The day was bright and cheerful. The warm air of summer was carried by the wind gently and not too strongly. The clouds gave welcomed shade to the inhabitants beneath them. Everything was perfect. Except, that is, when Hanabi met Suzuki.

"Suzuki Kouhei…huh?" she said suspiciously while surveying the boy carefully.

"Yup," he nodded cheerfully, impervious to the obvious hate-vibes that were coming off the girl.

"Gokudera-san, Suzuki has been my friend since we were kids," Hide began cautiously, "Don't kill him."

"Hahah! Good joke Hide!" Suzuki laughed and slapped the boy on the back.

Hanabi's eye twitched in annoyance and she yelled, "Boss, I can not allow this, this, this..." she waved a hand for emphasis, "moron to be a part of the Family!"

"Gokudera-san!" he hissed.

"Family? What's that?" the black-haired boy asked.

"It's the Mafia," Reborn said bluntly, he had once again randomly appeared out of no where this time from a wall tile.

Hide grimaced, as he knew where this was probably going to lead to. So how did he end up in this situation? Well…

~8~

30 minutes ago…

Hide sat in his living room, watching television on the couch while eating out of a bag of chips, Adam sat next to him in the lounge chair that was next to the couch. Reborn walked into the living room and looked at the scene of lazy teens in the summer.

"Mama says that she needs leeks from the store," the infant announced, "I said you would do it, Hide."

"I can't," the teen replied, "My favorite show is going to be on in two minutes."

In the next two minutes Hide was being dragged out of the house by Reborn with a fresh bruise on the back of his head.

"I'll go with you, Boss!" said a female voice; Hanabi suddenly appeared from behind the gate that was in front of his house.

"What?" Hide asked.

"I said I'll go with you," she repeated, "Reborn-san called me over to play, it wasn't like I was doing anything important at the time!"

Hanabi was dressed in a white t-shirt with a golden star on it and in camouflage cargo pants with matching camouflage converse shoes. The dirt marks, scratches, and small blood stains on her shirt and legs were most notable.

She was definitely doing something…Hide grimaced.

"Good luck on your mission Boss!" Adam waved from the door way.

"Don't call going to the grocery store a mission, and aren't you my body guard?" he asked.

"Well, if the Smoking Bomb is going with you, then there's really no point in me going with you," the foreigner shrugged, "I can trust her with protecting your life for me."

Hide could tell that Hanabi was absolutely flattered by this and she started to swell with pride, mainly because she said, "I'll protect you Boss!" and then she grabbed his arm and ran off.

It took Hide fifteen minutes to actually get to his feet while Hanabi was still running. "Gokudera-san!" he began while still running, "Calm down! We're just going to the grocery store!"

Hanabi froze in her tracks, causing Hide to experience inertia and doing a complete 180, as she gave Hide a threatening look and said, "We can't Twelfth, there's something dangerous in Namimori!"

This freaked Hide out a little bit and he said shakily, "D-Dangerous!?"

"That's right!" she nodded and began in a spooky voice, "I saw it this morning while I was walking around downtown- I was just walking ya know? Just minding my own business, when this creepy old man came up to me and said, 'Can I help you, little girl?' and I said 'No you creeper,' and then he said, 'Nonsense! Kids these days are so skinny! You're like a stick, come and I'll treat you to some ramen!' and I was like, 'I don't frickin' like ramen, you creepy old bastard. Now get out of my way!' and he was all weird and stuff and kept on talking about different types of food, and, and…"

Hide drowned her out at this point. The constant 'and's were beginning to bug him and it turned out that later on in the story nothing dangerous had happened at all, making him wonder why Hanabi told him all this in the first place.

"And so I was like-" she began but stopped suddenly.

"What is it Hanabi?" Hide asked.

She looked around and whispered, "Someone's been following us."

The young Boss' eyes widened and he leaned in to whisper, "This whole time?"

"Yeah," she nodded quietly.

"W-What do we do?" Hide asked while imagining all the worse situations.

"Don't worry Twelfth!" the silver-haired female winked proudly, causing Hide to think of much worse situations, "I'll take care of this!"

With that, she tip-toed her way to the corner and tackled the first thing she saw that came around it. Then, she immediately stopped beating the person up as soon as she heard Hide yell, telling her to get off of Suzuki.

~8~

"Mafia?" Suzuki questioned and then asked, "Is that some sort of new MMORPG Hide?"

"Yeah!" the blonde-haired boy nodded quickly before his tutor could say anything else.

"A-what?" Hanabi asked.

