OH MY GOD! So many reviews! Shit, I had literally been squealing with excitement while reading them! I'm so glad that so many people like this fic!

There's something I am going to mention—Tsuna's going to be (somewhat) sarcastic in this fic. Which isn't OOC at all, actually. If you read the manga, you'd see that Tsuna has always been the sarcastic sort, but has not been very vocal about it. Oh, and Tsuna's behavior is based on what he was like in the last two arcs of the manga—I doubt anyone can be a mumbling mess after doing what he has done (which involves having the meeting with the people who have tried to kill him, defeating Bermuda, Daemon Spade and all that).

Here's chapter five!

Disclaimer: Don't own.

Enjoy!

Tsuna exited through one of the secret doors in the secret training room, happy to leave Xanxus and Bester alone; the latter had, over the past few hours, grown awfully fond him to the point where digging his claws or sinking his teeth or trying to Petrify Tsuna to death gave the liger immense satisfaction. Everyone Tsuna associated with were sadists in one form or another, he thought morosely, needing rest and a good, warm, preferably fluffy, bed.

He hadn't had lunch and, judging by the darkness outside, wouldn't get the opportunity to have dinner, either.

He sighed despondently. He really was hungry, but he supposed he would survive. Under Reborn, he had easily gone through worse, which was a good thing, he reminded himself. It gave him enough practice to starve.

Sadists.

He climbed the stairs, dazedly noticing how his feet created a dull, almost unheard, 'thunk' on the steel surface below with each step. Barely paying attention to his surroundings, he bumped into someone, falling back, but clutching onto the barrister sharply as he tried to hold himself still.

"You shouldn't loiter around in the night, herbivore."

He got hit by something very familiar, and he yelped, startled, tipped back and fell on the ground.

"Hi-Hibari-san!" he protested, landing on his back. He peered up at the prefect, who was staring at him. Hibari did not look really surprised, demanding him to get up.

Tsuna did so, almost immediately, wondering why the urge to salute took over him. He resisted it, and felt like grinning. He had no idea why.

A bit disturbing, admittedly.

Hibari gave him a dry look, eyes roving over his body, taking in the bruises and scratches courtesy of a probable man eating liger. Something flickered in the other's eyes—the sort of look which Tsuna really did not appreciate because it, inadvertently, meant that skylark was about to demand a fight from him, and Tsuna was seriously against obliging to that request, thank you very much. He tried inching away, but Hibari, easily being taller than Tsuna, blocked him.

Tsuna hated his height.

"You were training." Not a question. Simply stating a fact.

A part of Tsuna figured that saying yes or no were both bad ideas because the former comment would lead to Hibari demanding a fight from him while the latter would lead to getting hit on the face by a tonfa.

Neither option seemed appealing.

He went for a lame: "Um…"

Annoyance flickered in grey.

"Don't get lost again. You had us worried, herbivore."

If it weren't for how Hibari's eyes narrowed, just a bit, after saying the sentence, Tsuna wouldn't have really thought much about one specific word used in the prefect's sentence.

Us.

That included Hibari too, didn't it? It was… surprising, Tsuna had to admit, given how indifferent Hibari seemed to anything concerning how much Tsuna took the other as a family. He smiled at the prefect, giddy, and almost laughed right then and there when Hibari whammed him on the head with a tonfa and stalked away, head held high, parting with a simple instruction:

"Get back to your room, herbivore, or I'll bite you to death."

Tsuna noticed how Hibari tended to call him 'herbivore' in his presence and 'omnivore' when the prefect thought he wasn't there. He wondered what that meant.

The next morning Tsuna had to apologize to Gokudera God-knows how many times, trying to keep the guilt of having worried the silver haired male at bay, but failing miserably. He got scolded by Ryohei, but was later forgiven (though, strictly speaking, he wasn't at fault since escaping Xanxus at that moment had seemed pretty much impossible), while Yamamoto gave him the familiar 'I forgive you, Tsuna, but don't ever do that again, haha' look while Chrome and Kyoko both smiled at him, telling him that they were glad that he was unharmed.

