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Tsuna did not need to be particularly observant or intelligent to come to the conclusion that Nezu-sensei was absolutely furious.
Brown eyes stared up at the man whose face was purple and contorted with rage, spit flying in all directions, including Tsuna's face, as the man barked and scolded and screamed, absolutely livid. It wasn't an unknown fact that the man hated Tsuna more than anything; because of the brunette, after all, he had temporarily lost his job.
"WHAT DID YOU THINK YOU WERE DOING?! YOU DESTROYED A PLANE! VONGOLA'S PLANE! DO YOU HAVE NO DECENCY?!"
Tsuna wondered why he was the only one getting screamed at, considering all he did was sob in a corner in morbid defeat. The ones to destroy the plane were his friends, not he, and life was wholly unfair. Then again, Tsuna concluded, screaming at his Guardians (who were just his friends, really) was a difficult job to do, considering how intimidating the actually were.
Speaking of intimidation, Tsuna was trying to be intimidated by Nezu-sensei's face, but failing epically. It didn't help that the man's face conveniently reminded him of a hapless kitten; something was clearly wrong with his own head, Tsuna decided, promptly blaming Reborn for hitting him in the skull far too many times to be considered healthy.
Nezu-sensei was gesticulating vigorously, "YOU HAVE SULLIED THE NAME OF OUR SCHOOL!"
…Sullied? That was certainly dramatic.
Gokudera and Ryohei looked openly furious at Nezu-sensei for screeching at Tsuna, while Yamamoto had the smile of a person trying his best not to lose his patience and snap and possibly murder someone (preferably Nezu Dochira, Tsuna could see), while Tsuna sent warning glances at the trio, effectively stopping them from butchering his class teacher. Even Chrome looked a bit furious, while Hibari looked characteristically irritated. Mukuro looked bored—characteristic, really.
"WHO DO YOU THINK WILL HAVE TO PAY FOR THE DAMAGES?! OUR SCHOOL!"
He continued screeching; Tsuna hated the sniggers and the annoyed glances his classmates were giving him. Not that he was surprised—apparently he had, after all, destroyed a plane.
After a few minutes, Reborn, deciding to extract Tsuna from the predicament, intervened.
"No need to worry," the ex-Arcobaleno interrupted, "The Vongola was already prepared for such a… accident. Neither the school, nor the individual," he glanced at Tsuna in amusement, "will have to pay for the damages."
"But—"
"There is no need to worry," Reborn repeated sharply, no doubt irked at the prospect of having to repeat himself.
Nezu-sensei looked ready to argue, but another look from Reborn shut him up. He huffed and crossed his arms over his chest, sending a warning look at Tsuna firmly, "And you. I will be keeping an eye on you. You're troublesome as it is, and the last thing you will be allowed to do is destroy this trip. I'd rather not have Vongola complaining about how utterly deplorable Namimori Middle's students are."
Tsuna nodded vigorously, and, following a curt order from Nezu-sensei, left to join his friends.
"Do you want me to kill him, Tenth?" Gokudera asked, looking a bit too eager for Tsuna's comfort.
"No, Gokudera-kun," Tsuna pleaded a bit wryly, having heard the same request from Gokudera whenever somebody even so much as raised his or her voice at him, "just leave him be. It was my fault, anyway."
He gave the silverette a meaningful look. Gokudera looked away in guilt, and Tsuna tried not to feel too guilty.
And failed. Damnit.
"I'm really sorry for ignoring you when you, er, greeted me."
Tsuna tried not to cringe at the expression—full of respect and admiration and looking just about ready to burst into tears— Riccatto was making at him. Since almost everybody associated with the Vongola was magically multi-talented, Tsuna hadn't been particularly surprised at knowing that Riccatto could not only operate a plane, but also a ship. Which meant that the man in question was the ship's Captain.
"But, Decimo, you didn't have to apologize—"
"It was my fault in the first place." Tsuna said softly, "It was rude of me, and I—" The brunette bowed down, "I'm really, really sorry—"
Oh, kami, the Decimo is so kind!
"Please, Decimo, there is no need to bow—"
Tsuna bow deepened, apparently hell bent on having the other accept the apology.
