here's the newest chapter! thanks to those who recently asked me to update. i usually need someone to keep me on it and the late reviewers seem to be really good at it. so sorry for the wait. eheh...anyway, i hope you guys like the chapter. it's a bit longer than usual and had some tough decisions for a couple people. but anyway, review and let me know what you think!

Almost two weeks had passed since we went out to search for Kyoko and had our fight with Gamma and Hibari had returned to his hideout not long after the future Bianchi and Fuuta showed up. My injuries were mostly healed up, though my side was still a bit sore, but I had gone back to my own training in the basement and felt a bit better as far as returning my strength. Tsuna wasn't too happy though, saying something about how Reborn was teasing him about a girl looking more muscular than him. Though I also eat more than him too…I can see why Reborn's teasing him. I sighed, flopping down on the ground in the basement and taking a long drink from my water bottle, wiping some sweat that dripped down the side of my face.

I had been there when Fuuta, Bianchi, Kusakabe, and Giannini gave us the new information they had gathered, but almost everything they had said was stuff that I found in my future self's computer. It's like, if I wasn't working with them like I was with Hibari, I was working parallel to them. And yet I didn't share any of my findings with anyone. I frowned contemplatively, when I felt a shift in the air and leaned slightly to my right, catching the water bottle that had been thrown at me. Looking over my shoulder, I nodded to an angry Gokudera and a grinning Yamamoto.

"Morning." I said, holding the water bottle. "Thanks."

"Che, whatever." Gokudera grumbled, crossing his arms over his chest as Yamamoto chuckled.

"Haha, good morning , Natsu! Did Lal call you down here too?"

I blinked in confusion, sitting up and pulling out a thermos and cup of noodles, pouring the hot water from the thermos in and setting a pair of chopsticks on top of it to keep the lid down.

"No. I was just training."

"Don't say that as you pull something weird out of you jacket!" Gokudera said loudly, pointing at me as I stared back innocently.

"But I was hungry."

"Geh-" Gokudera seemed to stop himself suddenly and turned away with a huff, a shade of pink dusting his cheeks. "W-Whatever. I hope you get fat from all the junk you eat."

Looks like I played the innocent card on overkill. Whoops. I shrugged just as the elevator doors opened and Tsuna walked in.

"You three!" He shouted, everyone greeting him as he stepped out and I shifted my gaze to the other elevator in the room, which had just opened to reveal Lal and Reborn.

Tsuna tapped my shoulder then though, drawing my attention back to him as he looked down at me in worry. "A-Are, um, your injuries okay?"

I nodded, reaching over and snapping apart my chopsticks and peeling back the lid of my noodles. "Just about healed. Side's still sore though."

He sweat dropped as I slurped up some food, but when he turned his head towards where Lal and Reborn were, I turned as well, paying attention to what they were saying.

"Everyone is present then. As I've mentioned, you'll be starting a new training course today. It's called the 'individual assault training program'."

I raised my hand and Lal gave me an odd look.

"Why wasn't I told anything by you?"

She sighed. "Because you were already down here and Reborn was the one who insisted you get involved too, despite you not being a guardian."

I nodded, going back to my food and mentally thanking Reborn for including me.

"Just like Tsuna's been receiving a one-on-one training with Lal Mirch these past ten days, you'll each get your own home tutor to train you. Same as during the ring battle. For example, the one I'm training is Yamamoto."

I looked over at the confused baseball player and then over at Tsuna, who began freaking out. I wonder how this is going to work…During the ring battles, I practiced with Fon, but that was because of my own choices and there's not a lot of people who can help train, but why would he include me if I didn't have a tutor too? Another job, maybe? I noticed another person approaching on my right and turned to spot Bianchi.

"I will be in charge of Hayato."

