This chapter is dedicated to the people who wanted to see what Old Man Gokudera is like.
~8~
Hanabi sent the so-called 'angel' flying when she punched it in the face. She shook her hand in the air after the punch as she watched the body fall to the ground, only to see it do a back flip in the air and land on its feet in a crouched down position.
"As far as I'm concerned, angels don't have red hair or eyes," Hanabi stated as she reached for her cards in her back pocket; she then added as an afterthought, "Also, angels have wings, it's a rule that they should have wings."
"That's some strange logic," the red-head stated as it stood up and brushed a hand through its hair to move the hair out of its face, "I was even dressed for the part as well."
It was wearing a white button-up shirt and white pants; it had long, shockingly red hair and almost evil-looking, red eyes; it had a pure white smile, which annoyed Hanabi to no end, smile was so white that its teeth were almost unseen. The only other color it had, other than its hair and eyes, was its red leather shoes.
"Not the shoes," the girl pointed out, "And the eyes and hair, just from first glance I can tell that you look like the demon."
"A demon?" it grinned and put its hands in its pockets, "I think I was called that at some point by a number of people."
Hanabi observed the 'person' with suspicion, a breeze began to pick up and the 'person's red hair picked up in the wind. Wait, your guy had blue hair? My guy had red hair, Hanabi remembered Morita saying.
Something fell out of the 'person's pocket as it took a hand out of its pocket, "Oops," it spoke as it bent down to pick it up, "dropped something."
A red bead shined in its hands, Hanabi's eyes widened. This is one of Loki's beads...she remembered Hide's grandfather saying. She quickly took out her playing cards and threw one towards Loki.
"Interesting," Loki said as it stared straight at the spinning card.
The smoke and dust filled the air; a large gust blew right before the explosions so the smoke didn't stay in the air for long. But Loki stayed in the same place, completely unmoved and unfazed by the attack. Hanabi's eyes widened when she saw this didn't even look like it was hit by the explosions one bit.
"Tch," she scowled, "That card had my newest chemicals on it. Well at least I know it reacts faster."
"Chemicals?" Loki mused, "So you make your own chemicals for those cards then? Some might call you a genius for that, but your explosions are hardly effective. They are probably only a little more powerful than regular gun powder."
"Then I guess they are not enough to take out a Box Weapon then," Hanabi frowned as she remembered horrible childhood memories with her grandfather from when she was younger...
~8~
"Hanabi-chan, this is Uri," six year-old Hanabi blinked at the small red and yellow kitten that her grandfather set in front of her and brightened.
"K-kitty!" she said in awe and held out a hand to pet the cat.
"No! Hanabi-chan, Uri is a very bad kitty!" her grandfather yelled and pulled the cat away from her, the cat in turn hissed and clawed at the man's arms, "Gaah!"
The cat fell out of his arms and Uri jumped to the ground and ran behind six year-old Hanabi.
"Kitty!" she said happily while patting the cat on the head, it purred as a reply.
"Geh...it likes her," her grandfather grimaced.
"Grandpa, the kitty looks tired," Hanabi pointed out as she held the sleepy cat up.
"Well, I'm tired Hanabi-chan," the man sighed and sat down in a brown, leather chair; he bent down and picked the girl up and rested her on his knee before continuing, "Hanabi-chan, do you know anything about explosives?"
"Only that they make really loud noises," she said.
"Let me tell you something else about them," he said with a hint of pride, "They are like fireworks; they make beautiful lights, depending on what chemicals are in them, and they can go up into the sky like rockets."
"Fireworks?"
"Yup," he nodded and rested a finger on the girl's nose, "Just like the ones that you're named after."
Hanabi was silent for a few seconds before saying blatantly, "Not interested."
"Wha-what!" the grandfather gaped as his granddaughter in surprise.
"Not interested," she repeated, "The explosives that you use are too loud, I don't like fireworks either."
"You don't?" he said in shock, "I thought you loved fireworks!"
"Nope," she shook her head, "I like reading, and kitties, and math. Fireworks and explosives are too loud and distracting."
Her grandfather gave her a hopeless look mixed with utter surprise; he regained his composure and said, "What if those explosives could get rid of distractions, Hanabi-chan?"
Hanabi listened.
"Explosives are not only pretty, but they can also get rid of a ton of troublesome and annoying things."
"Like Uncle Lambo?"
"Like Uncle Lambo," the bomber chuckled and ruffled the future bomber's hair.
"I'm still not interested," she said stubbornly.
Gokudera stared at his granddaughter blankly for a few seconds before reaching into his pocket and taking something out, he pushed the thing into her tiny hands and said, "Well then, here."
Hanabi opened her hands and stared at the deck of cards.
"They're what I use when I'm in a pinch, they certainly aren't as effective as realexplosives, but they will do for you," he said.