(If only they knew that he was about to be eaten up by a cat yesterday.)

Reborn hit him with a green, mini, but absurdly hard bookshelf, claiming that worrying his subordinates was a very un-Decimo like thing to do.

Tsuna glared at him, "You were the one who did it, aren't you?"

Reborn gave him an innocent look which served to increase Tsuna's suspicions even more.

"I don't know what you are talking about," Reborn said, voice still high pitched as he waved his hand in a dismissing gesture, "You're getting late for breakfast, Tsuna. It would not be good if you fall sick."

Tsuna was just about to point out that falling sick was actually a good thing since he was still very much against the trip, but Reborn literally kicked him into the dining hall. Tsuna half barreled, half stumbled into the hall, pushing the closed double doors with a loud thud, gulping when all eyes fell on him. Trying to shake off the awkwardness, he strode towards his chair and sat reluctantly on it, vaguely noticing that the Varia were not present.

His Guardians were there, and Gokudera immediately greeted him with a jubilant 'Tenth!', while Hibari, unsurprisingly, ignored him and proceeded to glaring at Mukuro, who was looking smug for some reason.

Tsuna noticed how eyes were still fixed on him.

"Uh." He started, addressing the other people present.

Arashi was the one to say something back, "Where the hell were you, Dame-Tsuna?"

Tsuna noticed how Gokudera's head immediately whipped in Arashi's direction, not missing the rudeness in Arashi's voice. Tsuna gave him a stern look. Gokudera relaxed, if only minutely.

"Downstairs." He replied.

"Don't lie, idiot." Arashi said.

Yamamoto and Ryohei stiffened at the insult. Tsuna gave them a stern look, too. They relaxed, albeit only a bit. Not very assuring.

"We split up in search for you, but you weren't there," Takahira explained, "You disappeared. Where were you?"

Arashi scoffed, "Don't you get it? He wants attention. That's how people like him are."

"Bastard," Gokudera hissed, "what do you mean by 'people like hi—"

"People who want attention," Arashi snapped, "people who are incapable of doing anything on their own and whine and demand attention. Performing underhanded tricks to get people to look at them."

Tsuna wondered whether the boy had a death wish. It seemed very likely, which was not a good thing, since Gokudera looked too much like a wish-granter for Tsuna's comfort. People were obviously getting swayed by Arashi's words, sending Tsuna not-so-pleased looks as they muttered among themselves. It should have bothered Tsuna, but it didn't, especially since Gokudera's fingers were itching towards the dynamites, he had kept hidden God knows where, busy in a heated glaring competition with Arashi. Chrome's hand was twitching a bit, too.

The sudden tension came to an abrupt halt by the arrival of Belphegor.

"Ushishishishi. Looks like cats are fighting, doesn't it?"

Gokudera sent the Storm Flame user a weary look, breaking eye contact with Arashi, who looked offended at the blatant dismissal.

"Fuck off," Gokudera said.

Belphegor did that hissing laugh like thing again, "Oh my, we can't have people getting angry at the Prince now, can we?"

Gokudera gave him a 'what the hell do you want?' stare, to which Bel shrugged.

"Boss wants to meet Baby Boss. Right now."

"Hell no. Tenth's hungry, and as his Right Hand, I decline the request from the Tenth's side."

"Gokudera-kun, it's alright." Gokudera opened his mouth to protest, but shut it. Tsuna looked at Bel, sighing, "I'll meet him. After breakfast."

"Ushishishi. Looks like the Baby Boss has become deaf; I did say right now, didn't I?"

"But—"

"Right now."

Tsuna sighed, rising up from his seat. If he had a death wish, he would have been busy growling at Xanxus to leave him the hell alone because he was fucking hungry, but since he didn't… following Bel out was his only option.

"What does he want from me now?"

Bel's look couldn't be deciphered. Tsuna just hoped that the grin on the Prince's face didn't mean anything.

