Kyandi: Hey, guys!
Roksana: She got distracted again today.
Kyandi: Yeaaahhhh...I'm sorry.
Roksana: Are you really, though?
Kyandi: ...a little bit.
Roksana: Uh-huh.
Kyandi: Anyway...after reading my reviews for the last chapter, I now have an image stuck in my head.
Roksana: Do I want to know?
Kyandi: It's not that bad. It's just an image of you.
Roksana: Doing what, pray tell?
Kyandi: Wearing Hibari's dress shirt...only his dress shirt. I can already image the look on his face.
Roksana: I don't want to!
Kyandi: Party pooper. Anyway, everyone enjoy and review.
Roksana: We aren't done talking about this.
Kyandi: Line.
Roksana: Argh! Kyandi-sama does not own Katekyo Hitman REBORN.
Chapter 33 Mission Go
"Tsuna!"
Tsuna looked up as Roksana came rushing down the hall towards him, Gokudera, Yamamoto, Ryohei, and Lal. The girl had changed quickly, it seemed, swapping her night gown for a cropped, amethyst halter top over a long sleeve mesh top, black jean shorts, thigh-high black stockings, and knee-high boots. Two belts wrapped around her waist, her three boxes on one and a knife on the on the other. Her sansetsukon was already strapped to her left thigh, waiting to be drawn in battle.
"What's going on?" Roksana asked, falling into step with the others.
"A raid? Aren't we ahead of schedule!?" Tsuna asked as Ryohei handed Roksana her communications device to stick into her ear.
It was through that that they could hear Giannini and Reborn in the control room.
"it's a surprise attack by the enemy! it appears a large force has gathered about two kilometres away, in a space planned for a warehouse." Giannini told them.
"Hibari has already gone to received them." Reborn added.
"I figured it was something like that when he left the room in the middle of the night." Roksana said, clicking her tongue in annoyance.
"You two share a room!?" Gokudera demanded.
"I've already told you, he's a sleep terrorist who seems to find it necessary to take over my bed. It was that way in the past, and it seems it's still that way now. It's nothing more than sleeping, so move on." Roksana told Gokudera. "That's not important right now."
"She's right. The enemy force is large in numbers, right? He can't handle that by himself! We have to go and help him!" Tsuna said.
"We must not! We'd be defeating the purpose of Hibari putting his life on the line!" Ryohei shouted.
"Hibari has single-handedly engaged the enemy forces presently concentrated up there. Thanks to that, they will not have sufficient men to spare both here and in their hideout. If you want to repay Hibari for his actions, you must make your raid a victory." Reborn told Tsuna.
That didn't make Tsuna, Gokudera and Yamamoto feel any better about it. If anything, it had all three gritting their teeth in concern for Hibari.
"Don't be a fool, Tsuna." Roksana said, drawing Tsuna's attention to her. "Hibari will be fine."
"How do you know that?!" Tsuna demanded
"Because he promised Ryoka he would be, and Hibari is anything but a liar."
All eyes turned back to Roksana, who was focused ahead of herself. If she had such confidence in Hibari to be able to rush off into battle, then they knew they should too. They knew Hibari was the strongest of them, knew that Roksana, even in the future, probably knew him better than any of them. They had to focus on their job.
"I have a signal from one of our surveillance points above ground! The coast is clear! Boss! Right now, you can take hatch F, and follow route B to cut straight to the enemy's base!" Giannini told them.
"You know very well how strong Hibari is, don't you Tsuna? How few Volkov puts so much confidence in? If she says he'll be fine, he'll be fine." Reborn added.
"...I understand. Giannini-san, please open the hatch!" Tsuna ordered, steeling himself.
"Yes, sir! Hatch F is opened!"
They would leave Hibari to deal with the enemy forces there while they carried out their mission.
Moving quickly, the six of them exited the base and rushed through the streets of the Namimori, heading for Namimori Station. After getting a map of the Millefiore base, they had laid the map over a map of Namimori Station, finding the best entry point for the to use among the duct system. After being given their communications devices, as well as an Auto Mammon Chain Ring Cover to keep their rings off the radar, they had made the plan to slip into the base through a duct inside the generator room of an underground parking lot.
