DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN Katekyo Hitman Reborn NOR Ed, Edd n Eddy.

Katekyo Hitman ED!

By The Mauve Lantern

Target 5: Ed Batson

"This is so embarrassing," thought Eddward Carson to himself, as he stood, all alone, between two kickball teams.

Bart looked around, making sure that the only possible player left was Eddward. Once he was sure, he asked Conner, the other team captain, "So Double D's the last one?"

"Yeah…but you can have him!"

"No way, man! We don't want to lose! He was pretty awesome at the volleyball game, but he could very well suck at kickball!"

Eddward placed a hand on his forehead as he wondered what devil had possessed him to actually attend PE class. It wasn't like his heart condition was getting better; in actuality, it had remained the same ever since Reborn had shown up. "Ironic, eh?" he asked himself.

"Good lord, I haven't been in a PE class since I was seven or eight years old! I would have staid back at the room, since Eddy and May have this period open, but Eddy went off to restock on yo-yos and May went to the store to get some groceries. To make matters worse, my insane tutor kicked me out of the room, saying, 'You need to make new friends.' Shows what he knows; I'm never going to get any friends in PE!"

As Eddward listened to the two captains arguing, a friendly voice said, "Aw, let's let the little fellow join our team!" The voice belonged to Ed Batson, a tall, goofy-looking boy who was the same age as Eddward, although he was several inches taller. He was wearing the school's gym uniform and white sneakers, and had bushy red hair that stuck out all over the place.

"Are you sure?" asked Conner. "You don't have to do this just because you pity the guy!"

Ed wrapped his arm around Conner's shoulders and gave him a lazy, lackadaisical smile. "Well, if I can keep the enemy forces from conquering our home base, it won't be a problem, right?"

"Whatever, Ed," Stan groaned, "Let's just play the damn game."

Eddward was taken aback at the current situation. Someone had picked him for their team? He, a hermit, had been picked to play kickball with the others? "That's…That's the first time I've been picked for a team of any kind! And it's all because of that guy, Ed: he's got the attention of all the sports teams in the school! Most people respect him, and he has their complete trust! This guy is incredible!"

Ten minutes later, the game was in full swing, and it was Ed's turn to kick. The red ball rolled his way, though he wasn't even paying attention. "ED!" shouted Stan Marsh, co-captain of the team, "KICK THE GADDAMN BALL!"

"Huh? Oops!" Ed saw the ball coming and he gathered all the strength he had into his leg. With a kick that could break through concrete, Ed hit the ball so far that it went clear over the goal post and into the teachers' parking lot. He ran around all the bases his eyes closed and a smile plastered on his face.

"Sorry guys! I just don't know my own strength!" he shouted.

Timmy, who was guarding second base asked him, "Would it kill you to strike out every so often?!"

"Nice hit, Ed!"

"Way to go!"

"All hail the super-strong freak!"

When Ed rounded home base, he was congratulated by the other players, who were all elated by the fact that he had kicked the ball clear across the field, scoring them some much needed points. Along with the boys who were playing, Ed had attracted the attention of some of the girls in the class.

"Ed, you rock!" screamed Dee-Dee.

"Marry me, Ed!" Veronica screeched.

On the bench, surrounded by applauding teammates, Eddward held his head between his hands. "Ed is unbelievable!" he thought. "I'd give anything to be like him: carefree, talented, and respected."

From high atop a water tower nearby, Reborn was thinking the same thing. He observed the game through a pair of binoculars, and had seen how people acted with Ed. "Ed Batson…" he recorded in a little black book, "has incredible athleticism and charisma. A definite addition to the family."

***

"It's your fault we lost, Double D!"

"I KNEW we shouldn't have put him on the team!"

Eddward cringed with each insult hurled at him. "Even with Ed's power, we still lost." Then he thought for a second. "These guys are such hypocrites! They performed just as poorly as I did!"