"Y-You know Gokudera-san," Hide said quickly, "A Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game."

"A-what?" she asked again, this time even more confused.

"You should join it too Suzuki Kouhei," said Reborn.

"REBORN!" the boy hissed.

"Eh? Hey, aren't you that kid that ate all the sushi in the restaurant that one time?" he said and bent down to be almost at level with Reborn, "Haha, how'd you know my whole name kid?"

"A hitman knows his target inside out," the infant replied.

Suzuki smiled sincerely and asked, "Oh? You're a hitman huh? It must be troublesome to be one at such a young age."

Reborn shrugged and said, "You live with it."

"I see, I see," he nodded understandingly.

He's going along with it!? Hide gawked.

"The Boss is Hide," Reborn continued, "You should join the Family too."

"Really then?" he grinned and looked over to Hide who flinched a little, "If that's so, I want to be in Hide's Family too."

"What!?" the boy gawked.

"Relax, Hide," the baseball player winked at his friend, "You know how we used to play those pretend games when we were little, right?"

This is not the same thing Suzuki! Hide grimaced.

"Very well, you may join," Reborn nodded in approval.

"Wait! Wait a second!" Hanabi interrupted, "Reborn-san, Boss, I will not allow this idiot to just outright join the Vongola!"

"Vongola? Is that a type of food?"

"See?"

Hide relaxed a little; at least now he could tell Suzuki that if Hanabi didn't want him to join so strongly, then he just couldn't join. It was a perfect plan until Reborn said:

"I thought this would happen, so I arranged an entrance test."

"You did?" said Hanabi with delight.

"You did?" said Hide with horror.

"But Hanabi, you'll have to take the test as well since you haven't taken one yet," the infant added.

"No problem Reborn-san!" she said excitedly, "This'll be a great chance to show off in front of the Twelfth!"

"An entrance test then?" Suzuki grinned, "What do we have to do?"

"There are two parts to the test. First, there's a written part," he said, and held in his hands two sheets of paper which they both took eagerly.

They stared at the paper for a few seconds before Hanabi looked up to Reborn and said, "Um, Reborn-san this has only one question on it."

"Then answer it," he said.

Hanabi sighed and looked back to the question at hand, it was a fairly easy question for her. The question was: 1/2x +1/2(1/2x + 1/2(1/2x +1/2(1/2x + ...) = y, find x.

"Y is equal to one and X is equal to one so Y equals X," she immediately answered.

"EH? Are you serious!?" Hide gawked at the speed she solved it.

"Yeah, my tutors taught me this when I was eight."

"You had tutors too?"

"Hanabi comes from a prestigious family within the Mafia Underworld," said Reborn, he looked over to Suzuki who looked like he was struggling with his problem, "How's it going Suzuki?"

He looked up and grinned sheepishly, "Ah, well this question looks pretty hard to me…"

Suzuki held up his question for everyone to see: x + 12 = 15, find x

"Suzuki has never been good at math," Hide pointed out.

"Yup, Hide here's my failure buddy!" the boy laughed.

Hanabi laughed at him and said while cackling, "You can't even do something like that!?"

Suzuki laughed along with her and said, "Well I'm not really cut out for math problems, hahah!" And with that he threw the paper and pencil over his shoulder and quickly forgot about it.

"You both pass," said Reborn.

"What!?" Hanabi yelled.

"Cool!" Suzuki grinned.

"A hitman needs to be smart, but he doesn't need math problems," he explained.

"How are you even grading them!?" Hide grimaced.

~8~

They had gotten to a deserted part of Namimori, where all the buildings had been deserted for a long time and were now just empty warehouses and empty buildings that had supposedly been forgotten. It used to be the central part of Namimori, Hide remembered his mom telling him this; it was once the Shopping District, but things changed in fifty years.

"Wow, there are still light poles here?" said Hide when he spotted the poles lining the streets.

"I bet they run on electricity still," said Suzuki from besides him, "My history teacher said that they did, before they started running off of hydropower."

"What the heck is up with this red trashcan?" Hanabi asked while kicking a red mailbox.

Reborn watched them wonder at the old town for a few seconds until announcing, "The next part is a physical one."

"This one will be easy," said Suzuki brightly.

"Finally, a chance to show off my physical skills to Twelfth!" the silver-haired girl muttered to herself.

"There are several sections to the physical test," Reborn began to explain; "There's endurance, flexibility, and aim. We're going to start with aim."

This one'll be easy! Hanabi grinned and looked over to Suzuki who was grinning brightly, I'll show you up you pretty boy baseball idiot!

