AUTHOR'S NOTES: Greetings! As promised I have a new chapter for you this week-things are starting to heat up a little bit storywise, which is probably good since this is about the halfway point (give or take a chapter). Thank you for your continued patience, I hope you enjoy this chapter.

As always, Katekyo Hitman Reborn! isn't mine, it is the property of Amano-sensei-I've just developed a huge fascination for this particular world. The storyline, original characters, etc. are mine ^_^

Next update will be around May 1st.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read my story (and to those of you who leave reviews, I very much appreciate it. I'm a little slow on responding to them mostly because this month all my downtime is taken up writing for my Camp Nanowrimo project ^_^ )

~ Yuki

Target 06-02: The Thunder Rolls

Haru wrapped a bandage around Gokudera's head and offered him water and dinner as her father had his late university course tonight. The cuts on both of them had been cleaned and covered with adhesive bandages. "We have to figure out a better way to control those cards of yours, Haru," Gokudera frowned.

Haru nodded and turned her attention to the stir-fry she was making for the evening. Chrome had come over not long after they'd arrived and had put water on for tea and set up the rice-cooker. Haru was grateful that Kyoko had bowed out of tonight's study session in favor of studying with her friend, Hana, for a test at Namimori Middle tomorrow—it had saved them from having to come up with an explanation for the injuries that didn't involve sumo wrestling and shooting stars.

"Were they the Trabuchet again?" Chrome asked softly, pouring the tea into cups and setting them on the table with some over-the-counter painkillers to ease the discomfort.

"I don't know…" Haru said and glanced over at Gokudera.

"I didn't get a good look at any of them, but they were definitely not the same type that attacked us the other day," Gokudera said. "I don't like this."

Haru nodded in agreement and added a little more sauce to the stir fry and flipping it a bit before dumping it onto a serving plate. She set the serving plate on the table and Chrome served up the rice. They ate mostly in silence, Haru lost in her own little world as she felt more of the mafia world crashing down on her and her hands clenched in the apron she'd forgotten to remove after finishing the food. She knew none of her weapons had killed their attackers, they'd been carefully engineered for just that purpose, but the fighting still made her uneasy.

"It's going to be fine, Haru," Gokudera said with forced cheerfulness. "Hang in there."

Haru tried to smile, appreciating the Storm Guardian's efforts. "Haru will be fine," she said forcing energy into her own voice as she pumped her fist in the air. "There is another ring that I might be able to use for a little bit."

Gokudera nodded and they finished the meal and he left a bit more reluctantly than he cared to admit, but Chrome had said she would be staying the night at Haru's so he could find some security in that.

As soon as Gokudera departed, Haru shut the door and leaned back against it sliding down and burying her face in her knees as she finally was able to let all the emotions loose. She hadn't been prepared for any of this, even with Dani's warnings or the warnings of her tutors within the Hanatachi Clan.

For the first time since she'd embarked upon this crazy plan, Haru began to wonder if she really was cut out for the life she was going to have to lead from here on out.

"Haru?"

Chrome hunkered down next to Haru and lightly touched the other girl's brown hair drawing Haru back into reality. Haru lifted her head and accepted the handkerchief that Chrome offered, scrubbing the tears away ferociously. "I don't have time for this," she said.

"Did something happen besides the attack on your way home?" Chrome asked.

Haru met her eyes and the events of the day came tumbling out, words overrunning each other as she spoke. Chrome simply settled on the floor and let Haru talk, listening to everything with her usual calm expression. Finally the words stopped and Haru wiped her eyes again and took a deep, trembling breath. "How do you deal with it?" she asked.

Chrome cocked her head. "My experience was different from yours. Mukuro-sama gave me a place to belong, something I never had before. Being brought into the Vongola gave me people who I care about and want to protect—it's something I never had up until that point. Did I ever tell you about my life before Mukuro-sama?"

Haru slowly shook her head and Chrome rose and offered her hands which Haru accepted and let the younger girl help her up. They moved to the kitchen and cleared the table, put the dishes in the dishwasher, and settled in Haru's room with a new pot of tea and their school books, but did very little homework as Haru listened to Chrome's story.

As the story drew to a close with Chrome's rescue of the cat and the subsequent injuries that landed her in the hospital, Haru fell into a thoughtful silence. She'd never thought about how much of the world had been opened to her through her association with the Vongola Famiglia, even if she hadn't realized what she was getting into the day that she marched down the street in samurai armor to confront Tsuna and test his "fitness to be a mafia boss". She shook her head at herself—it had been arrogant of her to even think she knew the first part about this world.

