I won't be able to update this fic and for a pretty long time (before twenty fifth of March, at any rate), due to the presence of exams—devils from Hell, they are. Same goes for 'Irony'.
This chapter is longer than the other due to the lack of updates.
Reviews made my heart melt! Thank you to the extreme!
Enjoy!
Tsuna woke up to green eyes peering at him earnestly.
He didn't shriek at that like a younger version of his own self would surely have, having been used to those eyes and how earnestly they tended to peer. He got up slowly, groaning, and Gokudera sat back on the chair placed beside what Tsuna realized was a bed. He frowned looking at his surrounding, bewildered. He recalled being in a forest, shooing away those dreaded creatures. He remembered Basil's arrival, too, and that was it.
His mind was blank from there on.
"Where am I?" he asked Gokudera, who was looking at the gauze wrapped around Tsuna's shoulders in guilt.
"One of Vongola's Mansion, Tenth," Gokudera dutifully answered.
"'One of'?"
"Yes. We're still in Monte Di Montagna."
"You're kidding," Tsuna whined half heartedly, "And here I was hoping we'd be back in the Vongola Mansion!" He sighed in despondence, glancing at Gokudera. He looked at the bomber in worry—for some reason, Gokudera was fidgeting a lot. Under Tsuna's gaze, he stopped fidgeting, and then relapsed at doing so the moment Tsuna pretended to look somewhere else.
More importantly, Tsuna felt, Gokudera's reaction was a bit odd. Tsuna couldn't quite understand why.
"What happened— OW!" his words were cut off by his own yelp, shoulder throbbing.
Gokudera sprung up immediately, did eleven ninety degree bows, apologizing loudly, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Tenth—"
Ah, Tsuna thought, there it is.
"I am fine, Gokudera-kun! You can stop apologizing—"
Still mid-bow, Gokudera all but ordered, "Don't forgive me, Tenth! I deserve your scorn! I knew I shouldn't have left you alone, I am your right hand man! How could I—"
"Gokudera-kun, stop."
Tsuna blinked in surprise when Gokudera did stop. His eyes were shut, as if opening them would lead to the destruction of the planet Earth.
"I am fine now. What happened, anyway?" Tsuna digressed.
"Basil saved you. He was the one who brought you here," Gokudera explained, still mid-bow.
"Gokudera-kun," Tsuna interrupted, exasperated, "You can sit."
"Of course I can't, Tenth!"
"I insist."
Gokudera finally cracked open his eyes, sitting down at Tsuna's forgiving gaze, albeit reluctantly.
"What happened?"
"Basil brought you here. Yamamoto used his Flames to reduce the pain, and turf-top healed the wounds, and there was—" he paused, eyes falling on Tsuna's bandaged shoulder, swallowing thickly, "And there was so much blood, Tenth, I though you would—" his chocked, skin turning pale.
"You should know, Gokudera-kun," Tsuna said, smiling, "it takes more than that to kill me."
"I know," he whispered, smiling back lightly, "It's just that…"
He did not complete the sentence, but he did not need to. Tsuna perfectly understood what he meant, and that was enough for the both of them, really.
"Where's Yamamoto?"
"He, Chrome and turf-top were with you a few minutes before you woke up; Reborn-san has called them for some reason. He called me, too, but I told him that I'd go after you woke up."
"How long was I out?"
"Two hours."
Tsuna nodded, "Well, I need to rest for some time. Reborn is calling you, right? You should go."
Gokudera hesitated, "Are you sure, Tenth?"
"Yes I am."
Gokudera hesitated yet again, nodded and then left, saying, "Call me if you need anything, Tenth."
"I will," Tsuna confirmed.
As the door shut behind Gokudera, Tsuna lied back on the springy mattress, head hitting the pillow with an inaudible 'thump'. He blinked blearily up at the ceiling, mind reeling with thoughts; it was at this exact moment that the word 'students' filtered through his mind, and his body sprung up quite instinctively.