"You'll need to hit this target over there," Reborn pointed to a target that was on top of a warehouse building.

"How did you even get that up there so fast?" Hide dared to ask.

"A hitman always plans ahead," he said.

So…he planned all this huh? the boy thought.

"Get out of the way baseball idiot!" Hanabi pushed Suzuki out of the way as she took out a playing card, "This distance is nothing for me!"

"W-wait Gokudera-san!" Hide yelped.

"Don't worry Boss, these cards are my training cards," she said cheerfully, "They don't explode."

Hide sighed with relief as Hanabi readied her aim and noticed Reborn holding a deck of playing cards in his hand. He tugged on Hanabi's jeans and she looked down to him.

"You can't use those cards, use these instead," he said, "I modified them just for this occasion."

"For me Reborn-san?" she said with endearment and exchanged the deck for the one she had, she froze before throwing them and frowned, "Thanks, but these seem a bit heavier."

"Don't worry about it," he said dismissively.

"Well…if you say so Reborn-san…" she said taking out a card and readied her aim before she threw it towards the target on the building. The card spun through the air, hitting the target with ease before it exploded.

"W-What!?" Hide screamed, "I thought you said you modified them!"

"I switched her training cards with special Vongola Cards," Reborn explained, "Instead of the explosive chemical compounds she uses, I put in gun powder. It's not as effective as hers though and it only gives the cards enough power as your average cherry bomb."

WHY would you do that!? he grimaced.

"Twelfth! Twelfth look!" said Hanabi with awe and complete and total obliviousness that it was just gunpowder, "My throw was so powerful that it made the target explode!"

Does she seriously think that's what happened!?

"Way to go, Hanabi," Reborn congratulated.

He's going along with it!

"You're next, Suzuki," the infant said.

"Beat that Suzuki Kouhei!" The silver-haired bomber said smugly.

Suzuki looked up at the roof top thoughtfully before pointing at it and saying, "I can't, you blew up the target."

"You both pass," the infant said instantly.

"I do?"

"He does?"

"A hitman needs both aim and perception," was the excuse.

How does any of this even work out…? Hide grimaced as they went on to the next test.

~8~

"Now we'll do the endurance part," said Reborn, they were now inside one of the warehouses that was about the same size of the track field at Namimori Middle. Reborn took out a suitcase and held out two thick, black bands that were for the use of Suzuki and Hanabi.

"These are weights," he said, "You will both wear them and run two miles with these things on."

"How heavy are they?" Hide asked as Hanabi took one of the bands and dropped it as soon as she held onto it, the cement underneath cracked the moment it hit the cement.

"How heavy do you think?" the infant said innocently to Hide's horrified look.

"O-Okay, I'm ready now…" she eagerly said as she readied herself with the weights on, her entire body was shaking with the weights on her wrists and ankles, "B-Bring it on pretty-boy!"

"Wow these are pretty heavy!" Suzuki chuckled as he flexed his arm with the weights on, "What are these, eighty pounds?"

"Eighty-five actually," said Reborn.

"That's not more than I can bench press," he said with delight and readied himself in a good running position, he was completely unfazed by the weight, "I think my record was actually a hundred and five pounds."

"B-Bench press?" Hanabi questioned.

"It's lifting weights on your back," Hide explained, "Suzuki is one of the best players on the baseball team."

"Che, let's just get this over with," she sneered as Reborn shot the lime-green starting gun in his hand.

They took off…at a slow pace. The weights were holding down Hanabi from her actual speed-potential, and Suzuki couldn't run that fast to begin with especially with weights on. Nevertheless, Suzuki was still going faster due to the fact that he actually did do daily exercise routines unlike Hanabi. The race took a while, but it was finally over and they both tied with each other; Hanabi collapsed to the ground while Suzuki rested his hands on his waist and breathed heavily.

"You both tied," said Reborn with a stop watch, "Your time is thirty minutes and twenty-seven seconds."

"I…I hate…running!" Hanabi panted as she tried to get off the ground.

"You should probably take off the weights," Suzuki suggested as he unbuckled the bands.

"Shut up," she grumbled and took the off, she sighed with relief as the weights came off and rubbed her wrists.

"You both pass," Reborn said with approval.

"Yeah," Hanabi said passively.

"Cool," said Suzuki while trying to catch his breath.

They're too tired to be happy, Hide noted.

~8~

They were now in a different warehouse; there were blue mats on the ground and Reborn appeared in a pink leotard with a green headband, and to Hide's horror, started doing stretches.

