino was better than you." And Tsuna, but Reborn would never say that.

Ienari felt his anger reach a new peak. This goddamn baby was annoyed by him? This baby who didn't even bother to fire him with that stupid bullet? This baby that just left him alone to fight!

He left him alone. Him! He, who was to be the next heir!

Who did Reborn think he was? Clearly, he had guts. Something that would have to be fixed as soon as possible.

(He won't let him live. He won't let him survive. He'll pay for this. He'll play)

Unbeknownst to everyone else, it was at that point that something happened that would have made them extremely happy. After all, their creation was working far better than what they'd expected.

[ Somewhere ]

"It seems like it's begun," the man with azure eyes said, eyeing the pieces on his board critically.

"Capo?" One of his called out quietly.

"Sì mio caro?"

"Has it finally begun?"

At the question, the man allowed a predatory smile to grace his face. His closest subordinates grinned too, understanding the silent answer.

"Finally, things are moving in the right direction," the only female of the group said, more than overjoyed.

At this, The Boss let out a laugh, angling himself towards the speaker.

"Oh, it always has been. This is just the beginning. We still have a lot to do," he said. "But it doesn't matters anymore. The Clams can't run away from us ghosts. Not anymore."

"Should we let our allies begin now?" Another one of his asked, eagerness exuding from him.

The Boss nodded before he paused. "What is Vittore Verme planning?"

"To attack the Vongola heir, give him a scare so to speak," The female replied lazily. "Do you want us to stop that?"

He hummed under his breath before saying, "No continue. They've earned our trust anyway. Besides, it's best to get those guardians of his on guard, wouldn't it?"

"Si!"

"Tsssssuuuuu-chaaaaan~"

Sawada Tsunayoshi made a face. He knew that voice very well. Far too well, actually. A voice that wasn't supposed to be here.

"Surprise✰"

Byakuran.

"Aww~ Don't make that face, Tsu-chan~ After I took the time to come meet my childhood friend~"

The brunet glared, the white haired teen laughing casually.

"What are you doing here?" he whispered under his breath furiously. "What if they see you?"

They referring to his guardians. Mukuro and Chrome had just left Nebesa, but nobody knew when they would return. If they were to see Byakuran here, at Nebesa, then it would be annoying.

"It's okay Tsu-chan~" the marshmallow loving addict said flippantly before he turned serious. "Now what's this about me teaching you to access your flames?"

Tsuna huffed at the abrupt change of topic, but let it pass. He had sent Byakuran a message just after his Mists left in a haste, informing him of what had transpired. He did expect to be contact, just not in-person.

"I thought the plan was to keep them in the dark?" Byakuran asked, eyebrows raised. To be honest, he had been planning on meeting Tsunayoshi's twin, but this message had completely derailed that plan. Regardless, he wasn't supposed to be here yet, so it still made Tsu-chan slightly mad~

It seems that only Xan-chan would be taking the burnt of the brunet's anger.

"They want to crash the Ring Conflict."

"Huh?"

Tsuna closed his eyes briefly, feeling a migraine coming. He repeated himself slowly, "My guardians are planning to crash the Ring Conflict."

"...Well then, that changes everything."

Understatement of the century.

"Well then, it's a good thing that Yuni-chan and Xan-chan are here~ We just have to get him and our engineers on video chat~"

Tsuna twitched.

[ At TakeSushi ]

"What do you mean he knows about Flames already?!" Gokudera erupted in disbelief. "I thought he knew nothing!"

"He doesn't consider them Flames," Mukuro said distastefully.

"He thinks its magic," Chrome continued off. "A magic that only he has access to.. something he's known for ever since Nebesa began."

"Then why did he never tell us?" Takeshi asked confused. "Or any of you when he knew you had magic?"

"...He was told to keep it hidden since it would only get him in trouble," Mukuro said sighing, recalling the wide innocent doe eyes from before.

"He was told?" Gokudera immediately picked it up. "By who?"

"..Byakuran."

[At Nebesa]

"Why'd you call for a meeting, Tsuna-kun?" [-] asked, eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "Didn't we have our monthly meeting just a few days ago?"