Riccatto bit his lip, "I-I accept your apology, Decimo, but can you please stop bowing…?"
Tsuna looked up, and Riccatto noticed the relief in the Neo Vongola Primo's eyes. He tried not to feel too happy at noticing that fact.
"Thank you…" Tsuna said appreciatively.
Riccatto nodded, "But, Decimo, why are you hiding your identity from your classmates?"
Tsuna gave a sheepish smile, "Um. I want a normal life, really, and I'm pretty sure that the chances of having one is likely to be very low once people get to know that I'm the heir of the Vongola, so…"
Riccatto nodded understandingly, idly tinkering with one of the knobs in the control room of the ship
"Besides, I'm not exactly popular in my class…"
Riccatto paused, "What do you mean?"
"Er." Tsuna looked a bit uncomfortable, "Weeeell… I'm kinda bullied. But that has decreased a lot!" he added hastily when Riccatto's eyes darkened considerably.
"Who, may I ask, were the ones to bully you, Decimo?"
Like hell I'm going to tell you that! Tsuna thought immediately, no doubt having noticed the sudden dark aura surrounding the captain. He excused himself hastily, lest Riccatto actually managed to extract the names—Ayashi, Takahira, Kaneda and a few more—of the people who had made his life hell before he had met Reborn (which only served to make his life more hell-like, frankly), "My friends are waiting for me, so, um, BYE!"
He darted out of the control room, climbed up the stairs hastily and spilled into the deck.
Ayashi observed wryly as Gokudera Hayato called out to a certain someone.
"Tenth! Tenth, where are you?! Oh my God, please don't tell me you are lost! TENTH!"
The silver haired teenager was making a lot of fuss, much to Ayashi's annoyance. He didn't like Tsuna, and he couldn't help but wonder why the hell the Italian was searching desperately for the person whose uselessness exceeded even a newborn. Not that it mattered (much) to Ayashi how many people Tsuna was friends with, but seriously. Why him? The brunette was fucking useless!
He knew that his friends—Takahira and Kaneda—agreed with him wholeheartedly.
Dame-Tsuna spilled out into the deck, and, much to Ayashi's perpetual annoyance, was instantly swallowed by a group of people—his friends.
It pissed him off more than anything.
He observed as the shortest boy of the group explained something or the other to the three boys and two girls surrounding him, before giving an awkward laugh, no doubt telling them not to worry. If there was another odd thing Arashi had noticed with Tsuna and his group of friends, it was definitely how the people around him kept on asking the brunette the same question—are you alright? It didn't make sense! They acted as if whenever the brunette stepped away from their line of sight, Dame-Tsuna would die.
They are so dramatic, Arashi thought sourly, crossing his arms over his chest.
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN THE VARIA ARE COMING?!"
Dame-Tsuna's voice was exceedingly high pitched. It literally pierced through Arashi's ears, and he winced, frowning. Tsuna looked panicked and worried and rightfully embarrassed when he realized that people, including Arashi and his group of friends, were staring at him in slight annoyance and bewilderment.
Dame-Tsuna smiled sheepishly at them, ducked his head, and spoke to his group of friends in a very low voice.
Arashi wondered who the Varia were.
Tsuna was nervous. He really regretted not having banged his head on a wall on then having gone to a coma when Reborn had not been looking. He had learned of the arrival of the Varia from a cheerful Reborn an hour ago, and, after being allotted his room, was busy panicking.
"Calm down, Tsuna, nothing will happen. Besides, I haven't met Squalo for a long time, so I'm pretty excited."
"Yamamoto's right, Tenth, for once. If Xanxus so much as tries to hurt you, we will be there to protect you, so there's no need to worry!"
"That's not what I'm worried about." It was the truth, really. Even if Xanxus did try to attack him, Tsuna knew for a fact that he was capable of defending himself, "What I am worried about, though, is the ship. They're likely to destroy it, and then we will drown, and then float about in the sea and then get eaten by sharks, and I don't want to be shark food!"
"Haha, Tsuna, you sure do have an over active imagination!"