"Now we'll do the flexibility part of the test." Reborn said while still doing the stretches. "Just touch your feet to the ground without bending your knees."

There was silence; was it really that easy? Compared to the other challenges this one sounded way too easy, and there wasn't any way for Hanabi to mess this up for Suzuki.

"Is that all?" she asked.

"Yes, that's all," he said, "It's harder than it looks, though especially if you haven't done it in a while."

"Hah! I'll just finish this quickly so I can get this over with!" said Hanabi; she could now taste the sweet succulent taste of victory over her new rival.

"Go ahead when you're ready," said Reborn.

Hmph, flexibility…hah! Hanabi laughed in head, I'll mop the floor with this guy, just watch, Twelfth!

Please don't kill him! Please don't kill him! Please don't kill him! Hide prayed in his mind.

The girl bent down to touch her toes and when she did she smiled triumphantly. Victory was now hers! Sweet, sweet victory!

"Your knees aren't straight," Reborn pointed out.

She looked down and realized that her knees were indeed bending, so she straightened them out but she then realized that she was having difficulty with her finger tips touching the toes.

"What's going on here?" Hanabi growled.

"Flexibility is something you need to work at," Reborn stated, "You need to do some stretches everyday in order to be able to touch your toes. Look, not even Suzuki can do it."

Hanabi looked over to Suzuki's spot as he was sitting straight up with his hands stretched out in front of him. Hide was struggling with pushing the boy to the ground.

"H-How can you not even bend down?" Hide asked.

"Eh? You really can't push me down?" Suzuki asked obliviously.

"Since you both can't finish the test," Reborn began, "You both fail."

"NOOO!" Hanabi yelled out to the sky.

"Man, that sucks," Suzuki sighed and rubbed the back of his head sheepishly.

"I'm so, so sorry Twelfth!" the girl cried at Hide's feet, "I wanted to be your right-hand so badly, but a person who can't even pass an entrance exam doesn't even deserve to live!"

"I think you're taking it a little too far Gokudera-san…" he said.

"Don't worry about it, guys;" said Reborn with a cheerful smirk on his face, "since you both have tied so far, I've decided to let you both in."

"YES!" Hanabi cheered while thrusting a fist into the air.

"Isn't that great Hide?" said Suzuki to his friend, "Now we can all join!"

That's not great! Not great at all Suzuki!! Hide screamed in horror in his mind.

"Twelfth! To make up for my insolence I'll work even harder to become a proper right-hand for you!" said Hanabi with determination.

That's what I feared most! the boy grimaced.

"Eh? But aren't I more fitted to be Hide's right-hand man?" said Suzuki playfully, "I'm actually a man after all."

The girl took this as a threat and yelled, "It doesn't matter whether I'm a girl or not, as long as I can protect the Twelfth and serve him to the best of my ability, then I am most fitted to become the Twelfth's right-hand!"

"Well, I've known Hide the longest so I should be his right-hand," the boy persisted, "You can be the left-hand."

"What!?" Hanabi's face went red with vivid anger and she yelled, "Yeah right! You can be the foot!"

Suzuki laughed and continued, "Then you can be the nose."

"Then you're the shoulder!"

"Elbow."

"Ear!"

"Hahah! Knee!"

"Liver!"

Now they're just naming body parts…Hide sighed.

"I feel like I've seen this argument before," Reborn mumbled thoughtfully to himself.

The young Boss sighed tiredly; his eyes wandered over to the sunset that the buildings crowded and realized that he had actually left his house at one in the afternoon and that the super market closed at six.

"Crap! We still haven't gone to the store to pick up those leeks!"

"Yeah I know," said his tutor dismissively.

"Then what are we doing here!?" the boy yelled, "The store closes in thirty minutes!"

"Ah, that sucks," said Suzuki sheepishly, "I would have said that I could have taken you on my bike, but four people can't ride on it."

"And there's no way in hell I'm leaving Boss with a complete idiot," Hanabi said bluntly.

"Hahah, you're hilarious Hanabi!" the baseball player laughed.

The girl's eyebrow twitched and she said in a low tone, "What did you call me bastard?"

"Enough!" Hide yelled, "We only have thirty minutes to get to the grocery store and, quite frankly, I would like to solve this problem without explosions or bullets!"

They all fell silent and gave a surprised expression towards Hide. Hide himself felt a little embarrassed about the outburst but at least it got them to shut up and listen.