Gokudera almost immediately collapsed and I watched in amusement, silently questioning how that was going to work out since he always collapsed whenever his sister was around. Well, I'm sure they'll figure it out. Just as I thought that, Tsuna fell backwards beside me and I looked over to see Reborn holding his gun up. It was then, that an immense amount of energy spread through the room, coming from Tsuna and I relaxed, feeling as though my body was absorbing the warmth in Tsuna's sun flames. He's grown stronger. I mused, eating some more noodles as I peeked open my eyes and watched him look over at Lal Mirch.

"I'm no longer training you." She said, which had me confused. "You have not attained the level I expected of you at all. I've realized that you will not be able to improve as much as I'd hoped for in such a short time."

So, he's not meeting her level of expectation and someone else will bring him up to that, but who? Suddenly, I jumped up from my place and just barely managed to dodge the attack that came from behind me. When I landed though, I noticed my fallen over cup of noodles and turned to the attacker with a scowl.

"That was my lunch!"

He scoffed, the two of us ignoring how his attack went after Tsuna. "You shouldn't leave food lying around then, Natsu."

I frowned, but reluctantly went over and pulled out a towel from my jacket, cleaning up the mess as he confronted Tsuna, telling him something about paying attention if he didn't want to die. While he spoke to Tsuna, I finished and went over to where Reborn and Lal were at, messing up my hair as I sat down beside the baby.

"So, do I get a teacher?" I asked, peeking over at Reborn, who nodded.

"You do, but you're going to have to wait until he's finished with Tsuna."

I groaned, pointing at Hibari. "You mean I have to work with him?"

"He knows your future self's abilities better than anyone else. It's not that I chose him, he's the only one who can do it."

I folded my arms over my chest with a frown. "Well, that doesn't mean I have to like it."

Reborn then went over to Yamamoto as I turned back to see no Tsuna, but one of Hibari's spiked hedgehog balls. Tsuna must be inside then…I should probably be worried, but I think whatever this test is, Tsuna will do just fine. But what should I do in the meantime? I waved to Yamamoto as he left and the others did as well, until it was just Lal, Kusakabe, Hibari, his hedgehog, and I. Things were quiet for a moment before Hibari lifted his hand to his mouth as he yawned, and then he locked eyes with me and began reaching into his coat for-undoubtedly-his tonfas.

"I'm bored. We have ten minutes."

I blinked, scrambling up from my place as he started walking over threateningly.

"W-What? B-but shouldn't you be keeping an eye on that?"

"It's fine as long as I sustain it with flames. Now prepare yourself."

I just barely managed to block his attack with my tekagi-shuko, but felt myself getting pushed back by the sheer amount of power behind the blow. He began an onslaught of attacks after that, and it was all I could do to block and dodge them. Growling in frustration, I began fighting back and tried to land a hit. Even one would've been nice at this point. Just when I thought I hit him though, he managed to get a good hit to my stomach in, purposely aiming for my injury and knocking me back a few feet.

"Y-You always did like…aiming for my injuries." I complained, lowering my hand that cradled my stomach and charging back at him.

He dodged my lame attempt to hit him and pulled me back to his chest with a tonfas across my throat, but I smirked.

"Bad move~"

His eyes widened as I let the ball of flame in my hand behind me explode, cringing as the blast shoved me forward straight to where I had left my water bottles, giving me a chance to douse my hand and back in water before burns could be formed. Don't need a repeat of last time. Good thing I made this blast smaller. I then rolled to the side to dodge a tonfas hit and swung my heel up to try and clip Hibari in the face. Of course, I missed, though it seemed my blast did singe his tie and shirt.

"Sorry about your suit." I told him, jumping away and putting some distance between us.

"I'll make sure you get the bill." He countered.

"Hey!"

"That was a reckless move, though. You could've been burned should you have not gotten to the water."

I smirked, dodging a stab to the face and swinging a leg up to kick him. "but I knew it would be there, so no harm done."

He smirked, but didn't expect me to bring my leg back and hook it around his neck, grabbing his upper thigh and twisting myself to bring him down to the floor. I landed upright whereas he hit the floor pretty hard and I grinned, fist pumping.

"Cool! I didn't think that'd work on a real person."