Chrome, Tsuna's mind supplied, Gokudera-kun said that Chrome's here. Does that mean that Lal found them? If she didn't, where is she? What about my group?
Mind unable to stop the overflow of concern and panic, Tsuna's foot, in its haste to quickly acquaint itself with the ground, got tangled in the bed sheet and he came crashing down. Tsuna grunted, picking himself up when the door opened.
"Tsuna?" someone called from outside.
Managing to stand up, Tsuna said, "Yeah, it's me, Alessandro."
The dark haired Italian entered the room softly, and before he could take a single step forward, Tsuna shot a quick question at him.
"Where're the students?"
"Lal Mirch led us here," Alessandro replied instantly.
"What about Skull's group?"
"All the students from Namimori Middle, and each group's respective leaders, are here, safe and sound. Most were injured, but I suppose that it's normal when the Arcobalenos are involved."
"Ex-Arcobaleno," Tsuna corrected unconsciously, breathing out in relief, "Thank God they are alright." He gave Alessandro a questioning look, inquiring, "Is something bothering you?"
Alessandro opened his mouth to reply, closed it, opened it again and said quietly, "I'm sorry."
Tsuna's gaze was that of confusion, "Um. Why?"
"The monster. I mean, if I weren't there, and if you wouldn't have come in my place, you wouldn't have been injured and…" Alessandro stopped, struggling with the words.
It wasn't everyday that people tended to treat Alessandro particularly nicely. Nobody had really thought of him to be that important to be saved. Yet, here was someone who had just saved him, and seemed to not want anything in return. Maybe, to Tsuna, it wasn't really a big deal, but to Alessandro it was. He was only fourteen—people didn't just sacrifice themselves for others, especially strangers.
Since the very beginning, Tsuna had been kind to him (with the exception of the incident in the ship, which was understandable, really) and what had Alessandro tried to do in return?
"I'm sorry," he repeated quietly, bowing down.
"I would've have done that for anyone," Tsuna said.
"I know. But…" But Alessandro had tried to kill him. He had been sent here for the purpose of gathering information and ensuring that the Decimo died—or would die. Those two facts changed the dynamic of the whole thing entirely. He swallowed thickly. What he was about to do was, perhaps, very stupid, but Alessandro was scrupulous. He began, "I was sent here to kill you."
Alessandro looked at Tsuna when the other did not reply. He continued, "I'm not from the Vongola. Marcini. That's the Famiglia I'm from. My Boss wanted to get rid of you."
He paused, confused, when Tsuna hardly looked surprised.
"I knew you were not from Vongola," he stated.
Alessandro's eyes widened, "You knew so then why did—"
"I would have done that for anyone," Tsuna repeated calmly, "Even you."
"You don't get it, Tsuna!" he snapped, unable to hide the sudden burst of anger he was feeling, "I was sent here to kill you. If I would have succeeded, you would have died. I had heard that the Decimo was exceptionally kind and sympathetic, but being like… like this isn't correct! You don't get it!"
Tsuna said nothing, waiting patiently. Alessandro opened his mouth to ramble again, only to shut it when exhaustion took over him. He was tired of speaking. There was nothing else he could add to those lines, anyway.
"What your Famiglia did to you was terrible," Tsuna said finally.
"How did you—"
Tsuna shrugged, "It was easy to figure it out, but it took me some time, though."
"So," Alessandro started, not succeeding in reeling back the anger yet, sneering, "You helped me because you were pitying me? Pardon my rudeness, Decimo, but frankly I don't think I appreciate your pity."
Tsuna winced at the unwanted title, but continued on, "I won't call it pity," he corrected, "My body moved on its own, actually. But…" he paused, frowning, vaguely realizing how strange the next line would possible sound, "You don't… well, you don't feel like a bad person. Or something."
Alessandro blinked dumbly in return.