"Double D, since you're the reason we lost the game," Conner passed him a bag that was used to hold all the kickballs used in the game, "it's your job to clean up the field. Got that?" Eddward nodded and collected the bag. As the other players walked away, Conner showed him a little pity and whispered to him, "Don't take these guys so seriously, okay? They just get a little bit excited when it comes to sports. See ya, man!" He grabbed his book bag from the wall and waved as he walked off to his next class.

"After all that," Eddward mused, "You're still going to leave me with this?!?" He cast a solemn look around the field where they had played. A cool breeze blew past him and ruffled his sweatpants. "I should just go back to my room."

Just then, Ed showed up, jolly as ever, with a broom in his hands. "Ed to the RESCUE!" he shouted.

"Ah, Ed! Wh-What're you doing here?" Eddward asked.

"I came to help out, silly. I got everything right here!" He hoisted the broom into the air, then looked around and said, "We…we don't need the broom, do we?"

"Ha ha, not really." Eddward got to gathering all the kickballs, including the one that had been retrieved from the teachers' parking lot. "Sorry about the game," he told Ed solemnly, "I let you down, even though you were the one who put me on your team."

Ed chuckled. "It is not a problem, Double D. After all, this is only PE. Besides, we're pals!"

"P-P-Pals!?"

"Yeah! I've been meaning to tell you: you were so awesome in the boxing match and the volleyball game! You've been on an awesome streak for the last week!"

Eddward blushed and murmured, "Th-Th-Thanks!"

They continued picking up the pieces of the game in silence for a while, until Ed leaned against a tree and said, "Double D, can I tell you something?"

"Umm, sure."

"Sports are great and all, but," Ed turned his gaze skyward, "what I really want to do is draw comic books."

The genius Eddward was taken aback by this. Ed, the start athlete of the school, was really an artist for graphic novels? "But, what about your skill with sports?" he asked, curious as to the answer. "I thought you really enjoyed sports!"

"Nah, this is just a passing phase, one of my bad days."

"Huh?"

"See, kicking balls and swinging wooden sticks is okay. Throwing orange orbs through nets and pretending to be Aquaman is fun. Heck, I'd be in a fighting game if I joined the martial arts team. But that's not the point. It's interfering with my drawing time, and I think it's messing with my head a little…"

"H-How do you mean?"

"I can't seem to draw what I want to anymore. When I want to do an army of ogres, it comes out as a football team; if I feel like doodling the adventures of Son Goku and his quest for the Dragonballs, I end up making a monkey playing basketball. Sports are messing with my creativity, and it's really getting to me. Double D, what should I do?"

Ed was being deathly serious when he asked his new friend. His green eyes had turned morose, and his smile had become a frown. Of course, Eddward had no idea how to help this boy that he barely even knew.

"Y-You're asking ME?!?" he spat out, coming off a little more aggressive than he meant to.

Ed smiled again and laughed a little, thinking he had bothered Eddward enough with his blabbering. "Aw, don't worry about it, buckaroo! I just felt that you had been so helpful lately, so…"

"This is the first time I've seen Ed hurting so much!" Eddward tried to quickly come up with a solution for his friend's problem. "I want to help him, but I don't want him to find out about my psycho tutor!"

Eddward formulated some advice off the top of his head. "I…I suppose that you…should just put more effort into your drawing, I think."

"I am going to hell for this," he thought in his head.

"You're right!"

"Eh?!?"

Ed slapped Eddward across the back in a friendly manner. "I thought that's what it would be! Great minds think alike, I suppose!"

"Re-Really?"

"Yep! From today and onward, I, Ed, shall commit my life to becoming the greatest comic book artist that ever LIVED!"

The two boys shared a good laugh after that, and Ed wrapped Eddward in a headlock, which ordinarily would have greatly troubled the boy. Today though, he was just proud that his advice had actually helped somebody!

***

Later on, after cleaning up the kickball gear, Eddward went back to his dormitory room for a night of puzzle-solving and Chinese food. He removed his sneakers and uniform clothes and proceeded to put on a pair of sweatpants and a gray t-shirt that read "Whatever problems you have with math, I can assure you mine are greater." The boy pressed the button on his speaker phone. "May, are you there?" he asked.

