There was simply no way.
The first stage; probably the easiest, most doable stage in the entire game…
…and they had failed it.
To make things worse, their Mist guardian was now in danger.
And there was nothing they could do about it.
Palms sweaty and hands trembling, Tsuna collapsed onto the floor, looking up with dread at the sadistic smile on their enemy's face.
"Great attempt, guardians, great attempt~ I applaud your efforts, truly I do."
This was it.
They had lost the game.
They had lost Chrome.
They had lost to Byakuran.
Shutting his eyes tightly and facing the ground, Tsuna waited to hear the statement he was so dreading to hear; it was one thing to know that they had lost and another to have their worst enemy rub it in their faces.
"Guardians, guardians, guardians. You put up a marvellous show~ marvellous indeed… However…"
There it was.
"…perhaps you should have announced it out loud when you found your little friend, cloud guardian? I believe you gave your friends quite a bit of a scare."
Found…?
All eyes turned to the figure standing at the furthest corner of the room.
He had been the most indifferent, passive guardian throughout the entire game; the one who couldn't have cared less whether or not the Lightning guardian was found. And in his hand was a sniffling, trembling Lambo, limp body dangling from where Hibari was holding him up.
On his horns were the words, 'stupid cow'.
Hibari had found Lambo. The real Lambo.
"Hibari-san did it... he found Lambo… we didn't lose…" thought Tsuna aloud, the look of relief evident on his face.
"Hibari, nice work there!" yelled Yamamoto, giving the Cloud guardian a thumbs up, to which the response was a simple 'don't try to act all friendly with me or I'll bite you to death' stare.
"We won TO THE EXTREME!" roared Ryohei, punching at the air to release his excitement. Gokudera was merely grinning to himself, elated that they had, in a sense, kicked Byakuran's ass.
All the guardians were rejoicing over their victory when the voice boomed out once again.
"My heartfelt congratulations to all of you, well done~" sang Byakuran. "Since you are the winners of this round, I will return you your Mist guardian when you step into your next game location. Move along now~ simply proceed through the door under my screen."
The guardians felt a tremor as they saw a door materialise on the white wall below the screen just as Byakuran had said.
"Whenever you're ready."
Looking suspiciously at the door, Tsuna hesitated for a moment before giving his command.
"Alright, let's go."
Tsuna pushed open the door and saw the veil that he had to pass through. Taking one last glance at the rest of the Vongola guardians, Tsuna stepped through the veil and crossed over to their new destination.
As he entered the second game location, Tsuna found himself enclosed in an empty cubicle barely large enough to fit one person. White walls were all he could see at a glance, but upon closer inspection, Tsuna could make out tiny holes assembled in a circular formation on the wall he was facing, as well as the wall from which he had emerged from. The absence of a door puzzled him, but before he could even begin to ponder about where he had materialised from, a sudden realisation hit him: the six other guardians were nowhere to be seen.
"Gokudera-kun! Yamamoto! Lambo!"
Momentarily thrown into a state of panic, Tsuna pounded on the walls, yelling out each of the guardians' names.
"Shut up, herbivore, or I'll bite you to death."
Tsuna spun around at the sound of a familiar voice, only to find himself staring at the holes in the wall. As he tried to peer into the holes, another voice called out to him from the back.
"Sawada! Where are you to the extreme!"
"Big brother!"
A wave of relief swept over Tsuna as he heard the over-enthusiastic voice of his sun guardian and the monotonous death threat from the cloud guardian. At least he knew for sure that two of his guardians were safe. But where were the other five?
"This is your second game location, guardians," came a slightly muffled voice from the holes from which he had heard Hibari and Ryohei's voices mere seconds ago. "You must each be wondering where your fellow guardians are. Allow me to explain~"
Just as Byakuran finished his statement, black lines started appearing on the walls without the speaker holes. The lines slowly connected with one another, taking shape into the form of seven boxes, each stacked one above the other.
"See these boxes over here? Each guardian is placed in one of these boxes, the Thunder guardian in the first box, and the Mist guardian in the last. The game is very simple. Are you guardians familiar with the game, 'Pass the Message'?"
"HIIIIIII! Pass the Message?" squeaked Tsuna; his reaction had essentially answered Byakuran's question. "That game is impossible to win!"
"Nothing is impossible, let alone a game such as this. It is, in fact, an extremely simple game. All you have to do is to ensure that you articulate the message in the most accurate way possible. Surely you guardians have been with one another long enough to communicate a simple message to one another, no?"
"This is bad," thought Tsuna aloud, biting on his nails in anxiety. "There's no way we'll be able to get all the messages right—"
"Ah, but you don't have to get all the messages right. All you have to do is to get one message passed down accurately, Vongola~"
Tsuna had doubts that the message would even get past Lambo without getting severely distorted beyond comprehension, let alone past the other five guardians including himself. Of course, his neighbour in cubicle was not quite as cynical as he was.
"One? That sounds easy! Let's do this TO THE EXTREME!" Tsuna admired Ryohei for his optimism and his unjustified faith in the rascal of a cow-print suit-wearing five-year old. Wondering how they were going to overcome the only-too-predictable obstacles they were going to face throughout the course of the game, Tsuna drew a mental mind-map as extensive as his exasperated brain would allow him to, only to lose his train of thought as a voice boomed through the speaker holes.
"My sentiments exactly! We shall delay no longer… Let the game begin!"
The announcement of the commencement of the game had been so abrupt that Tsuna's brain had only barely registered the implication of the announcement.