They made their way there quickly and silently, meeting up with Bianchi who had gone ahead of them.
"This way!" she called when she saw them. "I've come to see you off. Go through the ventilation duct in here."
"You don't have to come to such a dangerous place." Tsuna told her.
Not that it seemed to bother Bianchi. Roksana was pretty sure that Bianchi was no more concerned about danger, at the moment, than she was anything else.
"I'll take care of Kyoko, Haru, and the kids. Don't worry about a thing and go all out in there." Bianchi told Tsuna before turning to Roksana. "I'll take care of Marc and Ryoka, too."
"Thank you, Bianchi. Here. In case Chrome needs it." Roksana said, holding out a box to Bianchi.
"You managed to store some of your Moon flames in a Storm box?" Bianchi asked in surprise.
"I found that, with the storage box, it doesn't matter what goes in, only what opens it. I stored my flames inside a Storm box so you could use it. If she needs the help while I'm gone, sit the box on her chest and open it. The flames will sink into her body." Roksana explained. "It should keep her stable until I return."
Bianchi nodded, Roksana moving past her and into the small room behind her. Opening a hatch in the floor, they descended downward by later, Lal and Roksana going first, the boys bringing up the rear. Once inside, it was crawling through a duct for the most part. Lal went first, Tsuna following after her, then Yamamoto, Gokudera, Roksana, and Ryohei bringing up the rear.
"I never thought I'd be doing something like this. It feels like something out of a movie." Yamamoto remarked.
"It really does." Tsuna agreed.
"Yeah, well...I don't feel as slick and glamorous as James Bond or something like that." Roksana retorted. "And, by God, Hayato, if you fart, so help me, I'll find a new place to hide my sansetsukon that's highly uncomfortable for you."
Gokudera sped up a little more, pushing Yamamoto from behind, his body already clenching so not to accidentally gas Roksana. He didn't put it past her to carry out her threat. Lal directed the conversation back to their mission at hand.
"We're right above the hanger at point C5 of the Basement 3 level. Good, the map is accurate. Let's hope it stays like this. Our goal is the central installation." Lal told them.
"Lal Mirch, how are you feelin-"
Tsuna was cut off, all of them coming to a stop, when Lal shoved a foot in Tsuna's face, bringing him to a stop.
"Lal, what's wrong?" Roksana called up to her.
"There's a grid of infrared laser sensors ahead." Lal replied. "It stretches for the next five metres. If we trigger the sensors, the high powered lasers on the other side are going to carve us up. We're going to slip through this. Just as we practiced. Giannini made this special virtual light filter, which will stop the infrared lasers for five seconds. You have that interval to get through."
Bracing themselves, they got ready to move, Lal throwing the device ahead of them. As soon as the laser were down, they moved. Gokudera and Yamamoto practically had Roksana shoving them from behind. Even then, at the last second, Roksana had to twist around and grab Ryohei by the collar of his shirt, yanking him forward in time to avoid the lasers as they kicked back on.
"Whoa! Saved by a hair's breadth. Thanks, Roksana. I think I just shortened my lifespan thought...haha." Ryohei remarked.
"And mine along with it." Roksana agreed, giving his shoulder a pat. "As long as we didn't trigger anything."
Unfortunately, Roksana spoke too soon.
"What the hell! The lasers are firing! Get down!" Lal called back,
In the next instant, they were all falling through the duct and into the hanger below. Lal, Yamamoto and Ryohei landed on their feet, Tsuna and Gokudera crashing to the ground. Roksana, thankfully, was caught by Ryohei before she could hit the ground.
"Thanks for the save, Ryohei." she told him.
"Just returning the favor." Ryohei assured her as he sat her on her feet once more.
"That was close." Gokudera remarked.
"Just barely." Yamamoto agreed.
"What happened though?" Roksana asked.
"I don't think we touched the infrared laser...Volkov?" Lal called.
"I was sure I pulled Ryohei through before the lasers could touch him. I don't know why the lasers fired." Roksana replied.