"Yeah, what's up Double D?"

"I feel in the mood for Chinese food tonight; care to join me?"

"Sure! What do you want to order?"

"I'll have the sweet and sour shrimp."

There was a pause as May wrote down the order on a piece of paper. "Got it," she said a few seconds later. "You want anything else?"

"If you could bring a fruit bar, that would be perfection."

"Sure thing, Double D. I'll come by when the food gets here."

The two said their goodbyes, and then Eddward sat down on his desk chair and wheeled it over to a stack of jigsaw puzzles in their boxes. He was still smiling, even though the talk with Ed had been hours ago.

Reborn, who sat on Eddward's bed, polishing a flamethrower, noticed his student's smile and, without looking up, asked, "You seem awfully chipper, Edd; did something good happen today?"

"Oh Reborn, you won't believe this! Today, one of the most popular guys in my grade came to me and asked me for advice! Hmm, what to do what to do…" He began perusing through the puzzles before settling on a scenic landscape of an Italian city. "I'll have to throw that one away," he thought to himself as he put it back in the neat stack.

"Listen, about Ed Batson…"

"How did you know it was him?!"

The infant hitman ignored the boy's question and continued to speak. "You should make him one of your subordinates," he said, a frustrating smirk crossing his face.

"You want me to make one of my classmates a member of the mafia! Inconceivable!" Eddward smashed his fists onto his desk. "OUCH! I won't stand for this! Ed is a good boy, if a little dull in the head, but he has a burning passion about his cartooning; I want to help him as a friend!"

Reborn picked up the flamethrower on the bed and pulled the trigger, releasing a stream of flames from the weapon. "You ought to feel the burn for once, Edd." His student leaped away from the fire and began to beg for his life.

"On second thought," Reborn said as he put the flamethrower down, "Batson burns in a different way."

"You think so?!?"

Eddward checked around the room, and noticed that, though there had been flames chasing after him, nothing was badly burnt. "How is this possible?" he thought to himself. Leon, Reborn's shape-shifting chameleon, climbed up Eddward's shoulder.

"Leon turned into a fire extinguisher," Reborn said. "After all, he lives here too, y'know."

Before any more damage could be done to his room, Eddward heard a knock at the door. "Double D," May called, "I got dinner!"

Eddward glared at his professor. "This isn't over," he muttered as he walked to the door and opened it. May walked in, a bag full of boxes in her arms. She stopped and sniffed the air when she set the bags down on the table.

"Was someone smoking in here?" she asked.

"No," Reborn said as he hopped up onto his chair, "we were just playing a game. Right, Edd?"

"Whatever you say, Reborn."

***

The next day, it was bright and sunny. For once, Eddward was not paying attention in Calculus class, having memorized all the formulas and finished the homework the teacher was covering that day. He was sitting at his desk by the window watching a dragonfly flutter through the air lazily, its destination unclear. While he stared at the insect, Eddward noticed that there was somebody pacing around on the roof top across from his classroom.

"That's odd," he said in his mind. "He looks an awful lot like--"

Suddenly, a short, chubby student ran into the classroom, panic clearly written across his face. "Everyone!" he shouted, "Come quickly! Ed Batson's about to jump off the roof!" The students in the classroom paused in their note-taking, and then they began to laugh it off as some bad attempt at a joke.

"Ed, the goofy kid?"

"No way! Ed's not emo or anything!"

Dee-Dee and Veronica both scowled and said, "Don't even joke about that, Chowder."

"I'm being serious!" The chubby boy stopped to catch his breath. "When...when he stayed after school to practice his art, he worked too hard and broke his wrist!"

Eddward gasped. He remembered yesterday, how he had told Ed that the best he could do was to just work hard and put plenty of effort into each drawing that he did. It seemed as though Ed had taken the boy's words to heart. "Could this be my fault?!"

"Everyone, to the roof!" Mr. Crocker had no time to stop the students, as they were all running out of the classroom as fast as they could go. Ed's life was at stake! When they were all gone, the only ones left in the room were Eddward, Nazz, and an unconscious Denzel Crocker.