"It's completely likely to happen, Yamamoto!"
"Don't worry, Tenth, I'd blow the sharks before they so much as touch you!"
The fact that Gokudera was, in a way, by stating the above sentence, agreeing that the ship getting destroyed by the Varia was completely possible, did nothing to lessen Tsuna's worry. Sometimes he hated his life.
"Thank you, Gokudera-kun," Tsuna said anyway, if only to see Gokudera's face brightening up considerably.
"You are welcome, Tenth!"
It was then that the distinct sound of a helicopter was heard, and Yamamoto peered out from the window of Tsuna's allotted room. Gokudera and Tsuna followed his action, and Tsuna barely managed to not squeak in fear when his and Xanxus' eyes met. Xanxus was leaning out of the still flying helicopter, looking wonderfully murderous as ever.
Tsuna really, really hated his life.
Yamamoto and Gokudera, suicidal that they were, were heading towards the deck; towards the area Tsuna distinctly remembered seeing a helipad. Not wanting to be left alone, Tsuna followed them, albeit a bit reluctantly. Tsuna reluctantly climbed the stairs and then, all too reluctantly, stepped out into the deck. There were other students too, no doubt wondering why a helicopter was heading towards the ship. Tsuna did not blame them for wondering, though he wished to be as oblivious to the reason as they were.
Tsuna took in a sharp breath when the helicopter finally landed and the Varia stepped down.
Takahira watched as a silver haired man exited the helicopter, before being roughly kicked aside by another man—Takahira froze. This man was terrifying—he had scars all over his face, red eyes glinting with the sort of crazed madness which made Takahira want to cower under a wall and desperately hope to never be seen by the man ever again. Desperate to never look at him, Takahira turned his attention towards a floating baby (what the hell? Seriously, what the hell?), a golden haired man—boy?—with a fucking tiara, and a person with a mow hawk and feathers.
Feathers. What.
"VOOOI! WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU, YOU STUPID BOSS?!" The silver haired man screamed.
"Shut it, trash!" This was ordered by the scarred man Takahira was doing his very best to never look at again.
The silver haired man with a goddamn sword attached to his hand waved said sword about wildly, "LIKE FUCK I'M GOING TO SHUT UP—"
"Heeeeyyyy! Squalo!"
The silver haired man—Squalo—paused, and then turned around. Takahira, followed the man's line of sight. It fell on Yamamoto, who was waving and running towards the sworded guy, looking as if Christmas had come early. What was more surprising was the fact that the man actually greeted back with a, "You're here too, brat?!" and Yamamoto laughed like they were bestest of buddies.
Now, Takahira liked Yamamoto. Guy was good—funny, even, with a nice and friendly personality, forever smiling. What he did not like, somewhat imitating Kaneda and Arashi, was that Yamamoto stuck with Dame-Tsuna, of all people. It was a completely stupid thing to do, definitely. Sure, Dame-Tsuna had saved Yamamoto's life when the baseball fanatic had tried to commit suicide (how they had survived the fall was still a mystery to Takahira), but Dame-Tsuna was possibly the most boring teenager in the entire world, and that was probably an understatement. Ridiculousness had a limit.
His eyes caught Arashi's and the other looked as confused as he did.
"You have been practicing, haven't you?!"
"Heh…"
"DON'T 'HEH' ME, YOU IDIOT! AT YOUR AGE, I WAS A GODDAMN GOOD ASSASSIN!"
Wait, what?
"Yamamoto!" somebody moaned, and when Takahira turned, it was to see a very pale Dame-Tsuna.
Tsuna was officially freaking out. Squalo screaming about being an assassin surely wasn't a good thing. Yamamoto turned to look at him, and Tsuna desperately tried to tell the baseball fanatic to come back and leave the Varia alone and please DO NOT call me over.
"Tsuna? What are you doing there? Come here!"
Tsuna rapidly shook his head, "Um. No. I'm not really feeling well, so yeah, I'll go back. Sea sick." For good measure, he covered his mouth and pretended that he was just about ready to throw up. He stepped back, gave a sheepish smile, and proceeded to dart out from the deck, but—
Honed instincts made him leap to his left, narrowly avoiding getting burned to death. On the floor, he rolled to one side, missing a booted foot just barely. He jumped up, met Xanxus' livid face and decided that dodging the next few attempts at murder was the next best course of action.