"Hahaa-! That's 'cuz I pressed the switch." Roksana and her friends turned to at the hulk of a man who had spoken. "Huh-I thought it was a mole, but it's just a bunch of human kids."
Roksana tipped her head back, letting out a low whistle as she looked up at the man's face.
"Someone's a big boy." she remarked, her friends agreeing.
"Hnn? Kids? if I remember right, the word going 'round was, the Vongola Tenth Boss and his friends are all kids. But, they should be under attack and getting beaten into pulp right now, so you can't be them, eh."
Roksana shared a look with her friends out of the side of her eyes. At least their enemy didn't know they were there yet. That being said, they had to do something about this large, loud mouth before he gave them away.
"In other words, you're just ordinary kids who got lost and slipped in here. Oh well, thanks to you, I'll get to test-fire my weapon here now." the man said, Roksana and her friends tensing. "Live prey are the best for displaying the full power of my weapon."
The electricity the man released, then, had Roksana's hair standing on end before it ever reached her and her friends. Roksana only blinked for a moment, but that blink insured that she didn't see what happened with the blast exploded right before it could reach them, blowing smoke up in their faces and making their enemy think, just for a moment, that he had gotten them.
"Who did that?" Tsuna asked.
"It wasn't me." Lal replied.
"Me neither." Ryohei added.
"I didn't do anything either. Roksana?" Yamamoto asked.
"Don't look at me." Roksana replied as the smoke thinned.
"It was me." Gokudera said finally.
"Thank you, Gokudera-kun!" Tsuna said gratefully as Roksana and a few others dusted their clothes off as the smoke finally cleared.
"Don't mention it." Gokudera said proudly as their enemy stumbled over his words. Crossing his arms over his chest, Gokudera turned his attention to the man. "Move aside, you useless muscle-brain. We don't have time to play with you."
"Use...useless!? Damn you! You little brats! You have no idea what I can do! Unforgivable! You're all dead meat! I am the great Dendro, and this is my Lancia Elettrica!" the man, Dendro, yelled, drawing forth a large lance lit up with electricity.
"It's him...Dendro Chilum, also known as Top Lancer, one of their heavy assault infantry. I've heard that they positioned him in the rear of the formation, but because of his bad temper, he skewered his own comrades from the back." Ryohei remarked.
"Lovely personality, that one. Apparently "loyalty" means nothing to him." Roksana remarked.
"Yes...among those who use a lance, his penetrating power is one of the best in the Millefiore. His electric lance is coated with the lightning box's "solidifying" characteristic. There's almost nothing it can't pierce through, I've heard." Lal told them.
"If so, then this isn't good." Roksana remarked.
"Right. We'll only have one chance at this." Lal agreed.
"Hah? One chance? You won't even have half a chance! I'll obliterate you!" Dendro yelled, attacking again.
With this attack, Roksana did see what happened. Activating his gloves and flames, Tsuna countered Dendro, saving his friends.
"Didn't you hear us the first time? We don't have time to play with you." Tsuna told him.
In Roksana's opinion, Dendro really should have listened to Tsuna, but since the man didn't, it was his own fault he was defeated. Even after bringing out his box weapon, a large electrified bull, it didn't help him. Roksana let out a low hiss of sympathy when Tsuna, using his new technique, the X-burner, blew Dendro, his box weapon and all, away.
As everything settled, Roksana look on at the mess Tsuna had made of the hanger with her hands braced on her hips.
"Well...that was fun. Can we move on now?"
All of her friends turned to look at her as, unaffected by what had just happened, Roksana walked on past them, heading for the hanger doors. Moving quickly, the others followed. Moving out into the hallways, they were careful not to be seen, Lal checking the map on her hand held device as they found a ladder and climbed down.
"This is Basement 8." Lal told them.
"We're going to disable the surveillance system server that's on this floor, right?" Tsuna asked.
"That's right. If we can take down their server, their internal sensors will be crippled, and they won't be able to find us so easily. Once that's knocked out, we'll proceed to destroy the main installation and ambush Irie Shouichi." Lal answered.
"Before we go any further, Sawada, let's take care of the wound on your elbow first." Ryohei said, taking hold of Tsuna's arm.
