A/N: Welcome to chapter the third! Thank you so much to Sherry Leblanc and BeaneaththeRose for reviewing chapter two, forgive me- this one took a little longer to write. Enjoy!
The car ride from Vongola headquarters to the location where the meeting would take place was quiet as both Decimo and right-hand-man distracted themselves in their own ways. Tsuna seemed content to simply look out the window at the scenery passing by. Gokudera read quickly glanced over a file of papers containing various information they might need during their meeting. Both of them looked as though they could fall asleep at any second, and if a conversation did not happen soon, Tsuna feared that he would indeed drift into a dream.
Gokudera felt his eyes dart over to his friend and noticed the look about his face. Having seen that expression many times before, the Storm made a point to clear his throat before speaking. "Is something wrong, Juudaime? You should have just sent me on this mission, you look like you haven't slept in days," Hayato did not make a habit out of telling his boss what she should or should not do, but the man next to him looked absolutely beat.
A smile crossed Tsuna's face and he turned from his window to his friend, "Don't worry Gokudera-kun, I'm fine. We should be getting there pretty soon, ne? Let me see those papers that you brought." The Decimo noticed Gokudera's brief flash of concern across his eyes as his right hand passed the folder with a nod. Gokudera knew something was different with him, but Tsuna was just doing his best to ignore that fact.
"We probably won't need half the information that is in there, but most of it is about the Family we are meeting with. The Corvello Family has been fairly tight allies with the Vongola since before the Nono's time so we shouldn't have anything to worry about," The Storm paused, taking in his boss's reaction, "But just in case, I have sent a group of men ahead of us to scope out the building. The last report I got from them was right before I met you in the kitchen, and everything seemed fine." The fact that he had not heard from his squad since then slightly worried Gokudera, but he was sure that he could handle anything that came up once they arrived.
The Sky nodded once and returned his attention to the papers in his hand. Most of the information was about the history of the Corvello Family and Vongola's relationship with them. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, but Tsuna's intuition nagged at the back of his mind. Over the years, he had learned to listen closely to his hyper-sensitive feelings and such actions had served him well. Ever since he finally accepted that he would in fact be the Vongola Decimo, Tsuna had to admit that he could feel the growth mentally and physically that his occupation encouraged.
"I trust you Gokudera-kun, when we get there we can scope out the building for ourselves just to make sure it's safe," the brunette learned long ago that it was simply easiest to go along with his best friend's over-protective antics. 'Though, I hate to admit that recently Gokudera-kun's tendencies have actually become extremely helpful.'
Hayato appeared to glow a little bit at Tsuna's praise and with quick and fluid Italian asked the driver for a destination time. The Decimo felt himself smile slightly as he watched his right hand. The silver-headed man oozed loyalty from every pore when he was around Tsuna, and the Mafia don had grown to appreciate that characteristic about him. It amazed Tsuna how easy it was to please Hayato; but that comforting feeling rushed away faster than it had appeared as a bump in the road caused the black watch that Tsuna wore to remind its owner of its existence.
'This is going to kill him,' Tsuna thought painfully as he glanced at Gokudera, 'It will hurt all of them so badly. They have so much trust in me that it is sickening. And I'm going to take that trust and smash it to pieces so small, even Gokudera-kun's persistence will not be able to put it back together.' The thoughts plagued the Tenth Generation Boss, and beside him, Hayato was about to speak when the car came to a stop.
Confusion swept over the Storm's face, causing the emotion to spread to the Sky as well. "What is going on, you said we had a good ten minutes before we reached the building," Gokudera's voice was edgy and left no room for excuses.
"Forgive me, Singnore Gokudera," the driver replied in Hayato's mother tongue, "But I'm afraid that something is wrong with the car. I checked it over completely before we left and all seemed to be in order, but now it is saying that we have run out of gas." Tsuna heard a muttered curse slip from his friend's lips as the Storm pushed the door open and stepped out. They looked to be a good ways off from civilization- on a road surrounded by trees and vegetation, which struck the Guardian as strange.
"Oi, just what road were you taking us on? We are in the middle of nowhere!" Hayato instantly began to demean himself mentally for not paying better attention to where they were. He did not know the exact location of the meeting place, but from the research he had done, he knew that the situation they were in was very wrong. The driver was walking around the car, looking quite unsure of what was going on, and with a sigh Gokudera leaned into the car through the still open door.
"Ah, Juudaime, just stay put right here until we get this figured out, I'm sure its noth-" the reassuring smile of the Storm was suddenly overtaken by an expression of pain mixed with surprise. "Juudaime, stay in the car!" Gokudera yelled before slamming the door shut and grabbing hold of his now burning shoulder. Thick red liquid dripped from the spaces in between his fingers onto the dirt-covered ground. Within seconds, one of the many rings on the Storm's fingers was ablaze and clicked into a box produced from his belt.
'If only I had finished the Sistema was completed...' the Guardian thought as a circular shield made from bone-looking pieces hovered in front of its wielder. 'Hopefully just this will be enough.' Expecting another attack, a second box was opened and Gokudera's faithful arm-gun appeared. Lifting his wounded limb to take aim was painful, but the thought of an attacker hurting Tsuna dominated the feeling.
