Timeline: Early Mukuro Arc, before Fuuta's kidnapping
"Bravery is the capacity to perform properly even when scared half to death."
~ Omar N. Bradley
Reborn tensed on his shoulder as the stranger's eyes landed on him standing on Tsuna's shoulders. The smirk turned into an outright grin.
"Oh my, what's this?" The newly dubbed Mukuro, leaned forward slightly as if to get a closer look while Reborn had his gun trained on his in a millisecond. "Reborn? The Reborn? What are you doing in a random city in Japan?"
"I could ask you the same, Mukuro Rokudo."
Tsuna blinked, he had never heard that tone out of his tutor before. He sounded really serious and was that a trident. He had to stop this!
"Wait!" He waved his hands in the air widely. "We shouldn't fight each other!"
The two turned their attention to him making him almost wilt under the sheer intensity of their looks, but he forced himself to continue. He turned to Mukuro.
"My brother sent you here because of the bugs, right?"
The trident disappeared.
"Fufufu, so you can see them too? How interesting…"
He nodded. "If you can see them too then we should work together to defend ourselves and everyone else from them, till brother can take care of it!"
Mukuro tilted his head to the side and smirked "Hm, well your brother did promise me something if I helped you. So what'll it be Reborn?"
Tsuna could practically hear Reborn grinding his teeth together and he growled lowly.
"Tsuna, these people are criminals…"
"So are you." Tsuna frowned. "Technically all mafia are criminals…"
"No, Tsuna…" He sighed abruptly when Tsuna's attention was caught on one of the bugs meandering towards the door. "Fine, but Mukuro. One toe out of line, you threaten him once and that will be the end of you. I don't care if the Vindice wants you. I will kill you myself if you threaten my student."
Mukuro's smirk didn't falter. "Understood, Mr. Number One Hitman."
From that point onward, everything seemed to descend into madness as per usual as of late. Apparently, the bugs cause people to go rabid, so he had to not only defend the house from the bugs, but also from zombie-like neighbors.
Though if he was honest, that wasn't the difficult part.
No.
The difficult part was trying to corral and prevent more unnecessarily destruction from his friends and temporary allies.
As soon as Gokudera and the kids woke up they wanted to help, but they couldn't see the bugs so they just threw around their weapons randomly. Gokudera himself also didn't like the idea of teaming up with Mukuro and his gang, something about not needed help protecting his boss, and was arguing with Chikusa and Ken every chance he got.
Needless to say, they had to take their defense outside of the house, before it was completely destroyed.
Luckily he had managed to convince Fuuta and his mother to hand back in the house and stay near the plants, but Lambo and I-pin insisted on helping them.
Not only didn't he have trouble instilling basic consideration for collateral damage in his friends, but he also had to manage to instill basic morality in Mukuro and his gang, who apparently thought it was perfectly fine to almost kill the rabid neighbors instead of just knocking them out and swatting the bugs that came out of them into the nearest plant life.
In fact, he was fairly certain the plant life was more helpful than his supposed friends and allies.
Then Yamamoto and his father showed up.
That was actually helpful though, despite neither one being able to see the bugs they had an uncanny knack for hitting and slashing them out of the air with a baseball bat and carving knives. The older Yamamoto went inside to help protect his mother, while Tsuna's Yamamoto managed to ease the tension building up between Gokudera and Mukuro's friends.
Things were going pretty good.
That was until Hibari-nii showed up.
Apparently, he and Mukuro were like oil and water.
They took one look at one another and were immediately at each other's throats.
However, everything seemed to work out in the end.
The bugs eventually faded away and everyone was too exhausted from fighting all day to argue too much over the grand feast his mother and the elder Yamamoto whip up for everyone. Though there was some throwing of food here and there, but Tsuna had come to expect that during most meals so he happily ignore it.
His brother showed up later that night with a couple of delinquent looking boys and Hiei-nii. All of them looking a little singed, cut up and exhausted.
Despite the stress, bruises and sore muscles he couldn't help but grin brightly when he brother sent him a proud smile.
Since guest asked, I'm going up to Montana to visit family. Dunno how my internet connection will be, last time it was horrendous, so that's why I don't think I'll update till after I get back on the 9th. Thanks for all the reviews!