Since Bel was obviously too royal to walk up or down the stairs, he took a lift, which meant awkward silence in the gold plated (because, really, Bel wouldn't have steeped into lift otherwise and the Vongola was filth rich) metallic box. Tsuna cursed the awkward lift music, and also the awkwardness of the situation, and the fact that lift, golden plated and lavish that it was, seemed to move at a half-sleeping snail's pace. The awkwardness increased, and Tsuna's eyebrow twitched at regular intervals. Having enough, he asked the question that had been bothering him for a pretty long time.

"Um, Bel-san?"

Bel looked at him questioningly. If the other's eyebrows could be seen (or if he had eyebrows in the first place, at any rate), Tsuna had a feeling that they would be raised.

"How do you see?"

Pause.

Bel was giving him the classic 'wtf' look.

Feeling idiotic, Tsuna continued, "Um, I mean, your hair covers your eyes and…"

Bel was looking at him as if he had grown another head. Or as if Tsuna was the first one to ask him such a dumb to the point of being sad question.

"Well. Um. Yeah. So, how do you see?"

Bel was still giving him that look. Tsuna was literally performing a ritual in his head to increase the speed of the lift.

"X-Ray eyes?" he ventured lamely.

"You say some pretty amusing things, Baby Boss."

Tsuna gave an awkward laugh. Further awkwardness ensued.

When the lift finally came to a halt, and the doors buzzed open, Tsuna happily hurled himself towards the lion's den. Figuratively speaking, that is.

Actually, literally speaking, because Bester was there, and technicality aside, he was a sort-of-lion, wasn't he? Bester lifted his head to give him a blithe once over, ear twitching. Tsuna stood, still, staring into the feline's eyes, for a moment realizing just how beautiful the creature looked. The liger's head tipped to his right, giving what Tsuna supposed was a shrug, before going back to what he was doing previously—dozing off. Breathing out, Tsuna looked around the room, finding Squalo looking at him in an appraising manner, arms crossed over his chest, sitting on a bean chair.

Beside the swordsman was Grande Pioggia Squalo, otherwise known by the simple name Alo, who was swimming freely in a cylindrical fish tank. Bel left for one of the many rooms, throwing an insouciant wave at the two (four, if he included the ring-box-weapons). Forcing his eyebrows not to twitch at the blatant lack of one Xanxus in the room, and cursing himself for not having grabbed a toast or something to eat before following Bel into the Varia's living quarters, Tsuna's eyes followed the movement of the blue and white fish.

Squalo watched as Sawada walked up to Alo, and placed a palm on the smooth, cylindrical surface. Intrigued, Alo swam up to the Baby Boss, and if the glass weren't present, Sawada's hand would have been on Alo's nose.

"Thank you," Tsuna whispered, smiling, emotions in his eyes genuine, "for saving me."

Squalo rolled his eyes.

So soft.

He paused, imitating Alo, eyebrows climbing up when Alo wagged his tail.

In a dog like manner.

And if Squalo didn't know better, he would have also said that Grande Piogge Squalo was smiling. Fucking smiling.

Alo never did that. Hell, Squalo wasn't even aware that sharks were capable of smiling. The Baby Boss was smiling, too and Alo was—

Oh, hell no.

Alo smiling was okay with Squalo, really, but blushing?

The. Fuck.

"Stop that," he snapped.

Tsuna jerked away from the glass, and Squalo pointedly ignored the glare Alo tossed at him. He also ignored the dog-like-way Alo was looking at Tsuna. That was ridiculous.

"Squalo-san…?" Tsuna asked tentatively.

"STOP SEDUCING MY SHARK!"

Squalo would have screamed that, but didn't since he did have pride—a hefty amount of it, actually—and was aware how ludicrous screaming the above sentence would be, never mind the fact that the Baby Boss was doing just that. Instead he said:

"Leave Alo alone." He might have sounded very possessive, but he was simply freaked out.