"Eh...ah...you found out?" Tsuna asked.
"Oi, hold it right there, Lawn head! What does an extreme geek like you know about healing injuries?" Gokudera demanded.
"Don't worry. I have this box. I'm just going to burn the wound and stop the bleeding!" Ryohei said, pulling out a box.
The moment Tsuna saw the the yellow light of Ryohei's flames, he freaked out. he tried to get Ryohei to stop, claiming it was just a little scratch and they could just ignore it.
"Tsuna, calm down. It's not actually going to burn you." Roksana told him.
Tsuna looked at her wide eyed, letting out a squeal as Ryohei pressed the flame to his injury. A squeal that died out when there was no pain to be felt.
"Eh? It didn't...hurt." Tsuna remarked.
"I told you so." Roksana replied.
"Hahaha. Even though it's a a flame, this is a Dying Will flame of the Sun attribute. And, the characteristics of a Sun attribute box is Activity." Ryohei told Tsuna.
"The Sun flame activates the natural healing ability of the cells in your tissues, Tsuna. It helps you to heal at a rate hundreds of time faster than average." Roksana explained.
"It itches...it's really itchy for some reason!" Tsuna complained.
"Healing injuries itch." Roksana replied simply.
"Alright, it's done." Ryohei said, releasing Tsuna's arm to show that the injury was all healed.
"It-it's really healed!" Tsuna exclaimed.
"You see! Extreme powers of the sun!" Ryohei cheered.
"Hey, Roksana. How'd you know about the Sun flame? Did lawn-head here tell you? And don't get so excited over such a weak flame. Your lawn head is in dire need of maintenance." Gokudera said, turning the last part on Ryohei.
"What did you say?! Your octopus head has too many legs!" Ryohei retorted loudly.
"Quiet." Ryohei grabbed his head when Roksana swatted him over the head. At that rate, he would give them away. "No, Ryohei didn't tell me. It's a long story that'll have to wait for another time, so stop trying to start fights."
"She's right. Tsuna's wound has been healed. We may even be able to get out of this unscathed! We're in top condition, right! Tsuna, your new technique was pretty amazing too." Yamamoto said.
"That was really incredible!" Gokudera agreed.
"Yup, a very extreme technique." Ryohei added.
"Sawada didn't even use half of the power of that technique." Lal informed them.
"Really?!" Ryohei asked.
"Isn't that right, Sawada?" Lal asked.
"Ehh...nah...I mean...I was about twenty percent or so?" Tsuna replied.
"That was only twenty percent!?" Gokudera exclaimed. "What kind of a super technique is that?!"
"That's really encouraging, Tsuna!" Yamamoto added.
"But, it's still quite unstable so I can't fire it off at full power...besides, the enemy wasn't at his full strength either." Tsuna told them.
"Indeed, Dendro's flame was not even close to a pure electricity flame, so needless to say, he couldn't draw out the full power of the boar box. What's important is not the size of the flame, but it's purity." Ryohei told them.
"Speaking of that, the other guy's electricity flame was a lot sharper." Yamamoto admitted.
"Yeah...he's something else." Gokudera agreed.
"You mean that Gamma guy that Hibari took down right before I showed up?" Roksana asked.
"Yeah, he was ridiculous." Yamamoto told her.
"Hopefully, Hibari laid him low enough he won't make another appearance." Roksana remarked.
Agreeing with her, they all moved on, moving as carefully and quietly through the base as they could. As they moved through the halls, peering around corners, they barely came across anyone.
"The number of personnel in the base is much less than what we estimated. Looks like Hibari's decoy worked considerably well." Lal remarked lowly.
"I hope he's alright." Tsuna said lowly.
"Like I said, Tsuna...don't be a fool." Roksana told him.
"No need to worry! I've never seen that guy die from a battle before!" Ryohei told Tsuna.
"Of course you haven't. He'd be dead now if you had! Honestly, Ryohei, what kind of reasoning is that?" Roksana demanded, the man grinning at her.
"You people, don't think about playing all the time! Confirm our location on the map!" Lal hissed.