"Um, Xanxus—" left, right, duck—"what did I do now—" jump, roll, stand, right, duck.
Takahira watched with morbid fascination as the man's gun shot out flames, legs and hands working constantly to hit Dame-Tsuna.
"Xanxus—"
"Your presence annoys me!"
"I can leave, I promise, Xanxus! In fact, I am pretty good at leaving so please—"
It was after a few minutes of floundering and dodging with exaggerated movements on Tsuna's part and firm orders from the man—Xanxus—to sit still, you fucking useless trash that Takahira noticed that something was very, very wrong with the scene. Apart from the fact that guns were apparently capable of imitating flame throwers and that the entire ship was, for reasons unknown, not burning down and that Dame-Tsuna fucking knew this person, the thing which caught Takahira's eyes was that Tsuna was dodging.
Initially he had thought that it was pure luck from Tsuna's side, but now that he looked properly, he noticed that Tsuna was really dodging, and that too with the sort of ease Takahira had never seen the short male exude.
He blinked, the information hitting him in the face. Hard. Takahira learned judo and was pretty damn good at the art, but this was…
No, it had to be a joke. It had to. Dame-Tsuna was an idiot who tripped over air, someone who was bullied on a regular basis because of how utterly useless he was—a boy incapable of kicking a ball without tripping over it at least five times. And even if he did manage to kick it, the ball would land somewhere far off, not anywhere even remotely near the goal. Hell, Takahira had spent a good deal of his Middle School life making Tsuna's life hell, so he knew…
Luck, he decided, stubbornly, it has to be.
But then something happened. Dame-Tsuna was too near the railing for a sane person's comfort and, to not become a burned corpse in the near future, jumped, dodging another burst of flames, lost his momentum, and then fell…
…into the sea.
I hate my life, Tsuna decided yet again as he was sent careening backwards. His back hit the sea, salty water entering his mouth and nostrils and he gasped. Somehow managing break out into the surface, Tsuna took in a deep, sharp breath, thankful for the presence of oxygen and trees and anything with chlorophyll and capable of giving out oxygen, really, as he tried to stay afloat. He blinked once, twice, to get rid of the salt water from his eyes, shuddering when a cold wind swept past.
The ship was still moving, away from him, and panic gripped him.
Shit. I knew this trip was not a good idea.
He had to get back. His ring thrummed in response as he struggled, trying to take out his gloves from his soaked pockets with little success. And then a thought came to him:
Okay, flying out of the water when others are looking is definitely not an option.
Shit. Dammit, Xanxus!
He stayed afloat, trying to think of an escape. He could hear Gokudera, Yamamoto and Ryohei calling out to him, panicked, and noticed how pale Chrome and Kyoko looked. The ship was still moving, going further and further away from him, but slowing down. The news of his fall must have reached Riccatto or something.
Tsuna vaguely thought of the expressions of surprise and bewilderment on his classmates' faces, when Xanxus had specifically sought him out, and then proceeded to try and burn him to after life, hoping that him knowing an Italian stranger by the name of Xanxus wouldn't lead to any form of suspicion.
Who the hell was he kidding? Of course it would lead to suspicions.
Tsuna knew he had to swim forward since a human flying whilst wearing gloves defied the laws of the awful subject called Physics. So that's what he did: he swam. The ship had come to a halt, thankfully, which meant that if Tsuna continued swimming, say, twenty kilometers, he would definitely reach the ship by midnight.
And it looked sometime around noon.
Damn it. Damn it. Damn it.
It was then that Tsuna noticed something coming at him at a very high speed.
A gray triangle.
Tsuna blinked, hoping that his eyes were deceiving him and—
Oh. Right.
Of course. A shark.
Because fate still hated him, after all, and since the Varia's arrival wasn't enough to screw everything up, Fate just had to add a shark into the mix, didn't it?
You have got to be kidding me.
*Ducks a flying tomato* Yeah. Er.
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