Tsuna laughed lightly at the perplexed expression on the Italian's face, tapping his own temple, "An alien lives in my brain. Famously known as Vongola's Hyper Intuition." The humor wiped itself from his face, expression becoming characteristically serious, "No offense to your Famiglia or to your Boss, Alessandro, but I think I hate them for trying to kill you. I may not know you well, but I can assure you that you don't deserve the pain of betrayal. And your Famiglia doesn't deserve you."
"Oh." Alessandro said simply, brain unable to come up with any other meaningful words.
Or perhaps it was because he felt light, lighter than he had ever felt before. Alessandro thought that, maybe, he could get used to this feeling.
After Alessandro left the room, Tsuna decided to take a bath, gently prying the wrapped gauze from his shoulder whilst entering the bathroom, noticing that the kweler's bite hadn't left any scars behind. He rubbed the area, wincing. The pain wasn't what he'd call light, but it was manageable.
Stripping and keeping his pants to one side of the bathroom, he stepped into the shower slowly, deciding to take a bath in cold water. His Flames usually kept the cold at bay, so it was easy for him to live in sub-zero degrees without needing to cover himself up with anything. As he felt the cool water sliding soothingly down his skin, Tsuna shut his eyes, turning the events of this trip in his head.
He was so glad that no one was dead.
Ten minutes later, he turned off the shower, grabbing a towel hanging from a hanger. He dry toweled his hair without any enthusiasm, wrapping the other towel around his waist as he emerged from the bathroom. He looked around, frowning at the lack of a cupboard for any clothes to wear.
"Now what am I supposed to do?" Tsuna moaned. He ran his fingers through his hair prevent the strands from covering his forehead. With a huff, he exited the room, intending to borrow an extra shirt from Gokudera (if the bomber had any, that is).
The door to Tsuna's room opened to the hall where all the students and the Neo Vongola Primo's Guardians were gathered. The opening of the door led to everybody's head whipping to the direction of the door's sound, the constant murmurs of the students dying down to stare at one Sawada Tsunayoshi.
One half-naked Sawada Tsunayoshi, actually, whose brown hair was unkemptly brushed back, strands escaping the half hearted hold of the water and running free to fall on his forehead. Now appearing longer with the addition of water, his hair clung to the base and nape of his neck, droplets of water dripping down the strands and falling on a sturdy shoulder. His body, usually hidden by cloth, immediately brought everybody's attention its leanness.
Only silence pervaded, and then someone, distinctly male and previously very much straight, said, unabashedly loudly:
"Fuck, he is sexy."
Silence.
Tsuna turned bright red, murmuring weakly, "Wh-what…?"
It didn't help that all the girls (and a few guys, too) were having major nose-bleeding issues.
Tsuna shook his head in order to hide his embarrassment. Several students sucked in sharply at the sudden display of everything which epitomized sexiness.
"Where's Gokudera-kun—ow!" he ventured, only to have something—rather, someone much taller than him sneaking up from behind him and wrapping him in an exuberant hug.
Students, even the timid ones, watched with fascination as the towel clinging to his waist hitched downwards.
"Tsuna!"
"Dad!" Tsuna exclaimed, hell bent on not licking the floor. He was fighting a losing battle; the lack of blood in his system was taking its toll. Trying to shove Iemetsu off of him, he asked wildly, "What are you doing here? And gerroff me!"
"I'm seeing you after such a long time, Tuna-fishie!" Iemetsu pouted, whining, "And that's how you greet me?"
Tsuna grunted, and the group of spectators stirred.
"Tsuna? You've got to be kidding me!"
"I can't believe I thought he was hot!" someone wailed, yet still did not take of her eyes off the towel clinging to Tsuna's waist.
"More importantly, did he just say 'dad'?"
"I did not know he even had a dad," someone commented, and Tsuna, vaguely noticing how Iemetsu stiffened, rolled his eyes. Given his father's absence from his life, everybody in his school had a preconception that Nana was a widow.