"I wasn't thinking about playing. I was thinking about smacking him upside the head. It's not like he can lose brain cells he doesn't have." Roksana told Lal lowly.
"What was that?" Ryohei asked.
"Nothing. Confirm our location."
Shrugging his shoulders and deciding to take Roksana at her word, Ryohei pulled out the hand held and checked the map.
"There're quite a lot of these black rooms spread out on this floor." Ryohei remarked.
"There's probably one right behind this wall too." Yamamoto agreed.
Turning to look at the wall Yamamoto gestured to, Gokudera caught sight of mold on the vents of the wall.
"Are they cultivating some dangerous plants here or something?" Ryohei asked.
"I doubt it. It wouldn't be so out of the way like this." Roksana replied.
"Right now, our priority is to destroy the surveillance system server. Let's hurry." Lal told them.
Nodding, they moved on. Roksana and Lal, being the fastest of the ground, moved ahead of the others, both taking turns darting across halls and around corners to make sure the coast was clear for the others. Reaching a room with a pair of large double doors, they peered inside.
"Looks like nobody's home." Yamamoto remarked.
"What's our next move?" Ryohei asked.
"Since she's more inclined to the dark, Volkov and I'll go in first. Wait for my signal, then follow." Lal told them, before nodding to Roksana.
Roksana nodded in return and the two two entered the room, Roksana following the wall, staying low to the ground as she waited for her eyes to adjust. Once they did, she scanned the room from the edge. The two females scanned the room, looking for anything that might pose them danger.
"Volkov?" Lal called.
"I'm not picking up on anything at the moment." Roksana replied.
"Alright. It's fine. There doesn't seem to be anything." Lal called out before something register through her goggles. She could even see Roksana shift in the dark, her head whipping around. "Wait!"
"What's wrong? What's going on in there?!" Ryohei called in. "Lal!? Roksana!?"
In the next second, Roksana was thundering across the room as fast as she could move.
"Lal, duck!" Roksana called before she crashed into the woman as someone attacked her in the dark.
The noise of the attack, and the resulting explosion, had the others rushing into the room. Roksana took up a defensive position standing over a now injured Lal.
"Lal?! Roksana!? Is everything alright?" Tsuna called.
"It's just a graze." Lal replied back, thanking Roksana.
"You managed to see through the pattern of these randomly multiplying targets, and device a counter within a breadth. And with one of you having no assistance seeing in the dark! As expected from an Arcobaleno failure and her comrade." came a new voice before, with a snap of a pair of fingers, lights flared to life.
Above them floated what looked like a young boy in a magician's clothes. Roksana didn't see any flames, so she had to wonder how the boy was floating like he was.
"Is...is that magic?!" Tsuna asked.
"That outfit belongs to the Magician's doll. Are you Gingerbread?" Lal asked.
"I no longer go by that name. I'm the vice-captain of the Millefiore's Eighth squad now." the boy said, landing on the ground. "I have a duty to report to my superiors about all of you being here."
If Roksana was being honest, that was a pretty stupid thing to admit when he was out numbered six to one. It was kind of like someone coming home to find robbers in their house, declaring, "You know I have to call the cops now.". It was just a little stupid. He would have been better served remaining silent and out of sight and just reporting them.
Though, Roksana was glad he hadn't.
"Still, killing you all here wouldn't be a bad idea either. Just like what I did to that Colonello of yours." the boy added.
It didn't take a genius to look at Lal's face and know...the boy had just fucked up.
"D-did he say Colonello?" Tsuna asked.
"What did you do to my master! How much I trash you will depend on your answer!" Ryohei shouted.
"Fufu! you seem to have gotten the wrong idea. Even for the seven people reputed to be the most powerful, the cursed Arcobaleno babies, they drop like dead flies when exposed to the non-Tri-ni-sette radiation. It's such a tedious matter, really. Why would I bother to kill him personally?" Gingerbread replied. "All I did was show my most cruel smile, while I suggested ways to kill him. And then I watched, that's all."
Roksana moved closer to Lal, already picking up Lal's need to kill this boy.
"Lal." Roksana say lowly in warning.