"We have a problem," Byakuran spoke in lieu of Tsuna, who seemed to be just done by the turn of events. "Tsunayoshi's guardians are planning on crashing the Ring Conflict."

[-] frowned, "What's the prob— Oh."

"Exactly," Byakuran said, leaning back as all eyes fixed their attention on him. "Oh."

"What should we do now?" Yuni asked.

"Does it matter?" Xanxus said lazily. "I'm still going to enjoy fighting with mini-boss."

Tsunayoshi glared.

Xanxus snorted, "It's your fault for settling this as peacefully as possible and don't think I'm going to go easy on you. I haven't forgotten that you didn't let me do a coup d'etat."

Tsuna merely huffed. As if Xanxus ever went easy on people.

[-] groaned, hands coming around his stomach as though it were aching, "You should've expected this. Don't you guys have, like, your memories or something?"

"I thought they'd be smart about it," Byakuran grumbled. "Especially after receiving their memories.

(Later on, Byakuran would curse the heck out of transferring their parallel memories. If only he had figured it out earlier onwards, then things wouldn't be this bad!)

"So what should we do now?" [-] asked, red eyes looking around calculatingly. "We can't keep Tsuna-kun in the dark anymore since his guardians are planning that."

[Revise the plan] Tsuna finally contributed to the conversation. [We need to now somehow include me being a part of the Ring Conflict... Ah, Ienari won't like this]

Everybody raised their eyebrows in tandem.

"No offense Tsuna-kun, but even I don't like your younger twin," [-] said, pushing his glasses up. "And I don't even have my memories, mind you."

"Please, as if you need your parallel world memories in order to like Tsuna," [-] snorted gleeful. "Don't you and the other mechanic lover like him? Besides, I heard that Reborn has already somehow managed to convert that suicidal twin's guardians to be followers of Tsuna."

Tsunayoshi groaned at the reminder. Why was it that Reborn and his guardians didn't get the memo that he didn't want a cult?

"Knowing Reborn, he might even get the arcobaleno to come early and put Ienari in his grave early," [-] tacked on afterwards, laughing when Tsuna glared at him weakly.

[ Back To Tsuna's Guardians ]

"Wait, hold on," Gokudera says quickly. "Byakuran remembers?"

"He exists in this world?" Takeshi asked bewildered, causing everyone to stare at him.

"Of course he does Baka!" Gokudera erupted. "The main question is how does he remembers?!"

"THIS IS AN EXTREME DISCOVERY!"

"Stop screaming Ryo-nii!" Lambo ironically yelled out.

"Be quiet herbivores," Kyoya hissed, brandishing his tonfas from somewhere. "The white herbivore remembers and knows the omnivore. Omnivore doesn't knows about mafia, so the white herbivore taught him to defend himself from predators. Move on."

Everybody stared at the Cloud.

"That might have been the easiest and longest sentence for the skylark," Mukuro mused. "At the very least, we won't have to worry about Tsunayoshi-kun learning to use his flames or fighting at the Ring Conflict."

"But we would need to contact Byakuran and see exactly why he contacted Tsuna-sama so early," Gokudera continued. "The only question is how to contact him."

"Ask Tsuna?" Takeshi offered. When everyone just stared at him, he defended himself. "What? It's the only way! Who knows if his number even the same in this universe!"

"Bossu did complain about him changing his phone numbers frequently," Chrome added as she remembered the many rants he had on this subject.

"Why would you need to contact Tsu-chan when I'm already here~"

(Needless to say, Byakuran had a lot to complain about after this meeting. Mainly about how trigger-happy the guardians were. Tsuna just laughed at his predicament.)

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Well then~ Ienari is not actually dead. Was nothing but an illusion [Like I'm going to kill him this early and quickly.] Sorry to those who thought he had actually died!

This chapter was mostly me trying to get back the feel of this story. Next update should explain more things that people are confused about (Tsuna's relationship with Byakuran for example) and a few more things that would further the plot.

Ienari will never change. Also, the villains... well, they'll have their screen time... in the distant future.