"What's he doing here?" someone asked, and horrifyingly enough, Lal Mirch, who, apparently, like Reborn, had a penchant for appearing where she was not particularly needed, replied.
"He's the CEDEF of Vongola," she explained, "And his son was here, so of course Iemetsu would visit," there was a little sneer at the word 'of course', but nobody paid it any mind.
"CEDEF?"
Lal looked at the boy who had questioned and then at the various inquisitive gazes, before shrugging, "A very high position in the Vongola that pays well."
She watched with amusement as Tsuna continued wrestling Iemetsu who had comported to behaving like a koala. Gokudera Hayato arrived a few minutes later, and immediately came to the brunette's rescue. Upon seeing Tsuna's pleading eyes, he managed to pry off the man from his precious Tenth's form.
"Get away from him," the bomber snapped wildly, looking mildly disgusted.
It wasn't exactly news to anyone that Gokudera's dislike for Tsuna's father stemmed from the fact that the CEDEF leader had tried to kill Tsuna. Twice.
Iemetsu whined, and upon Tsuna's request, the bomber led the shorter male to his room.
As Tsuna followed Gokudera out, he vaguely recalled the name of the Famiglia Alessandro had mentioned. Marcini. He wondered why it sounded a bit familiar.
After Tsuna had left Gokudera's room wearing a fresh set of clothes and had turned around two corners, he was immediately surrounded by three people—Takahira, Kaneda and Arashi. Tsuna bowed down a bit, his manner that of politeness since he had been taught since childhood to be nothing but polite, greeting them briefly, before being abruptly slammed roughly into the wall.
Seeing that he had spent majority of his teenage years crash landing into walls and thus having broken bones, the comparatively lighter impact created no such facial expressions of pain. He merely winced in half-surprise, staring, startled, at the three classmates who leered at him.
"Is something wrong?" Tsuna asked, not really bewildered since the majority of his pre-teenage years were spent being stuck in this particular position.
Arashi, whose grip on his collar was rough, sneered at him contemptuously, "Is something wrong, he asks!" he said, turning to Takahira and Kaneda, "Yes, there is something wrong, Dame-Tsuna."
"What is it, may I ask?" Tsuna asked, the calm weariness in his voice making his 'captives' angry.
"Fuck you!" Arashi yelled abruptly. In retrospect, Tsuna thought, he probably should have shut up and not asked what exactly was wrong with the other.
Especially when a fist came crashing down on his right cheek. One side of Tsuna's head hit the wall, and the only thing which Tsuna did to that was blink and wince lightly. When his eyes darted up to look at Arashi and the other two, they quickly scanned their positions, their postures.
Reflexively, in his mind's eyes, he could see his own hand striking Arashi's abdomen, the action swift and light, harmless yet painful. Arashi would reel back, but not crumple down in pain, which would instigate the other two to start their attrition, and judging by the fact that Takahira had faster reflexes, the one to start the attack would definitely be him. Tsuna imagined himself sidestepping, slamming his elbow against Kaneda's chest, right knee coming swiftly in contact with Takahira's—
Tsuna stopped his train of thoughts immediately. What scared him at times was that the images were too vivid to be considered fake; what scared him more was that he knew he could do all that in his sleep, with his arms tied behind his back.
Tsuna focused his thoughts back to the present situation. Arashi, it seemed, was speaking rapidly and furiously, Kaneda and Takahira adding conjectures, unwanted addendums.
"What do you think, we wouldn't notice? How idiotic do you think we are?!Your father's rich, he works in the Vongola, so of course, people would be in your goddamn favor, wouldn't they?"
Tsuna absently rubbed his bruised and not-really-throbbing cheek. Seriously, this was so petty.