Lal glanced out of the side of her eyes at Roksana, seeing the warning look on the girl's face. Roksana was silently telling her not to let her need for revenge to cloud her judgment. Lal knew she was right, but...at the moment, that didn't mean anything to her.
"You bastard!" Ryohei snapped, stepping forward.
"Back off, Sasagawa. I will take this one." Lal told him.
"Oy vey!"
Roksana slapped a hand to her forehead, unable to believe Lal. And she had thought that Lal was one of the more mature and smart members of their little group.
Apparently, she had been wrong.
"Wait, Lal Mirch! You can't fight in your condition! Let me do it!" Ryohei snapped at Lal.
"If you lose your calm, you'd have lost the battle even before it began. Wasn't that what Colonello taught you?" Lal asked him.
Gokudera, hearing that, was convinced that Lal was completely unmoved, but Roksana, standing beside the woman, knew better. Apparently, Gingerbread could see it too.
"Are you sure? All I see is a person trying her best to restrain her own anger, though." Gingerbread remarked. "But, that's enough for the teasing. It's time to have some fun."
"Volkov, step back." Lal told Roksana.
"Have you lost your mind? He's already tagged you once and we have no idea what kind of box weapons he might have." Roksana hissed at her.
"Step back." Lal told her more sternly.
Lal turned to meet Roksana's eyes. Roksana could already tell, just from the set of Lal's mouth, that she had no plans of backing down. Clicking her tongue in annoyance, Roksana turned on her heel to join her friends. She found out, soon enough, that that wasn't a good choice to make.
"However, we're only going to have one round, just you and me." Gingerbread told Lal once Roksana was out of the way. "Once I've taken care of you, I'll be reporting to my superiors. By then, I'd probably have gotten bored with all this."
Another snap of his fingers and something fell from the ceiling, trapping Roksana and her friends in a cage of what looked like spider webs.
"What the heck!?" Yamamoto asked. "But, he didn't pull out a box at all! Nor is the guy wearing any rings!"
"He didn't pull out any boxes that we saw. Remember, when he initially attacked Lal, it was dark." Roksana pointed out, making Gingerbread chuckled.
"You're a skeptical person, aren't you?" he asked.
"You go the first thirteen years of your life with everyone calling you demon possessed because there's two different colors in your eyes and we'll see how skeptical you are." Roksana retorted.
Gingerbread merely shook his head and tsked her.
"What do the rest of you think about my sorcery? Those spiders are my servants, and they will inform me if the rest of you are thinking of interfering with our fight. Oh, my advice to you is not to move about carelessly. Otherwise, I'd just have to kill all of you." Gingerbread told them.
Lal took that moment, thinking Gingerbread was completely distracted by the others, to try to attack him from behind. Gingerbread easily managed to dodge her, but when the homing shots followed him, he took the hit with a swipe of his cape, going uninjured. Making a broom appear from within in his cape, he fired an attack from the bristled end, Roksana unable to believe the sheer stupidity of how the move looked.
Lal jumped out of the way, but ended up with her back against the wall, literally. When Gingerbread attacked again, Lal drew out her box weapon, her centipedes wrapping around her to protect her from damage. Lal counter attacked with the centipedes, the creatures managing to grab Gingerbread by the arms and legs. With his apparently captured, Lal questioned him on who killed Colonello. When he refused to tell, lal had the centipedes tighten their grip until the point of breaking limbs.
In Roksana's opinion, Gingerbread's acting, pretending that he was in pain, was awful. But she didn't have long to dwell on that as the wound he initially inflicted, suddenly burst open. As Lal crumpled to the ground, Gingerbread popped off the false limbs the centipedes had grabbed. While her friends stared at Gingerbread, Roksana was more fixed on the spiders spilling out of Lal's wounds, each one tinged with just the tiniest hints of Sun flames.
"What's the meaning of this...? The projectile I was shot with the moment I entered this room...it was a flame box weapon that hadn't been activated!" Lal said.
"Right, you are. You're skeptical friend was right. I was lying about the sorcery earlier. The things I injected into your body were from the Sun box weapon, the minuscule eggs of the Ragno Ciel Sereno. At my signal, they will "activate" and mature, then burst out from your body." Gingerbread told her.