"But I don't wanna use explosives!"
"Too bad."
~8~
And Hanabi remembered those horrible days with contempt; she hated explosives and would always hate explosives, she didn't even like her own cards all that much. In her past and current opinion, explosives were weak, hazardous, loud, and extraordinarily sloppy when hitting a target since they could also hit the owner and any bystanders as well.
And the fact that her grandfather forced her to go through days and days of hellish training, so that she could be called a 'prodigy child' and be a master in any type of explosive did not help her like them at all. In fact the only reason that she even did use her cards was because there were the only type of weapon she knew how to use, not to mention that they were also the least loud and more concentrated explosives in her arsenal, so the explosion didn't spread out all over the place.
"I presume you make your own chemicals?" Loki asked.
Hanabi snapped out of her flashbacks and her mental-rantings of contempt to come back to the real world, or where ever she was, and said, "Didn't you already ask that? Yeah I do, what's it to you?"
"Well, as it just so happens," Loki began; it reached into its pocket and pulled out a shining red bead, "I do too."
~8~
"All you have to do is answer my question," Adam sighed as he ducked and dodged the sharp blades on Nyx' fingertips.
It lunged at him and cut his cheek, to which Adam replied by quickly grabbing Nyx' arm and throwing it against a tree. The tree, and trees behind it, either broke in half or imploded when Nyx hit them. Its body stood up and brushed splinters and leaves off of itself.
"That's right, your body is invincible..." he sighed, he turned to run up the stairs before flinching.
Crap! Adam thought as his hand flew to his side, he withdrew the hand and saw blood on it. This must be from when he stabbed me back there, luckily he didn't hit any vital organs, but still, if I don't get this taken care of soon then there won't be any point to defeating this guy.
He glanced up the stairs and added to his thought, but first I need to find flatter ground to fight on. Adam trudged along the steps, blood trailing his every step and clouds coming in from earlier and bringing an instant shower of rain.
"Great," he sighed and realized that his whole body was becoming numb from either loss of blood or pain, "Something to help the mood of things, now if only there was lightening," right on cue a thunder bolt crackled in the distance and boomed loudly from far off, Adam rolled his eyes, "Of course."
He resumed climbing the steps, which seemed much more steeper and narrower than before, and tried to wipe the falling water out of his face. One of the stones broke under his weight and he tripped up the stairs. He laid there on the steps, covered in blood and almost unconscious, his vision was becoming fuzzy but he still looked down the steps and saw the vague form of Nyx coming closer.
"Damn it," he hissed, Nyx loomed closer and closer, "I don't wanna go out like this..."
His numbed hand reached for one of the knives that fell out of his pocket when he fell, the hand grasped the handle and he glanced up at Nyx who was standing right over him. He smiled genuinely at Nyx and said:
"Good game." the knife was thrown with the last of Adam's strength into the Box's chest, causing it to stumble backwards and back down the stairs. And somehow, by pure luck, a traveling lightening bolt came from the sky and hit the Box.
Adam witnessed this and was far to tired to make any other comment than, "That was unexpected." and then he closed his eyes.
~8~
Hide stopped walking abruptly, causing the boys that were following him to dog pile him.
"Oops, sorry Hide," Morita apologized as he and Suzuki got up, "Why'd you stop so suddenly?"
"Geh," the small boy got up and rubbed the back of his head, "I don't know, it just felt like something big happened just now."
"We're walking down an empty, abandoned underground base, what's so big that could have happened?" Suzuki joked as he helped him up.
Hide shrugged and looked around, "Where's Reborn?"
They all looked around again and shrugged at each other.
"We were just following him, right?" Morita asked.
"Maybe he's just playing Hide and Seek with us?" Suzuki suggested.
Hide gave Suzuki a doubtful look but called out to the infant anyways, "Reborn? Reborn, this isn't funny! Where are you?"
The other two joined in with their calls for Reborn, but the infant didn't come back to them. After a few minutes, they all exchanged worried looks.
"Where did he go?" Suzuki wondered while scratching his head curiously.
"He didn't get in any trouble, did he?" Morita said worriedly.
"No, Reborn's..." Hide began but his voice faltered, "Reborn's just...just went off on his own way...probably."
They didn't question the "probably" in the sentence but still stared at Hide with an expectant look.
"Uh, um," Hide squirmed under the pressure as he realized that he was now being the leader, "This-This hall looks like it goes straight doesn't it? If we keep going we'll find an elevator or stairs."
The boys seemed satisfied with this answer and allowed Hide to lead the way. They began walking in an awkward silence until Suzuki mentioned a game they could play to unnerve them; it was a talking game, where they would talk about what they would do over the rest of the summer and for other holidays.
"Other than working at Takesushi and practicing with the team, I'm gonna go to the beach with Hide," he said and grinned to the boy, "And then we'll go to all the festivals like last year, right?"