"I had been wondering how you could be so well-known, how you were doing the shit you were doing; Lal Mirch and everybody else were paid by your father, weren't they, to work in your favor so that you wouldn't look so weak in front of your classmates?" Arashi laughed, "Dame-Tsuna can't do anything without money, after all, right? They had been there to embarrass us so that you wouldn't be belittled. You have it so fucking easy for you!"
Tsuna found himself bristling at the words. Normally he wouldn't care, but this time he did. Nothing was 'easy' for him as Arashi had so eloquently stated—he had faced death on his own, stuck in a mad future, stuck in a goddamn fucking island with Daemon Spade for company.
"Same with your so-called 'friends', right? Your father paid them money, too, didn't he? Asked them to befriend his useless son, since he has no friends," Takahira snickered.
"That's so petty!" Kaneda and Arashi hollered gleefully.
"Why the fuck won't you say anything? Cat got your tongue, Dame-Tsuna?" Arashi teased crudely.
"Let me go," Tsuna whispered hoarsely, eyes unseen under the locks covering them.
"Hm? What is it, Dame-Tsuna?" Kaneda mocked, leaning closer, pretending to look interested.
And then Tsuna looked up, his gaze frigid; the three froze on the spot.
"I will be counting till three," Tsuna breathed out, pinning them with a calm, collected look, "And I swear to God, if you don't fucking get out my sight, I will not be responsible for what I do to you next, understand?"
No answer. That was the closest one could get to understanding that the three simply had no words to say, and that no matter how much they wanted to heed the brunette's words, their bodies simply refused to move.
"One…"
Arashi stirred and so did the other three. Eyes widening, he left Tsuna's collar and stepped back along with the others almost reflexively.
"Two…"
Tsuna did not get the opportunity to count the next number, since all of them had disappeared from his vicinity by then.
Tsuna breathed out deeply, sliding down the wall so that he was sitting on the carpeted floor. He bit his lower lip, right thumb being pulled painfully by his left hand (until he was pretty sure that his thumb would break if he continued) to distract his mind. He had snapped; he knew he would have done something wholly regrettable if he had not given them an option.
The reason why he had friends like Chrome, Gokudera, Yamamoto, Mukuro, Hibari and Reborn was because they had faced death like he had. They had gone through shit they wouldn't have been involved in if it were not for Tsuna. And Tsuna knew that better than anyone; he had patiently waited for his friends to come back to him alive far too many times, even when luck was unfavorable to them. The mere thought of his family being with him for the sake of something as petty as money was insulting them on so many levels—and Tsuna did not take insults against his family well.
He breathed out again, standing up slowly, hoping that he hadn't scared them too much.
It had been Lal's idea to have a tour around the mansion.
Everybody—including Hibari and excluding Mukuro, who had said 'no' to the request simply because he was too lazy—had agreed. Or had been coerced to agreeing under her gaze.
They had left the main building, only to enter an art gallery cum warehouse of sorts, where the paintings of the Vongola's Bosses were hanging from the walls with all their glory. And just as luck had had it, everybody, dutifully ignoring the sheer size of the place or that it was uselessly decorated with chandeliers and carpets of the finest quality, or that delicate yet beautiful silver vein like curls encroached the ceiling, saw the first thing Tsuna was against them seeing:
The First Generation's painting.
There was a contemplative silence, and someone asked, "Who's the blonde haired man in the middle?"
"That's the first Vongola Boss, Giotto," Lal replied swiftly, "And that's Asari on his left and G on his right. There's Daemon, Alaude and Knuckle."
"Who are they? The Boss' friends?"
"Guardians," Lal replied. Receiving a confused look, she shrugged noncommittally, "Protectors, if you will."
"First Boss, you mean they created the Vongola?"
Lal nodded.
"There's no painting here," Hinata mentioned, pointing at the part of the wall which was blank but had a frame hanging from it, "What's that for?"
"The Tenth Generation," Lal replied.
"You mean the new Boss you were talking of? In the car?" Arashi asked.