The Baby Boss looked hurt, and Alo glared at Squalo in a 'how dare you be responsible for hurting him?' manner, but Squalo was happy to blame that on his imagination. Sawada moved away from the tank when Squalo's eyes ordered him to do that, standing awkwardly. Squalo huffed.

"So, what did you do to piss off Boss now?"

"I don't know, actually."

Squalo snorted.

"He's angry at me twenty-four-seven, anyway. Gets kind of hard to keep a track on why he wants to kill me next."

The answer to that was pretty obvious to Squalo— Xanxus simply found Baby Boss' face irritating—and he knewthat Sawada knew that too.

Alessandro refused to believe that he was scared. It hurt his pride.

Even though he refused to believe that, the fact that the Leader of the Varia and the Leader of the goddamn Vongola were going against each other like a pair of savage, blood thirsty, possibly cannibalistic dogs was inevitable. Alessandro watched, eyes wide, as Xanxus snarled, the urge to scream and run the hell away taking over every cell and fiber of his being, despite the fact that the snarl was not directed at him. It was directed at the Vongola Decimo, instead, and said male hardly seemed perturbed.

Alessandro wondered whether his Boss hated him. At this point of time, he was almost convinced of that explanation.

Alessandro had come to know of the Decimo's appearance from one Riccatto Carracci, who had, amongst a lot of hushed whispers, while pointing at a brown haired male, declared one Sawada Tsunayoshi as the Decimo. Unsurprisingly, Alessandro had not known what the Decimo looked like—understandable, really. Vongola was known as the most powerful and influential mafia Family for a reason; waving about their Boss' face on flyers was hardly an option, especially if they did not want their Boss to be found lying, dead, in some random, unknown ditch.

The lesser the information on a Family, the stronger the Family was. As simple as that. And a part of Alessandro's job was to gather more information—make the Vongola a bit weaker, in a manner of speaking. Making Vongola weak would take possible centuries, he was aware; the fact that it was the Vongola was enough of a reason as to why.

But, thing was, rumors about the Decimo had been circulating. Claiming how utterly undefeatable and strong the Decimo and his Guardians were, the exaggerations had seemed as only that—exaggerations.

Now, though, Alessandro was half convinced that everything rumored around the Vongola Decimo was true; he wasn't sure about the Guardians, yet, however.

Alesandro wanted to run. But Xanxus had demanded his presence because the random, unknown liger apparently hated Alessandro and had taken a liking to trying to bite his arm off.

And Bester did not even know him.

Tsuna was, thankfully, excused for dinner, which, evidently, meant that he had not had the opportunity to have lunch. Again.

Tsuna wished that he could apply makeup. At least, that way, he would have been able to hide the black eye he was sporting. Reborn would maim him if the hitman saw him like this. The only comfort was that Tsuna had succeeded in making Xanxus bleed, too—a meager comfort, seeing that had not wanted to hurt Xanxus in the first place.

He was probably bleeding internally, too. And if Gokudera were to ever see him like this—bloody and broken and limping and pretty much having a shitty moment—he'd freak. Tsuna did not want Gokudera to freak. Gokudera freaked enough as it was; the last thing he wanted was to kill his best friend by increasing Gokudera's blood pressure and/or stress level.

Which was why, going to the dining hall was a big no-no.

Normally, he would have gone to Ryohei to get himself healed, but going to his big Brother would mean seeing Ryohei freak, and that was not a good thing, either. Ryohei freaking meant the whole ship knowing, and the whole ship knowing meant Gokudera knowing, and Gokudera knowing meant possible death of his best friend due to increase in blood pressure and—yeah.

Yamamoto wasn't kidding. Tsuna worried too much.

He considered going back to his room, and then decided against it. Gokudera and Yamamoto were likely to search for him there first. The both had the key to his room, after all.

So he starved. Again.

He met Chrome with Kyoko an hour after lunch-time.

On Tsuna's request, Chrome put an illusion over him.

And that was that.

Except that wasn't that, and even though it filled him with exasperated consternation, it wasn't surprising. Everything in his life refused to come to a halt and leave him alone, after all.