They finally pulled out the study guides for Takanamori and settled down to study, only vaguely hearing when Haru's father returned home. There was a knock on Haru's door and she got up to answer it and smiled at her father. "Welcome home," she said.

"Good evening, Miura-sensei," Chrome said.

Hiroshi Miura smiled at his daughter and her friend and noted the papers spread over the table and realized they'd been studying. Looking at his daughter's face and arms her frowned. "Haru-san, what happened to you?" he asked.

Haru started and looked down at the bandages on her arm and swallowed, he'd asked her not to tell him anymore lies, but she couldn't give him the truth. Not right now at any rate. "I tripped and fell into a thorn bush when I was out with some friends today," she said, the words ash in her mouth.

"Haru-san you should be more careful," he sighed and gave a smile to Chrome. "Would you two care to join me for a light snack? It will help revitalize you for more studying. I assume that Dokuro-san will be staying the night?"

Haru nodded and glanced at Chrome in question about the snack. The dark-haired girl rose in response. "Thank you very much for your kindness," Chrome said. "I'm sorry to intrude."

Hiroshi shook his head and smiled at her. "I'm glad that Haru-san has such good friends that can be around her and support her," he said.

Twenty minutes later, the girls were back up in Haru's room while her father sat in his favorite chair with his nightly tea and the book he was currently reading. Haru let Chrome have the bath first and set up the futon the other girl often used when she stayed and it occurred to her that they did have another room in the house they could use for guests. She'd have to look into it and see what was needed to make it habitable.

She was getting the last of the studying materials put away when there was a crash downstairs. She automatically grabbed a couple of her hair pins and the ring she'd dug up from when she was training under Dani and raced down the stairs to find her father sprawled on the floor with three men standing over him. "Stay away from my father!" Haru screamed and the pins went flying.

One struck, but the other was dodged.

"Who are you?" she demanded.

"You know who we are Miura-san," one smirked. "You've done enough research on us lately."

"Trabuchet…" she whispered.

"Very good," the man smirked. "Now be a good girl and die like you should. This area will be ours."

"Not today."

Chrome's voice seemed to fill the room from everywhere at once and Haru broke to the left like she'd been trained to do so many times with both Gokudera and Chrome. The room warped and Haru slammed her eyes shut, focusing on the feel of the floor beneath her feet and using her memory to pinpoint exactly where her father was. She covered the distance even as the attackers shouts of confusion and then screams of pain echoed. She closed her ears to the sound and found her father's still form, pulling him gently into her lap, knowing that Chrome would easily take out the other threats.

There was a sudden void of silence and Haru opened her eyes to see Chrome in a bath robe leaning on her trident, trying to catch her breath. The men in the room were sprawled out over the place, blood trickling from a few of their mouths and Haru automatically checked for a pulse and breathed a sigh of relief when she felt her father's heartbeat strongly under her fingers.

"Chrome…"

"I'll make the calls," the dark-haired girl said and went to the house phone.

Her eyes darkened for a moment after she picked it up and put it back in place. "Dead, they cut the phone lines."

Chrome pulled out her cell phone instead and made the call and Haru stroked her father's hair, there would be time enough for tears later.

Gokudera's phone buzzed with an incoming text and he scooped it up, wondering who the hell was texting him at this time of night. His eyes widened in horror then narrowed before he grabbed his jacket and jammed his feet into shoes and hurried out the door, barely remembering to grab his keys and lock the door to his small apartment before he headed for the hospital.

Tsuna was awakened abruptly as Reborn's small feet hit his chest and he woke up. "Hiee—Reborn it's—"

"Haru's house was attacked by the Trabuchet," his tutor interrupted him.

All sleep was driven from Tsuna and he sat up abruptly. "What?"

"Her father was injured in the attack and is on the way to the hospital," Reborn said.

Tsuna was out of bed and throwing on a pair of jeans and a shirt before Reborn finished. His tutor handed him his phone and the two were out the door and down the stairs. Tsuna immediately dialed Haru's number, but the recording informed him that the subscriber had either turned off the phone or was out of the calling area and dialed Kyoko's number and wasn't answered.

"Kyoko-chan isn't answering the phone," Tsuna said and dropped into Dying Will Mode and blasted off, flying over Namimori towards the Sasagawa house—his own household should be fine with Bianchi there.