Of course, in my momentary lapse of attention, Hibari tripped me and pinned me to the ground with his tonfas to my throat once more.

"You let your guard down." He said, though a small smirk was evident on his face.

I smirked back. "Did I?"

He looked down at his stomach to see another explosion ball ready, and backed up off of me with a shake of his head and a roll of his eyes.

"I forget how reckless you are, especially in your younger years."

I sat up-having gotten rid of the flame-and frowned. "Are you calling me old?!"

He let out a trademark 'hn' and I tossed the empty water bottle beside me at his head, only for him to dodge it.

"Che, jerk." I'll be sure to write a note to the future me to kick you butt about calling me…her…old.

I felt a tap on the back of my hand and turned to see Reborn with a small smile.

"You did good, Natsu."

I wasn't sure what to say, but nodded. "Thanks?"

He then nodded towards the hedgehog ball that Tsuna was in and I watched as it seemed to destroy itself and a large amount of flame filled me with warmth. Tsuna…I knew he could do it. Now, what happened next proceeded to amaze me and I watched as Hibari and Tsuna fought, tooth and nail, Tsuna still not used to his new flame power and just when things were about to get good-Tsuna having opened one of Hibari's boxes-Hibari opened another box and countered it.

"I changed my mind. I want to fight you when you're stronger. Until the, I'll stick around a little longer. Natsu provides me with more entertainment."

Tsuna turned to me in surprise as I spit some blood off to the side, probably taking in my beat up appearance, but when they started talking about boxes, I grew bored. I know this stuff already, but my fight with Hibari… I frowned, reaching into my jacket and pulling out my boxes, looking down at them in something akin to shame. It just goes to show that I'm still not strong enough. If he hadn't stopped where he did, he probably would've won. The explosion ball I had was just for show. I couldn't-No…I wouldn't have been able to explode that one even if it was a real enemy. After what happened in that forest…

I felt a shiver rack my spine, remembering the destruction I had caused and the man I had killed. I felt sick just thinking about the charred remains I had hidden away before collapsing against the tree back then. Ever since then, when I practiced with my flames, I never…never used that much power and stuck to using my flames as little as possible in actual battles. And as much as I hated to admit it, I was afraid of my flames. Afraid of who I would hurt with them, be they enemies or friends. Afraid of them hurting me. Afraid of what people would think when they saw just how brutal my flames are. How dangerous they were and what they did to people. Scaring them…Killing them.

Suddenly, I was being dragged backwards and I reached back to struggle with the man who had grabbed my collar, thus breaking me out of my thoughts.

"Hey! What are you doing?!"

"Training, Natsu. You're holding back." He said, giving me a dark glare and I paled.

He knows…Reluctantly, I gave in, but I didn't know what I was in for when I resigned myself to the torture and afterwards, I wouldn't be quite sure about whether I appreciated it or wished I was dead.

A shishi-odoshi clonked quietly in the garden just outside of Hibari's private office as Kusakabe seated himself respectfully a ways away from Hibari himself.

"Kyou-san. We've received word from Italy that the man we've marked is on the move."

"Is he coming here?"

Kusakabe bowed his head. "We don't know that yet. But we can't afford to be careless. Should I let Sawada and the others know about this too?"

"Take care of it. We should have a photo of that one?"

"Yes. We managed to capture one photo of him with Hibird."

Said bird shifted on top of a head of orange hair, said person sitting across from Hibari with their eyes closed in a meditative position. Hibari picked up his tea cup and set it down again, before flicking a sugar cube at said person. They opened their eyes with a frown.

"What?"

"Go with Kusakabe."

"But I haven't finished my training."

Hibari glared and the person sighed, standing as Hibird flew over and landed on Hibari's head instead.

"Fine."

"And Natsu?"

"Hm?"

Hibari smirked. "Training level 10 when you return."

Natsu threw up her hands with a groan and left the room, leaving Hibari to smirk and sip at his tea. Once Natsu had returned to the Vongola hideout with Kusakabe and everyone had been assembled, things seemed to get a bit hectic.