Nazz ran for the door and shouted back to Eddward, "Double D, let's go!"

"U-uh, you go ahead, N-N-Nazz," he said, "I have to…to use the bathroom."

***

High atop the Alpha Building of Peach Creek Academy, Ed Batson stood with a somber look on the narrow ledge that separated the roof from the open air. Today, he had decided to wear his favorite clothes: his lucky green jacket, his favorite pair of baggy jeans, the red-and-white striped shirt his mother had given him a year ago, and his favorite pair of black sneakers. He smiled, but it was filled with melancholy this time. The calming wind that blew through gently ruffled his messy, red hair and the cloth sling that hoisted his injured arm up and to his chest. The rusty fence he was standing against balancing against was the only thing that kept him from falling to the ground. Ed remained unfazed by the situation, even though there were already fifty or so students behind him, telling him not to jump.

"Ed!" Chester McBadbat shouted, "Come down, man!"

Timmy joined his friend in trying to save the red-haired boy. "Chester's right! You're just overreacting!"

Ed chuckled grimly. "Sorry, boyos, but this cowboy is serious. The monkey god that gave me my powers of imagination has left me; I can't feel anything in my head. There's nothing left for me now."

"He can't be serious!"

"That rusty fence could give out at any second!"

"ED! DON'T DO IT!" Dee-Dee and Veronica held onto each other, tears streaming down their faces, drenching their 'I LOVE ED' t-shirts.

While the other students were trying to talk their friend/idol down from the ledge, Eddward was cowering behind the giant satellite that stood a ways from the rest of the group. He had his hands clutched behind his head and was taking several short breaths in a vain attempt to calm down. "Lord, I never should have said those things! I can't even bear to face Ed right now!"

A small shadow appeared before him. "You want to help Ed," asked Reborn, "don't you? Then don't run away." The gun in his hand clicked, and he aimed the barrel at Eddward's head.

"Wait! Reborn, don't do it!" Eddward backed away, screaming, and then burst into a run in a vain attempt to get away from the assassin. "Don't shoot me!" He kept running forward, not really knowing where he was going, until he bumped into Lazlo's shoulder and fell to the ground. The pale boy took a look around him; he was now lying between the gathered students and Ed, who was surprised to see his friend there.

"Edd…"

The other students watched, their fears far from being alleviated. How was a hermit supposed to save Ed? Nazz wondered how this was possible as well, and she held her breath in anticipation.

Ed turned to face Eddward and said, "If you came to stop me, old friend, you're too late. Besides, you, above all other people, should know how I feel. I've got nothing left. I'm about as empty as the bottle aliens of Betelgeuse Seven."

"Huh?"

"They say that you're a freak when it comes to all those weird sciences and maths n' stuff; you must know what it's like, y'know, when everything goes wrong and you'd feel better off dead."

Eddward was flabbergasted. Even though he acted like he was a brainless fool, Ed was very wise and observant of people. "Uh, well…no," he said hesitantly, the words forming in his mouth. "No, we're not the same; you and I are different, Ed."

A flicker of anger appeared in Ed's eyes and he began to growl like a caged animal. "So now that things are going great for you, you're some sort of hoity-toity, fancy-pants hot-shot!? Now that you do everything right?!?"

"Wha…NO! You're mistaken, Ed! It's BECAUSE I am a failure! I've never put all my effort into any one thing like you did, Ed! Schoolwork? That's just to get into a good university and to find a well-paying job! Would I rather be good at other things? Yes, but I can't…

"Listen, I wanted to help you yesterday, so I told you what I thought you wanted to hear. "Work hard and put effort into it"? I've never done anything like you, Ed. Until recently, I had never spoken to a single person in our class, nor did I ever even try! Everything I said was just a lie; I'm sorry!

"Unlike you, I've never dealt with such heavy emotions as this: I've never felt so angry that I wanted to die, or so frustrated that I wanted to throw myself from a rooftop. I'm…I'm just a loser. I probably only seriously evaluate my life when I'm about to die. When I face my own death, I realize all the things I've failed to do in life…the things I wish I'd done, as if I knew my life depended on it. But something like this…it's not worth dying over."