"Gokudera-kun, what is going on?" Tsuna was instantly out of the car as gunshots sounded through the air. His flame blazing as he joined Gokudera behind the Storm shield, Tsunayoshi's eyes were drawn to his injured friend. "Are you alright?" His voice was serious and concerned. Bullets bounced off the defensive box weapon and whizzed past the two Vongola members.
"I'm fine. I guess our meeting is going to need to be rescheduled," Hayato muttered with a forced smirk. When Tsuna's eyes widened slightly and he managed to dodge a bullet that would have grazed his face, the Storm snarled and plugged two different rings into two other boxes at his side. In a flash, the weapons were released. Three circular disks flew forward in the direction that many of the bullets were coming from.
Tsuna nodded at his Guardian's response and wasted no time in flying into the trees in search of the attackers. Roughly thirty seconds after the two went on the attack, the gunfire stopped. Tsuna returned carrying two tied up men just as the disks that Gokudera had sent out returned to him, enclosing three others. The Sky let his two captives drop to the ground while Hayato kept his prisoners within his disks.
"Tch, I can't believe that these idiots got a shot on me. What Family are you from?" Gokudera scowled and kicked the bone-looking edges of the cage. Tsuna still had his flames activated and was silent while his Storm questioned the three. Grumbled curses streamed from the men before an intelligent answered could be made out.
"We had no choice! Not all of us are from big Families, and we have to line ourselves up with whoever has the biggest guns. Byakuran-sama promises us security, and he looks to be able to deliver on that. From here on, the Corvello Family fights with the Millefiore. The Vongola will fall," one of the men spat, causing Gokudera to send another kick.
"Don't underestimate the Vongola, Aho. An attack like this is nothing, you are lucky that even one of your shots hit." The Storm glared at his captives intently and clutched at his still-bleeding wound tighter. The burning was beginning to increase, fueling the flame of Hayato's annoyance.
Tsuna spoke up when he saw his friend grip his shoulder. "I am truly sorry that you have made such a choice, and normally I would be willing to discuss this with your boss, but not anymore. My friend was hurt because of your cowardly approach to this situation; the Vongola cuts all ties to the Corvello Family. I suggest you do the same with Byakuran. He will only bring you sorrow." With that said, Tsuna quickly tapped the two tied up at the back of their necks, causing them to drop unconscious. At his signal, Tsuna watched as Gokudera deactivated the cage and the Sky repeated the procedure on the last three.
Assured that there would be no more surprises, the Decimo sighed as his flames disappeared and concern flooded his brown eyes. "Gokudera-kun, get back in the car, we need to get you back home," his voice left no room for protest and the don urged the taller man to the black vehicle. The driver had taken refuge on the floor of the front seat and expressed his great joy at his two passengers continued life.
As the adrenaline from the fight started to fade, Hayato had to hold back a groan as he moved to get in the car. "Ah, I think that this bullet was coated with something," Gokudera muttered and leaned his head back against the headrest. Tsuna quickly gave the driver orders to return home as fast as possible, then put a hand to his ear.
"Yamamoto, can you hear me? Please have Onii-san ready when we return, and see if you can find Shamal while you are at it," Tsuna's voice was soft as the car started and rushed to turn around, pulling a strained hiss from the injured party in the back seat.
"Juudaime, don't bother with that perverted doctor. He only treats girls, and I've got all the wrong parts for that to happen," Gokudera said in his best attempt to sound relaxed. His vision was starting to blur and a headache was pounding at the edge of his mind. The backseat resonated with Tsuna's chuckle as the Tenth put a light hand to his friend's forehead.
'He's got a fever for sure, and the wound is still bleeding,' moving out of his suit coat, Tsuna pressed the expensive fabric against the Storm's weeping shoulder, muttering a string of apologies when the silver-headed man shifted and let a curse slip.
Yamamoto stood anxiously at the entrance that Tsuna and Gokudera would be walking through very soon. Ryohei paced the floor next to him. Tsuna had not given either of them much information about what was wrong, but since his boss had requested a healer instead of a priest, the Rain figured the situation could be a lot worse. Ryohei was about to speak when voices echoed down the hall.
"Juudaime," Gokudera's unmistakable title sounded, "Did you know that there are people in this base that think you are in love with me? I've heard them talking, and with your permission I would gladly get rid of such traitorous beings. I wouldn't want rumors like that tainting your image." Yamamoto wanted to laugh out loud at the tone of his friend's voice. He had heard and seen Gokudera drunk more than once before, and the way the Storm was sounding now was very similar to when he was intoxicated.
"G-Gokudera-kun, I don't think that would be a good idea. I also think you should stop talking before you embarrass yourself even more than you already have. That driver now knows more about your personal life than most people would ever care to know," Tsuna's voice followed right after, also sounding like he wanted to burst out into laughter. Seconds later the pair came into view.