"M-Mukuro is on the move?! But isn't Mukuro still locked in Vendichi prison?"

Natsu sighed, clacking away on her computer as Kusakabe explained.

"That's what we thought too. Five years ago, Joushima, Kakimoto, Chrome, and Natsu went to Vendichi prison to rescue Mukuro but they failed. After that, we lost track of three of them. Natsu made it back but wouldn't speak of it."

"Natsu too?!"

Natsu blinked at Tsuna from over the top of her laptop. "I didn't find much as to what happened or what my future self's part was, but…it didn't end well."

Kusakabe nodded. "that's correct, however about half a year ago, a strange rumor started to surface."

"Strange rumor?" Yamato questioned.

"Mukuro had been defeated. That's what they said."

"What do you mean?"

Natsu turned her computer around, showing a picture of a long haired man wearing glasses.

"From what I found out, there was a Millefiore who defeated him. This is him, the captain of the 8th squad, Glo Xinia."

"If you think about it, it's possible he fought against someone whom Mukuro had possessed, right?"

Kusakabe sighed. "We also think that Mukuro could have been injured pretty badly, but at the very least, he should still be alive. The reason we believe so is because after that, we caught sight of Chrome meeting a man in an airport in Italy."

He handed a picture around of said scene and they went on to discuss Chrome and where they spotted Mukuro, surprising everyone when the man was revealed to have possessed the owl that Glo uses with his box. At that moment though, a large blip appeared on the radar and Natsu and Giannini quickly began typing away.

"What is it, Giannini?"

"It was only a moment, but we picked up the presence of an unknown, but very powerful ring."

"It's Chrome." Natsu said. "Has to be. It's in the outskirts of Kokuyou Land."

"But this area is flooded with heavy electromagnetic interference." Giannini said, looking worried. "There's a high chance it could be a false alarm."

"False alarm or not, we should still check it out. If it is Chrome and we just ignore it…" Natsu let the end of that sentence hang and Lal frowned.

"It could be a new enemy."

"No. I'm sure it's a friend." Tsuna said confidently. "It could be Chrome holding the Vongola ring."

"Seems like the most likely scenario." Natsu replied, holding back a small smile. "I feel the same and our gut instincts are rarely wrong. Though we don't have enough data to confirm whether it's real or not."

"What do we do then…If it really is Chrome, we can't just wait for-"

Another alarm went off and everyone frowned, worried it might be bad news.

"It's an emergency coded message."

"The code…" Natsu muttered, just loud enough to be heard.

"The code consists of rows of commas." Reborn replied. "That means…"

"In our slang, the comma represents a head that's been cut off. In other words, it's a code for killing. It's the assassin squad's code!"

Natsu's lips twitched, the face she was making seeming to be struggling on happiness and annoyance.

"It's got to be them…"

"Oh, I think we did it. The cipher code seems to be Vongola's indeed. The digital signature matches too. I'll play it." Giannini pressed play and a loud voice echoed off the entire facility.

"Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeyyyyyyyyyy! Are you guys still alive, you little scums?!"

"Girly-man!~" Natsu shouted in return, coming up behind Giannini and waving with a grin. "I thought you were eaten by sharks!"

"Voi!" He shouted, standing up from his chair and leaning forward into the camera, before going off and shouting insults at Natsu that she couldn't understand. "I'll show you who's girly! Ten years and I still want to slice you to pieces! Just wait until I get a hold of you, you sneaky little pranking piece of shit!"

"I love you too!" She said with a childish wave, making him more frustrated.

"Rahhhhh! Listen up you brats!" He shouted, turning his attention to the others as he sat back in his seat. "Just don't move from there for now. Even if you catch any new responses from the rings!"

Reborn looked a little confused. "You mean Kokuyo Land, don't you?"

"If you stay there, you'll get an easy-to-understand order, so just be good boys until then, kids~"

"Ah! Prison prince!" Natsu said, waving to him also and getting a wave in return.