"Now then," he breathed out, "if we don't get those leeks, mom will probably ground me. So does anyone have a suggestion that does not involve anything lethal or could possibly be lethal?"

Reborn and Hanabi put their hands down while Suzuki pondered over the problem. The boy brightened when he remembered something and said:

"I completely forgot that I just came back from finishing the deliveries!"

"What has that got to do with anything?" said Hanabi, she was slightly annoyed by the boy's cheeriness.

"I don't use my regular bike for deliveries because the sushi is usually too heavy," he explained, "So I have an old hovercycle that I use."

"A hovercycle?" Hide questioned and remembered something like it when he was little, "You mean Gramps' old hovercycle? The one that's in the backyard?"

"Yup!"

"Can't that one only go up to 40 miles per hour though?"

"It should get you to the market in time," Suzuki persisted, he grabbed Hide and Hanabi's hands and said, "C'mon! We're burning daylight after all!"

Hanabi did not like being touched, especially by a moronic, baseball playing, pretty boy. She would have yelled at him, beaten the daylights out of him, and then have him explode, but she remembered what her Boss said about not involving explosions or dangerous things. So she sighed and put up with it no matter how much it annoyed her. And it pissed her off deeply.

"Here it is!" Suzuki announced when they had gotten to a rusty, light blue machine with a pad at the bottom of it.

"I forgot how old it really was…" Hide lamented.

The hovercycle had been invented twenty years ago and the one Hide was staring at was probably a fifth generation model. Compared to the newer and sleeker models, this one was larger and used to run on gasoline but had been modified to run on carbon, which explained the giant engine in the back of it.

Hide remembered that his Gramps said that this hovercycle used to be called the Ferrari of its time, but now it was the equivalent of a giant minivan. The hovercycle consisted of an oval-shaped platform with rubber underneath it; handlebars in the front of the platform that could be raised up and down according to height; the engine was at the front of the cycle, in front of the handlebars; the hovercycle also didn't have any seats nor a roof over it incase it was raining or it was snowing, the only thing that had any actual protection on it was the engine so that it wouldn't explode or rust as quickly as the other parts did; there was also a cooler strapped to the back, probably an accessory that Hide's Gramps put on himself.

"What's with this chunk of metal?" Hanabi asked, "It looks like one of the first models of hovercrafts!"

"That's because it is," said Suzuki as he stepped onto it, "Hop on you guys! Hanabi, you can sit on the cooler if you want."

"Stop calling me so familiarly!" she yelled and got on after Hide did.

Can you please just stop fighting! The young Boss groaned in his head.

~8~

"Oh my Hide-kun, what are you talking about?" Hide's mother asked with concern, "I never said that I needed leeks, we're having hamburgers tonight! But it's so nice of you to bring Suzuki-kun and Gokudera-chan!"

"What!?"

Hide gawked; He and his friends had just been running around town on an old, beaten up hovercycle that was threatening to die right then and there, and then trying to find their way to the super market and also trying to find the item that his mother desired. And what did he get in the end? A few bruises and a bag of leeks that were almost completely trampled on.

"Please! Call me Hanabi, Twelfth's mother!" The girl spoke and bowed politely to the mother.

"Oh my, how polite," she said happily before heading back to the kitchen.

"Reborn…" Hide growled and looked around for the baby who was in the living room, watching TV with Adam. You planned on all of this you little liar!!

"Wow, is that the new game show that's on?" said Suzuki as he went to join them, sitting down on the couch and started to watch the TV with them.

"Huh? How boring," Hanabi shrugged but she sat down in front of the couch and joined in them as well.

"Chips?" Adam held out a bag of chips as they each took a handful and started eating.

"Don't ruin your dinner, you guys," Hide's mother warned, "It'll be ready in twenty minutes!"

"Okay," they all said in unison.

Why are they all getting comfortable in my own home! Hide wondered and realized that the show he had wanted to watch earlier was on, so he sat down and watched the TV with them.

The perfect summer's day ended peacefully. They all hung around the house and watched TV and ate chips from a bag, like every other teenager would do with his friends.

~8~

Hello, I just want to make a few points in Skywards for you, the reader, to understand:

First off-Suzuki is not the grandson of Yamamoto, he is merely Hide's childhood friend which is why he works at Takesushi now

Second-There will be no HanabiXHide or HanabiXSuzuki or any HanabiXwhatever! Skywards is non-kanon, nobody will 'like' anyone other than Hide likes Megumi, and that's just one-sided...or is it?

And Third-Katekyo Hitman Reborn! does not belong to me nor does it belong to anyone except Amano Akira