He landed in front of the house and found it completely still and hesitated momentarily before going over the wall and towards the windows. All the lights were out and he glanced at Reborn. "It looks like they're fine," Reborn said. "I'm not sure they would attack the house with Ryohei there anyway."

Tsuna nodded and took off again, landing at Yamamoto's house. The lights there were on and he was greeted by his friend as soon as he landed. "Are you okay, Tsuna?" Yamamoto asked. "I got the message from Chrome…"

"I'm fine. Is everything okay here?" Tsuna asked.

"Nothing happened here either," Yamamoto replied. "Are you headed to the hospital?"

"Yeah," Tsuna said.

"Shall we go together?" Yamamoto said. "I called Gokudera and he's already on his way to the hospital, no one attacked his place either."

Gokudera came through the hospital doors and immediately found Chrome in the waiting room. "Where are they?" he asked.

"They're examining Miura-sensei right now," the dark-haired girl replied. "Haru's in there with him. We'll know as soon as she knows something."

"What happened?" he asked.

Chrome briefed him on the events and Haru emerged several minutes later looking pale and drawn and her dead eyes focused on Gokudera and Chrome and she trudged towards them. "Haru?" Gokudera asked.

"He's in stable condition, but he's still unconscious, they're going to keep him here for a little while to keep an eye on things."

The brunette's voice was oddly emotionless as she relayed the information and Gokudera's eyes darkened. "Who did this?"

"The Trabuchet."

There was a sudden undertone in Haru's voice that Gokudera had never heard before and he met brown eyes that did not promise any sort of forgiveness.

Tsuna, Reborn, and Yamamoto arrived soon after and as soon as she saw the Tenth Vongola Boss, Haru's expressionless mask crumbled and she bolted across the waiting room barreling into the other boy's form.

Tsuna staggered back for a moment before regaining his balance and wrapped his arms around Haru and looked at his second and Chrome. "What happened?" he asked.

"There were three men in the room when I got down there, one of them had been knocked out by one of the kanzashi pins," Chrome said. "They apparently broke through one of the windows and the door and Miura-sensei was hit in the back of the head with something."

Tsuna's arms tightened around the brunette's sobbing form and his eyes flashed orange. "Find them," he ordered, looking at the guardians in attendance.

His eyes moved down to Haru's head. "You shouldn't have gotten into this, Haru," he said softly.

Haru missed school the next day, staying by her father's bedside watching the machines monitor him. The door opened and she turned, expecting to see either Gokudera or Kyoko, but instead Yukihiro Nakayama entered bearing a large arrangement of flowers. "Why are you here?" Haru demanded, rising to her feet and clenching her hand into a fist.

"I came to offer my apologies," Yukihiro said, his crystal blue eyes meeting hers.

"For what?" Haru demanded.

"For not finding out about this before it happened," he said earnestly. "While my network is not completely in place, something like this is unforgiveable."

"If you want to do something, help us find where these Trabuchet are and stop them from doing this to anyone else," Haru said.

"I will find their base and there will not be a single survivor," Yukihiro said.

Haru's eyes widened and she immediately shook her head. "I…no, I don't want them dead, I just don't want them here where they can hurt my father or my friends anymore."

Yukihiro cocked his head at her and then smiled. "As you wish," he said and bowed. "Please take these flowers as my apology and I will be in contact with you soon."

Haru watched him leave and then turned back to her father and settled in the chair by his bedside and reached out and touched his hand, wrapping hers around his and squeezing tightly. "I'm sorry, Papa," she whispered and buried her head in the mattress next to his still form and let the tears fall.

"Where the fucking hell are they?"

Gokudera spat on the ground and pulled out another cigarette and lit it. He drew the smoke into his lungs and held it for a moment letting the burning sensation spread before blowing it back out. He watched the river flowing underneath the footbridge, barely noticing the dark shadows underneath his gray green eyes. After they'd insured that Haru was going to be okay, they'd spent the rest of the night hunting the men that had invaded Haru's home and had come up with nothing. The ambulance that had collected the invaders never made it to the hospital and had been found abandoned that morning with the men who'd been driving it knocked unconscious and tied up in sheets.

After everything opened, he'd wandered around the shopping district trying to figure out where the Underground Entrance was and had failed miserably. He'd sent word through appropriate channels that he had a ring that needed to be fixed, but hadn't heard anything back yet. All in all, he was feeling particularly useless and it pissed him off.