All the students that could hear the speech were stunned. Was this how Eddward really felt? More importantly, was Ed going to be okay?

"So," Edd said as he cast his head down, "that's why I can't understand how you feel. Again, I'm sorry." Not wanting to see the look of shame on Ed's face, Eddward turned around and started to run for the stairs. "Goodbye!"

"Wait, Double D!" Ed reached out with a long arm and grabbed the back of Eddward's shirt. The boy, still running, slipped and fell back into the rusty fence. With a snap, the fence broke and both boys went falling through the air.

"NOOOOOOOO!" Nazz ran to the spot where the boys had fallen from. They were going to die!

Ed and Eddward were both screaming, and tears of fear were streaming out of Eddward's eyes as their impending doom came ever closer. Amidst their screaming and the cries from the top of the roof, no one heard the sound of a gun clicking in the school hallways two stories below.

"It's deathperation time," said Reborn as he fired the Vongola bullet right through the window and into Eddward's forehead as he passed by the window on his path to the ground.

As the blood flew from his head, the boy's body went limp. In his mind, Eddward thought, "My friend…I want to save my friend, Ed!" His body torso began to expand until…

"REBORN IN MIDAIR!!!"

Eddward, now fueled by the power of deathperation, burst out of his body, half-naked and his head adorned by a blazing fire. His eyes were glowing white, and he began to run down the side of Alpha Building. He shouted, "I'LL SAVE YOU LIKE MY LIFE DEPENDS ON IT!!!"

Ed gaped for a second, then smiled broadly and shouted, "Way cool!" Nazz was thinking the same thing from her vantage point up above.

Using the power of deathperation, Eddward shot off the wall and wrapped his arms around Ed's body. When he tried to land against the school wall, he could not catch his footing. "DAMN!!!" he shouted. "I CAN'T STOP!!!" To ensure Ed's safety, Eddward twisted around until he was underneath Ed.

"One more shot," said Reborn as he fired an additional bullet into Eddward's scalp.

"AHHHHH!!!" the boy shouted as a lump formed on the spot where the bullet made contact. "MY HEAD…MY HEAD ITCHES!!! IT ITCHES!!!" An instant later, a giant spring burst out of Eddward's head, helping the boys land safely on the ground by bouncing into a field of grass.

From his vantage point in the window, Reborn looked out and down at Eddward and Ed. "If you hit the scalp with the deathperation shot," he said, "it becomes a Spring Shot. But I suppose you all already knew that."

Up on top the roof, the students were all marveling at what they had just seen.

"I don't believe it!"

"They're safe!"

"Not possible!"

"Maybe it was a joke by Ed using, like, wires or something?"

"Yeah, that must be it."

"What the hell?! I was seriously worried there for a second!"

"Come on guys, let's get back to class."

"So Edd really IS a big pervert."

***

"Ed!" Eddward made his way over to the injured boy, his deathperation flame disappearing. "Are you all right?" he asked.

"Double D, you're amazing!"

"What?"

"I'm gonna do just like you said: give everything my all as if my life depended upon it! I'll be drawing in no time!" The thick-headed boy rubbed the back of his head with his good hand. "I don't know what I was thinking. There really is no telling what a genius might do when he gets depressed!"

Edd chuckled and smiled. "What makes you say that?"

"Say what, Double D?"

In his mind, Eddward thanked his psychotic teacher. "If it wasn't for the deathperation shot, Reborn, Ed wouldn't be here. Thank you."

***

Eddward made a close friend that day, but that's not how Reborn saw it…

As Reborn watched his student from the roof of the Alpha Building, he smiled and walked away, thinking to himself, "A new family member!"

***

Moments later, Eddward was running through the school building trying to find a place where he might change back into his clothes. The girls would shriek and the guys would call him a pervert, and Eddward would blush and hide his face in his arms out of embarrassment. He did not see that he passed by Nazz, nor did he see her smile out of pride for the once timid and weak student.