It happened during dinner. Arashi had been giving him suspicious looks, backed up by Takahira and Kaneda and pretty much everybody with the exception of his friends (Reborn preferred calling them his 'Guardians'; Tsuna preferred to ignore him), while Gokudera had been hovering protectively in front of him, glaring at anyone who even glanced at Tsuna. Tsuna tried to calm him down, but later gave up; he knew for a fact that doing this calmed Gokudera down and made him happy, and Tsuna was all for making Gokudera happy. It prevented the appearances of dynamites. Sometimes.

Chrome and Kyoko were giving him worried glances since the two were the only ones to be aware of the fact that every movement ached and that his skin was an unhealthy shade of blue, black, red and purple; Tsuna was aware that Mukuro knew that, too, if he took the illusionist's discreet once over and slight quirking of his lips the moment Tsuna stepped into the hall into account.

Xanxus entered, kicking the door open like he always did, accompanied by Bester. Only Squalo was the other Varia member with the man; Tsuna was glad, because that meant less mental scarring for him.

Xanxus swept into the room like he owned the place (which he probably did. Somewhat.), ignoring the sudden hush which took over.

Everybody's eyes were fixed on Bester who, for the record, looked very, very bloodthirsty. For some reason.

The feline stared at everybody, eyes roving over their forms, and Tsuna knew that that was a predatory look in the beast's eyes. The gaze of a carnivore looking for food. Everybody not used to death-warranting situations became very, very still, perspiring, staring yet not-quite-staring at Bester, and hoping for the animal to go away. Bester did not, silent yet prowling, which scared everyone even more, especially since a single movement (which also involved breathing and blinking, unfortunately) made Bester growl insidiously.

Nobody dared to make a single sound.

And then Bester's eyes fell on Tsuna and the feline literally leaped towards him. Ready to shriek, Tsuna was cut off when somebody else shrieked, and a bewildered glance around informed him that the one to shriek was everybody apart from Tsuna, his friends and, obviously, Xanxus and Squalo since it was biologically impossible for them to shriek.

Bester tackled him to the ground, bared his teeth, growled and… licked him?

Gokudera's, Yamamoto's and Ryohei's screams of "Tenth!", "Tsuna!", "SAWADA!", respectively, trailed off uncertainly when Bester licked him again. And again. And again.

Tsuna stood up slowly, bewildered.

He vaguely noticed Xanxus gaping at him. He also vaguely noticed how everybody was looking at him.

Bester mewled and nudged him gently.

Tsuna awkwardly patted the liger's head.

"WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO?!" Xanxus screamed, grabbing Tsuna by the collar. Bester growled, but did not dare to snap at his master.

"Um…?" Tsuna questioned lamely.

"WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO TO BESTER?!" Xanxus demanded, glaring.

"I did not do any…thing…"

Tsuna heard Squalo snorting after giving Tsuna a 'I can't believe this' look. Tsuna wondered why. He did not fail to notice the way Squalo's hand was hiding his Varia Ring, as if fearing Tsuna's influence on Alo.

(In fact, that was exactly what he feared, but Tsuna did not know that and he did not needto know that, either.)

Bester occupied the meager space between Xanxus and Tsuna, forcing Xanxus to leave Tsuna. Xanxus glared at both of them, gave a disdainful "Che," and stalked back to his seat.

Bester stayed with Tsuna while Xanxus, sullen and furious, ate. Bester also prevented Tsuna from eating, demanding attention like a spoiled puppy, growling whenever Tsuna diverted his attention from him to food.

A certain someone mentioned that he would be glad to feed Tsuna with a spoon if need be.

Gokudera almost destroyed the ship in order to kill Mukuro.

I SWEAR TO GOD, THE NEXT CHAPTER WILL BE THE LAST SHIP BASED CHAPTER!

I'm so sorry if this has been boring you guys, but just bear with me. Once I start writing, I can't stop, and then the chapter becomes too long and then I can't put everything in one chapter and… um.

Tell me your thoughts disguised as reviews!