"So gross." Roksana said lowly.
"The spiders from earlier are the same device, too. Also, there are currently thousands of Ragno Ciel Sereno eggs everywhere inside your body." As if prove his point, Gingerbread moved one finger and more of the spiders burst forth from Lal's body, causing her more pain. "Oops. Don't move about carelessly, now. Otherwise, they may be bursting out of the heart next. Fufufu! This is so much fun. Let me thank you by telling you this, Lal Mirch. At the time of his death, Colonello was fighting together with the Arcobaleno, Viper. Colonello died because he shielded Viper. The guy seems to like taking other people's places, doesn't he. I heard, that the same thing happened the day the Arcobaleno were born, didn't it?"
Roksana couldn't help but think that it sounded a lot like her. She had a bad habit of sacrificing for the sake of others, too.
"Still, you've had such a tragic life, haven't you? Poor Lal Mirch. It's all the fault of that one Arcobaleno, that nosy fool, that backfire Colonello." Gingerbread added.
Roksana could have told Gingerbread that he had just messed up. In order to put a stop to Gingerbread and his spiders, Lal called on the power of her Acrobaleno pacifier, which, to their surprise, glowed, not indigo with Mist flames, but blue with Rain flames. Apparently, when she had become a failed Arcobaleno, the partial transformation had changed her wave energy from that of a Rain attribute to that of a mix of Mist and Cloud, but that couldn't change the pacifier that dwelled with her.
With the assistance of the Rain flame's tranquility characteristic, she had neutralized the activation characteristic of the spiders. With that threat out of the way, the two clashed again and when Lal captured him again, it looked like she really was about to win, only for it to be revealed that the Gingerbread she had been fighting against, was a fake that exploded the moment Lal was about to win. Lal managed to shield herself at the last second, Roksana and the others rushing to her side.
"You managed to shield yourself with the centipede just in time?" Gokudera asked.
"That's right." Lal confirmed.
"You're really incredible, Lal Mirch. You defeated him extremely nicely. At least that's one part of my master's revenge taken." Ryohei said.
"Yeah, I don't think that's true." Everyone turned to where Roksana was crouched next to the fake Gingerbread's remains. Reaching out, she picked up a piece, holding it up over her shoulder for them to see. "It's just a doll."
"That's the reason why Ginger is called the Magician's doll. Until now, nobody has ever gotten close enough to strike directly at him. He's a sinister assassin. He must also have been witness to the dispute that destroyed his family several years ago." Lal told them.
"He's like a fairy or something." Ryohei remarked.
"You mean a monster, don't you?" Yamamoto asked.
"I agree with him." Roksana said, standing to join them.
"Oi, Lal Mirch. It's about time you tell us everything, isn't it? About the mystery of the Arcobaleno." Gokudera said.
"I refuse." was Lal's simple reply.
"Why you! You can't keep carrying the burden all by yourself! Why won't you tell us anything!" Gokudera demanded.
"Say whatever you want, but I won't change my mind. If you really want to know...ask Yamamoto." Lal told them.
All eyes turned to Yamamoto.
"Eh!? Yamamoto, you know everything?!" Tsuna asked.
"Well, yeah." Yamamoto admitted.
If Roksana was being honest...
"Eh, it's kind of fitting." Roksana said with a shrug, Gokudera glaring at her.
Of course, their conversation was cut short as an alarm sounded over their heads. Of course they couldn't get a moment to catch their breath.
It was bound to be a long night.
END
Kyandi: And all of you were doing so good, too.
Roksana: So we're just going to pretend like the earlier conversation didn't happen?
Kyandi: Uhh...pretty much, yeah.
Roksana: ...You're going to draw it, aren't you?
Kyandi: I just might.
Roksana: God, help me.
Kyandi: You'll be fine. Now, I'd like to stick around, but I had a long night last night and want to get into bed.
Roksana: So we're wrapping it up?
Kyandi: Uh-huh. Everyone, enjoy and review!
Roksana: We'll be back tomorrow.
Kyandi: Bye-bye!