"Yes. The Tenth Generation is famously known as the Second Coming of The First Generation," she said, pride leaking into her voice, "The Primo and the Decimo look similar, too."
"They do?" someone asked, cocking her head to one side as she gazed contemplatively at Giotto's face.
Takahira frowned, "He looks kind of familiar doesn't he?"
"Huh. Yeah, he does. Where have I seen him before?"
"I can't recall but I know I have seen him somewhere before but…"
As murmurs broke, Tsuna couldn't help but squirm a bit haplessly. He wished he had a cloth to cover his face with—if someone were to look at his face now, they would certainly realize the similarity. Tsuna turned away from the crowd, and stared at a neglected wall with such intensity that, if it were human, it would have definitely started blushing.
"I know I have seen him before!" someone declared loudly, "And Asari-san, G-san and the others, too! But where…"
Please don't understand, please don't understand, please don't understand, please don't…
"He looks like Tsuna," Yamamoto said distractedly, attempting to casually snatch a cigarette stick Gokudera had managed to sneak in, oblivious to Tsuna's little inner rant.
A small pause followed the little declaration and Tsuna thought:
Oh shit.
Tsuna shouldn't have given a long drawn, pitiful groan, because it immediately brought everybody's attention to him.
Another small silence pervaded as the students' eyes flickered from the Primo's face to Tsuna's and back again. Lal was smirking wildly. Someone exclaimed, voice shaking with disbelief:
"He looks exactly like Dame-Tsuna."
"Does he?" Tsuna asked, glancing at the painting and then at the students a bit too quickly, "No he doesn't. At all."
"He does!" someone known as Yameda protested.
Murmurs broke in again, contemplative gazes roving over Tsuna's form. The people who had been involved in making Tsuna's life nothing short of Hell looked scared, unable to believe and not wanting to believe the facts presented to them.
"And the people back in the Mansion were calling someone 'Decimo', weren't they?"
"Do you think they were talking about…?"
"Of course they weren't," Arashi snorted, "I think you guys are forgetting something—this is Dame-Tsuna we are talking about. Him, being the leader of such a huge company as the Vongola is absurd."
This declaration was immediately followed by agreements. Tsuna sagged in relief at how teenagers tended to be fickle minded; a fact they did not wish believe always became lie for them. Gokudera and Ryohei, who were usually the sort to scream at anyone who disagreed that Tsuna was the Vongola Tenth were suspiciously quiet. So were Yamamoto and Lal Mirch, now that he thought about it, and so was Chrome—who never spoke that much, but still.
What brought Tsuna's attention, though, was the fact that they were tensed, eyes—or eye, in Chrome's case—darting about. And it was then that Tsuna sensed it, too.
Shit, is what he thought, and then the door burst open and twenty people armed with guns came running in, the muzzles pointed in one direction: the students of Namimori Middle.
Pandemonium broke through immediately, as screams of panic followed. Tsuna glanced about quickly—the windows were occupied by the enemies' men, and so was the door. This was not good.
"Shut up!" a voice screamed—the leader of the entourage, Tsuna immediately inferred. The inference turned out to be correct when the people surrounding the leader shot continuously at the ceiling. The chandelier swayed dangerously to one side, and if it were to fall, five students would immediately be crushed to death.
The cries dwindled to audible sniffs.
"On your knees, now!" the man commanded.
Nobody moved.
The ceiling was shot again. The sudden thud of knees dropping to floor cut off the sound of the chandelier bending lower.
The man—Tsuna, unable to coerce his mind to find a better name, decided to call him Baldy—did not dilly dally, but went straight to business.
"Where's the Decimo?"
"I'll bite you to death," Tsuna heard Hibari snarl.
"On your knees, now!" someone snarled back—Tsuna decided to call him Scar since that was the most prominent feature on his face.
Hibari got his tonfas out, ready to fight when commanded yet again. Scar pointed his gun at Hibari, and Tsuna knew that that was a useless effort. Hibari could easily parry and dodge bullets.
