All seven guardians were positioned exactly as they had been at the Vongola base before they were transported over to wherever they were now.

Hibari was close enough to Tsuna to breathe down his neck, tonfas held a hair's breadth away from Tsuna's neck. Gokudera was still looming over Lambo's head with a mountain of dynamite held in his arms, while Yamamoto and Ryohei were standing around him, seconds ago probably watching in fascination the public display of brutality which very much resembled animal abuse. Chrome was still seated a fair distance away from the rest of the guardians, not wanting to get involved in the mostly one-sided conflict.

The seven guardians surveyed their surroundings in silence, trying in vain to identify anything, besides the other guardians, that seemed the least bit familiar to them. After a couple of minutes, the first to speak was Gokudera.

"You stupid cow! Look what your bazooka did to us! You'd better bring us all back or I'll shove all these bombs up your stupid ass!"

Gokudera was about to ignite the mountain of bombs and bury the little cow in it when Tsuna spoke up for Lambo.

"Gokudera-kun… It's not really Lambo's fault that this happened…"

"But Tenth—" began Gokudera, somewhat pleading for the permission to send at least one bomb to blow the kid up, even if Tsuna didn't think Lambo was at fault, just for the satisfaction of blowing him up. Although, not wanting to defy his boss, he eventually dropped the idea. "Fine, you get away with it this time, shitty bovine," muttered Gokudera with a slight tone of resentment towards the cow.

Reluctantly stashing his bombs back into the various places he had pulled them out of, Gokudera felt a tinge of regret that he couldn't have blown the cow into pieces before his boss defended the annoying cow. He walked away from the smug-looking Lambo, once in a while pulling out an ignited bomb, extremely tempted to 'accidentally' drop it where the annoying cow was lying and 'unintentionally' blow him up.

Yamamoto walked around the area, looking into the distance where he could make out nothing but more barren land.

"Where exactly is this place?" pondered Yamamoto out loud, his question being more of rhetorical than anything… which made him even more shocked when a reply boomed out of the sky.

"This is a piece of land that I discovered just recently. I took the liberty of decorating it a little bit for you, Vongola guardians. Impressive, isn't it?"

The seven guardians looked into the sky, all facing different directions, yet still unable to find the source of the familiar voice.

"Byakuran… what are you up to this time?" demanded Tsuna, eyebrows furrowed and fists clenched into tight balls.

"Oh, nothing much really. It's just that all that fighting business was getting rather dull, so I thought we could play a game to make things a little more interesting~"

"Make me play some stupid game and I'll bite you to death," growled the Namimori prefect as he looked into the sky with a look of disgust.

"Yeah, we don't have time for stupid games—" agreed Gokudera, but his sentence was cut off prematurely as the loud voice boomed from above in reply to the statements.

"Ah, not to worry, these games of mine are far from stupid and are exceptionally entertaining~ I'm sure you will enjoy completing them as much as I will watching you complete them~"

"What do you take us for, toys?" retorted Gokudera. "Forget it, I'm not playing."

"I thought you might say that. It really is up to you whether you want to participate in these games. But if you intend to leave this place, I'm afraid there is only one way out, and that is to complete this course. Think of it as a maze, if you must. There is only one entrance, and one exit. So what shall be your final decision, Vongola's Tenth Boss?"

Tsuna stared into the sky, not bothering to conceal the look of frustration on his face. The only way to get out was to complete the set of games Byakuran had prepared for them. The decision he had to make was obvious. They had to play.

"Where's the catch? It's not as easy as just playing normal games, is it?" asked Tsuna.

"Ever the cautious one, aren't you, Vongola? There isn't a catch. All you have to do is to complete the course of games. It really is that simple~"

"Then let's do this TO THE EXTREME!!" screamed Ryohei from behind, clearly not doubting anything that Byakuran was saying, which was quite unlike the sceptical Gokudera.

"And the rules? They must've been rigged to make the games impossible to complete…"

"I assure you, the rules are quite reasonable. You will get to know of the rules of each game when you arrive at the individual game locations."

"Game locations?" queried Tsuna, suspicion evident in his voice.

"There will be seven stages to this game, each stage being held in a setting which is suitable for the game to be played. All that is required of you to begin the game is to step into the entrance of the location. Your first game entrance is the entrance to the cave that is right behind you."

The seven guardians spun around, shocked to see an opening in the large rock they were previously so sure was just a smooth rock without so much as an indent, let alone an opening.

"Whenever you are ready, you may begin~"

Tsuna bit his lip and thought for a moment. And then he gave an affirmative reply.

"Alright, let's do it."

I'm sorry I can't squeeze in any pairings as of yet, the flow of the story doesn't allow me to just yet... but I'll try to sqeeze them into the next and subsequent chapters.

Just a reminder: Keep suggesting, the more the pairing is suggested, the more I'll try to squeeze it in...

...AS LONG AS IT'S NOT CRACK.

...which is to say, no Glo Xinia X Belphegor and definitely no Iris X Yamamoto's Dad

(Hint hint: preferably anyone X Tsuna & anyone X Gokudera)

Thanks for reading!