He ground out the cigarette and tossed the butt in the trash before he started walking again, ignoring the protests of his feet as he made his way towards Haru's house to see if there were any more clues to be picked up. He arrived and found it still swarming with policemen and turned and flagged down a cab to the hospital to check on Haru instead. Tsuna had insisted on walking Kyoko to and from school today and Yamamoto had baseball practice.

He arrived and got directions to the appropriate room and opened the door to find Haru's face buried in her father's sheets and he stepped forward hesitantly and touched her hair. "Haru?"

The brunette stirred and lifted her tearstained face and Gokudera's breath caught. "Haru, I—"

Her finger came up and touched his lips. "It's not your fault," she said, dropping her hand a moment later.

She rose and touched her father's cheek lightly. "I'll be back," she said. "Come with me?"

Gokudera frowned, Haru sounded oddly self-possessed and her eyes weren't quite as dead as they'd been the night before. They passed the elaborate flower arrangement and Gokudera idly wondered who'd sent it, but the thought was fleeting as he followed Haru out. She shut the door behind her quietly and caught one of the nursing staff. "I'm going to eat in the hospital cafeteria."

The nurse nodded. "We'll page you if there is a change between now and when you get back."

"Thank you."

Haru led the way down, following the signs to the cafeteria and glanced at Gokudera. "If you see something you want to eat. Go ahead and pick it up. I can pay," she said.

Gokudera limited himself to a cup of coffee and watched Haru silently as she collected a small salad, crackers, and tea for herself. They found an unoccupied table in the back of the cafeteria and sat down. "I need to learn more, Gokudera," Haru said, her voice barely carrying across the table.

"Haru?"

There was a question in his voice and Haru crumbled one of the saltines silently.

"I can't get out, so I need to learn faster," Haru said, her brown eyes meeting Gokudera's.

"If we could find a way to get you out, would you take it?" Gokudera asked, he knew there had to be a way to simply make Haru disappear so that she wouldn't have to deal with this ever again.

Haru's fingers stopped for a moment—she couldn't deny that the idea was kind of tempting, but likely disappearing meant finding a new life somewhere else and she didn't want to make that kind of decision for her father and she wouldn't abandon him. Plus disappearing would likely mean she'd never see Tsuna, Gokudera, Kyoko, Chrome, or any of the kids again and she couldn't imagine her life without them in it. "No."

"No?" Gokudera repeated.

"No, I wouldn't take it, not unless there wasn't any other choice in the matter," Haru said, sprinkling the cracker crumbs over the salad she really had no intention of eating.

Gokudera was almost relieved at her response and decided he'd examine that particular emotion later.

"I've been thinking about it since the doctors said that Father was going to be okay," Haru said quietly.

"About what?" Gokudera asked.

"Why they're so intent on me," Haru said.

"You're important to Judaime and if they can't get to Judaime they're trying to get at him through other means," Gokudera said.

"I understand that that's part of it," Haru said, "and I'd rather it be me rather than Kyoko or the kids, but…I wonder if there's something more to it than just that."

"Like what?" Gokudera asked.

Haru related the night before in a detached voice and Gokudera frowned a bit afterwards. "I need to go back through what I found while Dani was tutoring me," Haru said. "I have to wonder if there's something there that I've missed and it has them worried or if we've found something else. First though, I need to find a way to make sure they don't hurt my father again."

Two days later, Haru's father woke from his coma and after reassuring Haru that he just had a headache and the doctor's assuring her that the chances of anything else happening were slim, Haru went home for a change of clothes.

While they'd been at the hospital, the insurance had come in and repaired the broken window and door and Haru made a note to get the locks changed.

When she arrived, she found Chrome sitting on a large bag in the middle of the sidewalk leading up to the house and came up short. "Chrome?" Haru asked.

"I will be moving in as of today," Chrome announced.

Haru blinked and frowned at her friend. "What about your apartment?"

"I've already given it up," Chrome said.

"But…" Haru began.

"You're too vulnerable alone here," Reborn said. "These are Kudaime's orders. We will be making appropriate arrangements with your father as soon as he's further recovered."

Haru glanced sharply at the toddler who was sitting on the wall in front of her house regarding her calmly. "Reborn-san…"

"You can't do this on your own," Reborn stated flatly and hopped down from the wall. "Let your Family help you."