"On your knees, or I kill you," Scar threatened.
Hibari met his eyes across the room for distant confirmation and Tsuna shook his head discretely. Hibari 'tch'ed in annoyance, let go of his tonfas and, swallowing his pride, fell on his knees, comporting to glaring at Tsuna as if this entire gig was his fault. Across the room, his other Guardians were in a similar situation, minus the glaring part.
They could easily defeat these people, Tsuna knew, but with the students added to the mix…
"Where. Is. The. Decimo?"
Nobody replied, but Tsuna could feel various eyes on him. None of the students spoke, though; perhaps it was because they weren't really sure whether Tsuna was the Decimo. Hanabi screamed in fear as Baldy roughly grabbed her, pointing a gun to her temple. Sniffs echoed.
"Reply or I shoot," he threatened, and Tsuna's blood turned cold.
Tsuna immediately made a move to announce his presence, but before he could get up, Lal hissed from beside him, grabbing his shoulder in a curt warning, "Don't be an idiot. You're the Decimo, Tsuna, your life is important."
Tsuna grimaced, not appreciating her choice of words. She had made it sound as if his life had far more worth than theirs. Trying to pry her grasp from his shoulder while looking unobtrusive, Tsuna hissed back, "But Baldy will kill her and I can't allow that!"
Lal raised an eyebrow, "Baldy? Really, Sawada?"
"How does that matter?!"
"Of course that does. Be a bit more imaginative, can't you?"
"But he is bald! The name's perfectly legitimate!" Tsuna whispered back furiously.
"Legitimate, it may be, but please. Class, Sawada, you lack in that."
Tsuna realized how absurdly inappropriate this particular topic was, given the situation.
"I don't have time to talk about this," Tsuna declared, determined, "Leave me—"
"Let me handle this," Lal said, and shoved Tsuna back to his knees. She got up, and Baldy and his entourage, noticing the movement, pointed their guns at her.
"Well, well, if this isn't Lal Mirch. The incomplete ex-Arcobaleno," he sneered.
Lal said nothing regarding that, "The Decimo's not here, Ivan."
There was a pause, and then Baldy—Ivan— asked, bewildered, but masking it, "You know me?"
"Of course I do. In my line of work, knowing cowards like you is important. You're the Boss of Marcini Famiglia, aren't you?"
Tsuna's eyes widened. Wasn't Alessandro a part of the Marcini?
"Correct," Ivan replied easily, "But that's enough about me. Where's the Decimo?"
"He's not here."
Ivan laughed disbelievingly, "And you expect me to believe you?" he asked. His steps forward made the students part in order to let him through. Ivan came to a halt when he had a distance of about half a foot from Lal, sneering at her, "I've been told from reliable sources that the Decimo is here. So, where is he? I need to settle a score with him."
Reliable source, Tsuna thought, does he mean Alessandro? Goddammit, I should have told Reborn about him! What the hell was I thinking?!
Tsuna wished he hadn't depended on his Intuition so much. This was the first time it had been wrong, and he was paying with various lives for that simple, seemingly innocuous mistake. His Hyper Intuition, stupid that it was, had explicitly told him that Alessandro wasn't a bad guy, and now look where that had gotten the others into.
"I will repeat, Ivan," Lal said patiently, "The Decimo is not here."
"Is that so?" Ivan said casually. Tsuna yelped in surprise as he was grabbed suddenly, his back pressed roughly against a hard body. He felt something familiar pressing itself against his head, and decided that this was not terrifying in any way. At all.
Clearly, Reborn had affected his personality too much. He wasn't really sure whether to be thankful or terrified.
Lal's reaction over Tsuna's abduction was nothing. She stared impassively, rooted to the spot, unmoving, daring Ivan to do anything unfavorable. It perturbed Ivan, evidently, but he dragged Tsuna back with him, away from the crowd of students, leering.