Hide nodded cheerfully, Morita brightened and said, "We can all go to the beach together! But if I'm going then Megumi might want to come."
"That's fine!" he said instantly and eagerly.
The tall boy laughed and continued, "And I'll be one of the drum beaters for the festival in town too!"
"You will? That's so cool!" the other boys looked at Morita with awe.
"What about you, Hide?" Suzuki asked.
"Me?" the boy blinked.
"Yeah, what are you gonna do with the rest of your summer?"
Hide was quiet for a few seconds before saying thoughtfully, "Well of course I'm gonna go to the beach with you and Morita, Suzuki. And I'll definitely go to most of the festivals...and then Reborn will most likely training me to hell during the summer. But I don't really know what else I'm gonna do."
"Then let's change gears!" Suzuki declared cheerfully, "Next holiday: Christmas!"
"Christmas? That's forever away!" Morita complained playfully.
"Hide, you're gonna visit your gramps this year right?" Suzuki asked, "You talked about it last year when your mom said it would be nice to go to Italy."
"Gramps?" Hide raised an eyebrow, "I think you mean Grandfather. And yeah, I'll probably end up going to Italy with my dad."
"No way! Hide, your grandfather lives in Italy?" Morita said enthusiastically, "I didn't know you were Italian!"
"I'm not," he sighed and continued grumpily, "My grandfather is Japanese, he married a Japanese woman, and my dad married a Japanese woman, so therefore I'm Japanese. The only reason my Grandfather lives in Italy is because he's a complete and total weirdo who decided to not settle down in Japan but in some crazy foreign country."
"Hide doesn't really like his grandfather," Suzuki whispered to Morita.
"I kinda guessed that," the boxer muttered and asked, "But why?"
"Hide's grandfather...sort of traumatized him when he was little," Suzuki said slowly, Hide was too busy mentally venting off his anger to hear anything that they were talking about, "His grandfather came to Japan when we were six, he told us some stories about when he lived in Japan and they seriously freaked the both of us out. I remember it very well, after Hide's gramps got done telling his stories he looked at Hide with a sad look and said, 'You'll go through that some day too.'"
Morita gaped in horror at the remark and then asked, "So why aren't you traumatized?"
"Because he wasn't my grandfather," he stated flatly, "Just the fact that he's even related to him, freaks Hide out."
"Hey guys!" Hide called to them, they both froze and then relaxed when they saw him pointing to something, "Check this out!"
He was pointing down another hall that was connected to the hall they were walking in. Suzuki and Morita ran over to where Hide was and looked down the hall. In large, black letters was a name that stretched down the hall: Tsukamoto V1.
"Who's Tsukamoto?" Morita questioned.
Hide shrugged and said, "Who knows? Maybe this hall was named after that person, like in some buildings where they have places named after people who donated a lot of money."
"So someone gave money for this place to be built?" the boxer asked.
"These are times when we need Reborn," the boy sighed, and for the first time in his life he actually missed Reborn.
"Well since there's another hall here, do you think we should keep going down the one we're on already?" Suzuki asked, "This way may have stairs, but so could this way. And it's probably not the best idea to split up either."
Hide realized that the question was being directed towards him and remembered that he was the leader again. He looked from one hall to the next and thought that the one with the title painted on the wall was probably a more important hall than one without a title painted on it. The decision was also slightly random as well.
"Let's change and go this way," he said and led the way while the other two boys followed obediently.
They walked pass the giant, bold letters on their left and kept walking until they reached a large plastic board that was hanging on the side of a wall. The board was covered in a large piece of paper that had dots, lines, and squares drawn over it; the large red dot at the top of the board that was most noticeable, helpfully read: You Are Here.
"That's suspiciously helpful," Hide said uncertainly, "Just when we get lost, suddenly a map shows up."
"Who cares, it was here when we needed it most and maybe there's one of these on each floor!" said Suzuki dismissively.
"It's says that we're going the right way too!" said Morita happily.
"And look, this is where Hanabi-san fell down so she's probably somewhere around here!" he continued while pointing at a spot on the sign, the baseball player examined the text and then asked, "What is a 'Storm Room'? Is that something they had in the past?"
"Who knows, let's head down there though," the boxer stated.
"Right!"
They trust it so easily! Hide gawked, he glanced back to the map and said quietly, "Something's funny about all this..."
"Hide!" the boy realized he was now not the leader anymore and also that he was being left behind.
"Coming!" he said quickly and ran after them.
~8~
Note from the Author: Well, that's the end of this chapter! In order to garner up some posts in my new forum: Just another Forum, I will now be taking any questions over this chapter and what is generally happening in Skywards under the topic heading: On the topic of future fictions...
Katekyo Hitman Reborn! does not belong to me, but to Amano Akira