"Wait! You can't just—"
Tsuna's objection was cut off mid way by the sound of shutters being slammed tight. The holes in the wall had disappeared entirely; it was as though the holes had never existed in the first place.
"Where did the… What… How…"
"This is a precautionary measure I am taking to ensure that no guardian is eavesdropping from several cubicles down the line. That would rob the game of its entertainment value, wouldn't you agree, Vongola?~"
Despite the absence of speakers in the cubicle, Byakuran's words somehow managed to resonate throughout Tsuna's cubicle. The feigned innocence with which he spoke such sadistic words, to say the least, irritated Tsuna.
"Byakuran… you…"
"And now, for the first phrase," announced Byakuran, blatantly ignoring Tsuna's menacing words. "It will be made known to the guardian of Lightning. Remember, all you have to do is to get one phrase right and you all move on to the next stage. You have five attempts. All the best~"
The shutters of the first cubicle opened and the message was announced to Lambo.
[Anemones are the most beautiful in winter.]
Sitting in a slouch at a corner of the cubicle, the rascal of a cow-print suit-wearing five-year old lazily repeated what he heard while picking his nose.
"A lemon's knees are most pee-yew tee full in wind turns?"
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" came a voice from the cubicle next to Lambo's upon hearing the sentence that far from made logical sense.
"I don't know, Stupid-dera, that's what Lambo-san heard…" Gokudera let out a scowl. The nonchalant tone of Lambo's reply annoyed the teen, but not being able to do anything about it annoyed him even more. He felt as though the wall that separated him from his would-be victim was mocking him; the temptation to blow up the white separation along with a bit of cow was near intolerable.
"Listen, stupid cow, you'd better tell me what the message is or I swear I'll shove these bombs up your—"
Clack.
Where Gokudera intended to bury his bombs in was left a mystery as the shutters separating the lightning and storm guardian clicked shut, allowing the next set of shutters to fly open.
"What the hell?" swore Gokudera, slamming his fists against the wall in front of him. "I didn't even get the message yet!"
A cheerful laughter revealed to Gokudera the identity of the guardian he was supposed to pass the ridiculously nonsensical message to.
"What are you laughing about, baseball idiot—" began the irritated teen when the shutters slapped shut. Even with the supposedly soundproof shutters separating the two cubicles, Yamamoto could make out an incoherent muffle of a swear word. Wondering if that was part of the message, Yamamoto proudly recited Gokudera's sentence word for word into the next set of speaker holes and even managed to mimic the little strangled swear word at the end.
"The message is 'what are you laughing about, baseball idiot, far ark', TO THE EXTREME!" Ryohei repeated after Yamamoto to Tsuna, who had been nervously awaiting his turn.
"Huh? Are you sure that's the message?" questioned Tsuna as the message was passed to him. He could have sworn the message sounded more like Gokudera swearing at Yamamoto, but he thought better than to alter the message in the extremely rare event that it was the correct message. "Um… alright… Hibari-san, the message is 'what are you laughing about… baseball… um… idiot… far—"
Tsuna felt stupid for even having to recite such a message. Forcing himself to cough out the word 'ark', he completed the message for the prefect in the cubicle next to his. He wondered why he even bothered to pass the message on knowing it was not going to make it to the last cubicle with Hibari being the intercessor. As the shutters clicked shut, Tsuna silently hoped that Chrome would receivea message; he didn't quite care what the message was, any message would do.
After what felt like ages, a machine-generated announcement that the first round had come to an end followed by a recital of the initial and final messages resonated throughout all seven cubicles. As he heard the final message, Tsuna's heart sank.
Shut up, herbivore, or I'll bite you to death.
That was the final message.
Hibari must have tried to threaten him while Chrome was listening, leaving her to believe that the threat was the message. The game was proving to be far more impossible to complete than he had imagined.
As the rounds continued, he was more convinced of the fact that the victory of the second round was not theirs to claim.
Tsuna found himself stuck in the cubicle next to Lambo's in the second round, Hibari's in the third round, Gokudera's in the fourth, and Chrome's in the fifth. Tsuna noticed that the only similarities between the initial and final messages were… nothing.
Gyahaha, Lambo wants some octopus balls!
That had been the message he had been passed in the second round by the annoying baby cow.
Do you noisy herbivores want me to bite you to death?
The ever so familiar statement indicated to Tsuna that the third message had been altered beyond all recognition to the initial message by a certain prefect.
Tenth, I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm so—
Gokudera's incessant apology implied that the fourth message had gone missing somewhere upstream.
Hahaha I'm gonna shove a bomb so far up your ass to the extreme.
Chrome had mechanically recited the message she had been passed, obviously, by Yamamoto, Gokudera and Ryohei.
It was painfully clear what the outcome of the game was even without Byakuran having to announce it out loud; the declaration made by the guardians' archenemy was merely a formality or an attempt at subtle mockery.
"Guardians, that was a marvellous display of perseverance! I am certain I would have conceded had I experienced such a large number of obstacles as you have," came the condescending remark from the speakers of each cubicle. "However, it is most unfortunate that you were unable to fulfil the requirements to pass this round~ Better luck next time~"
With that, the white walls separating the guardians vanished, and the guardians found themselves facing each other for the first time since they were transported into the second game location. Before any of the Vongola could register their surroundings, a piercing scream echoed throughout the room.
All the guardians turned to face the centre of the room.
"Presenting… my prize."
The guardians stared at the motionless silhouette in the centre of the room.
"Chrome…"