"Tell me, or the last thing this brat," he jerked Tsuna roughly, "gets to see is me."
It was so worrying that all Lal did was smirk. Tsuna noticed his that friends were ready to spring forward and save him, but Tsuna willed them—even Hibari, whose hands had immediately sought to clasp the tonfas—with his eyes to sit down and not move. If Ivan shot, Tsuna knew that he'd be capable of forming a layer of Hard and condensed Flames around his body.
"Shoot him," Lal said simply. Wide eyed students stared at her like she had grown three heads and a few more limbs just for the hell of it.
Tsuna glared at her, unable to help himself, "What the hell?! Are you kidding me?!"
"Oh, shush, Sawada, stop being a baby. It's just a bullet. It's not going to harm you."
"Aimed at my skull, Lal!"
"How observant," she snorted.
Before Tsuna could retort, the back of Ivan's gun hit Tsuna's temple harshly. Disoriented, Tsuna blinked, groaning. Something wet and sticky trickled down his temple—blood, Tsuna concluded, blinking rapidly. Tsuna couldn't see Ivan's face, but he had a feeling that the man was not really sure how to take care of an un-terrified hostage. Tsuna blinked again, black spots dancing in front of his eyes. The sharp pain that had bloomed through his temple was frustratingly annoying.
He heard the familiar ring of a telephone. Blinking again, Tsuna looked up, unable to hide a hiss when his brain registered that his vision was still blurry. He was shoved aside, thrown carelessly on the floor. Someone from the enemy's side came and stood in front of him. This guy was not looking anywhere in Tsuna's direction, evidently under the impression that Tsuna was incapable of doing anything worth to be noted of.
A few seconds later, when Tsuna's vision corrected itself, he saw Ivan giving a broad, triumphant grin.
"This," he declared savagely, "piece of news is going to be awful for the Decimo. Guess what? We have Ranking Prince Fuuta. And if the Decimo doesn't show himself… well, judging by how he was screaming, I can't guarantee his life."
And that was when everything came to a terrifying halt for Tsuna. He gasped, his heart coming to a shuddering halt for a second. His mind became blank—a vast expanse of nothingness.
Ranking Prince Fuuta.
Prince Fuuta.
The brother who had been kidnapped far too many times, his little brother who cried and dozed off to sleep in Tsuna's arms when the nightmares became too much for the nine year old to handle.
Fuuta.
The students and the entirety of the Marcini Famiglia, including Ivan, could feel pure fear shooting ruthlessly down their spines seconds after Ivan's declaration. They stopped in their activities, swiveling around in alarm when a voice—colder than ice, far, far colder than ice—cut through seamlessly:
"Do you know," Sawada Tsunayoshi, otherwise known as the Neo Vongola Primo or the Decimo, started, "over the past one and a half years, how many times Fuuta has been kidnapped?"
Nobody answered. Apart from the fact that they had no clue, the sheer intensity of Tsuna's aura had rendered them silent. A sudden burst of heat and orange and violent Flames surrounded his body, revolving and rotating, circling around his feet. The pure intensity of it had them captivated with fear. Tsuna's eyes, a shade of orange and belligerence, stared at the enemy unhesitatingly:
"Fifty two," Tsuna answered for them, the cement under his feet crackling and breaking, incinerating, caught in the Flames, "He has been kidnapped fucking fifty two times, and he is only nine. Who knows how many times he has been kidnapped before. I swear to God, Ivan," he spat the name with spite and distaste and venom, "if your men lay a single hand on him, I can't guarantee your life."
Ivan, who had not quite gathered his bearings, despite knowing the answer, couldn't help but ask, his voice shaking, "Who—who are you?"
Something in Tsuna's gaze shifted, eyes turning brighter but colder, a vague sort of acknowledgement shining through. He opened his mouth and spoke—
"I am the Decimo."
—and lunged forward.
All Hell broke loose.
Yep, and the big dam breaks!
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