At first, Takeshi was alarmed at the sight of the blood running down Gokudera's arm and dripping off his pale finger. Tsuna's jacket was bunched up and pressed firmly against the wounded man's shoulder, and the shorter of the two was helping the taller move along the hallway. The concern lessened, though, as Yamamoto took in the expression on Hayato's face.
"Tsuna, did you get him drunk on the way back? I'm not sure if that is a medically sound treatment," Yamamoto hurried over to the two and moved to take his boss's place as a crutch. The two Guardians were much closer in height than the Sky was to the Storm.
"Eh? No, he just started spouting off random stuff about ten minutes into the ride back. At first, I thought he was going into shock, he has a really high fever and he said something about the bullet being coated in something, but suddenly, I couldn't get him to shut up." Tsuna sounded a mixture of worried and amused as he explained.
"That tako-head is extremely high on something. Shamal is waiting in the medical ward, and I extremely don't want to do anything without him looking at the wound first," Ryohei said, looking nothing short of completely serious. Tsuna tried to hide a smirk at the Sun's comment, but the man in question had quite a different reaction.
"Oi! Watch what you say, turf-top, I haven't done any type of drug since I came to Japan. Except for smokes, but I don't think those really count," Gokudera's loopy response came with a drastic hand gesture that Tsuna would have protested were the girls around.
The group somehow managed to haul the Storm's drugged but body to the medical ward where Dr. Shamal was indeed waiting. The good doctor was not the only person in the room, and when Hayato noticed who else was there; he took a shaky step forward on his own.
"Hey, you perverted doctor, get away from my sister. She doesn't like you and if you keep trying to kiss her I will shove my dynamite up your-" the threat failed to be completed as the speaker fell to the ground before his friends were able to catch him. Bianchi, shocked by what had just come out of her brother's mouth, paused before rushing to his side.
"Hayato, what is wrong with you?" Her bright green gaze went straight to Tsuna, and demanded answers. The brown headed boy gave a quick summary of what happened, for both Bianchi and Shamal, and knelt down next to his Storm. Together, the Poison Scorpion and Decimo got Hayato to his feet. Shamal seemed to ignore the outburst all together and approached the man.
"Usually, I don't treat men because they are so loud and rude like this one here, but I am slightly interested as to what has caused the brat to be so candid," the promiscuous man declared and hauled Gokudera to a waiting bed. The Guardian landed with a grunt, and his hand instantly went to his shoulder. After taking the temperature and a few other statistics from the injured adult, Shamal looked back at the others in the room.
"Well, if any of you has a question for Hayato that you want a completely honest answer to, I suggest you ask within the next hour. The bullet must have been dipped in a very concentrated truth serum used for interrogations. Anything he says will be exactly what he thinks and believes- in this state, Hayato cannot tell a lie," Shamal said, and gave a smirk back towards his patient. "Not only that, but he will have the intense desire to randomly spew truths out when ever they come into his head. It really is not the concoction that I would use..."
All eyes in the room went from Gokudera to Tsuna, as if to ask what they were going to do with this unusual situation. "Shamal, do you not have an antidote for this? I would like to be able to help Gokudera-kun salvage at least some of his dignity."
"The only thing my antidote will do is stop the poison from spreading. He will still be infected for about an hour, and we can't let him leave the base until we are absolutely sure he is back to normal," Shamal replied as he sent one of his insects towards Hayato. A heavy silence hovered over the room, and Shamal looked as though he had something to say but did not know the right way to go about saying it. Luckily for the doctor, Gokudera voiced a drug-induced concern.
"Juudaime, for some reason my brain is still all fuzzy and I'm not sure if I have understood everything properly, but something about all this worries me. The Corvello Family surly knew how strong the Vongola is. And the fact that they had this drug ready must mean that they wanted information from one of us, so why did they send such weak guys out to meet us? I mean there was no way that we were going to lose to those guys. The aho-ushi could have taken care of them easily." A grim smirk crossed Shamal's face as he listened to his former student.
"I agree with Gokudera. What was the point of poisoning the bullet with this type of drug? If they were going to modify the weapon, why not use a lethal toxin that would assure a kill. And they hit Gokudera's shoulder. That is not a kill shot by any means, and they had to assume that the injured person would be brought back to headquarters as soon as possible," Yamamoto added, looking unnaturally thoughtful.
Tsuna silently listened to his friend's thoughts and tried to come up with a solution that was less painful than the one in his mind. Quiet once again covered the room and all eyes were glued to the Sky, waiting for his decision. Finally, after working through his thoughts, Tsuna sighed and sadly looked at the people in the room.
"I don't want to admit it, but I think the only solution to this question is that somewhere among our Family, there is a spy working for either Byakuran or the Corvello Family. We need to get Gokudera-kun locked up in a room someplace safe before the spy finds him and get whatever information he wants."
A/N: This chapter was supposed to be published a lot sooner, but I started working again this week so time was suddenly non-existent in my life. Anywho, I hope you enjoyed this and were surprised by the turn of events. Still not sure how long this story is going to be...