"Heeeeeeyyyy! What did you come here for?!" Squalo yelled at him.

"This prince is bored. I just came to tease, but it looks like Natsu's doing it for me."

"If you butt in, I'll kill you." Squalo replied.

"Try."

The two proceeded to fight and Natsu cheered them on, before Squalo shouted one last final thing.

"It'd be nice if I see you in this world again! Try to stay alive until then!"

The screen went black then and Natsu chuckled quietly before sitting back down at her computer and propping her combat boots up on the table.

"I like them. They're funny."

"Natsu!" Tsuna whined and as they spoke some more, the door opened and none other than the future Ryohei showed up, Chrome in his arms.

"So it was Chrome after all." Natsu said, scratching the back of her head as she typed some more on her laptop, checking through some things about Squalo and the others as Kyoko and Haru greeted him and Bianchi took Chrome to the medical treatment room.

Ryohei had brought back some message, having been unable to remember it himself, and he informed the remaining people about the information he had heard from outside. Seems that the Vongola family and its associates have decided to plan a raid on the Japanese Millefiore branch in five days. Things were serious now and with only five days left to train and prepare for the big raid, everyone was cautious as to what they should do and how they would go about it.

"That's right. This is the strategy that the heads of the Vongola and alliance families have decided on. We should also work in concert with them and do our part in the strategy."

"That's a lot of work for five days." Natsu muttered, still typing away, though they had changed rooms.

"Five days is too soon." Tsuna said.

"But, if we miss this chance, there's no telling when we'll be ready to make an effective strike against the Millefiore again." Ryohei countered.

"The enemy could find our hideout anytime too." Lal agreed. "The faster we do this, the better."

"But somehow…this is like a war between the mafia. For us to take part in something like this, doesn't it contradict our original objective?"

Natsu perked up then, having seen what Tsuna had said and looked around for the next speaker, having been left out when the group talked about this objective.

"Our objective was to take down Irie Shouichi, right? It concurs completely."

Natsu suddenly stiffened, not so sure she liked this objective. But…Irie…he apologized when he sent me here. He didn't look like he wanted to do this, but…he has to have a reason behind why he did what he did. I…I can't let them hurt him. He's my friend too. Natsu went off into her own train of thoughts, worried about what she was going to do as the others spoke with Ryohei about Tsuna's ultimate decision about whether or not he'll do the plan that has been decided.

He was nervous, not seeing how he could possibly be the one to decide something this big and turned to Natsu for her usual encouragement, but upon seeing her, he grew silently worried. S-She looks like she's really worried about something…And she's not the only one. I'm sure everyone's nervous about this. I mean, we're going to war. It may be my decision, but it's also everyone's choice as well. Even after Reborn did his usual degrading form of cheering up, Tsuna was still worried. Chrome had to fight too and he had no idea how Gokudera and Yamamoto were fairing in their training.

"Well, when it comes to training, I'm sure we'll be fine!" Yamamoto reassured. "Right, Gokudera?"

"R-Right. Leave everything to us, boss!" He then turned to Natsu and went to kick her off her seat, but she grabbed a hold of his foot as he did so, stopping him.

"It's rude to kick people, Octopus-head." She said, borrowing Lambo's nickname for him as he grew frustrated.

"Then pay attention, idiot-!" He snapped back. "We're trying to encourage the boss!"

Natsu turned to look at Tsuna and gave him a small smile. "I'll be fine. I'm training under Hibari, after all."

He paled, remembering his own insane training. "A-Are you sure you'll be okay?"

She chuckled. "If I'm not, I'll haunt him to his grave."

Tsuna shivered at the icy threat that was plainly obvious, when she suddenly stood up, dropping Gokudera's foot after he had already lost his balance and fell to the ground.

"Oi!"

"Sorry! Kusakabe! We got to go! We've been here for over two hours! He's going to kill me!"

Kusakabe chuckled at her frantic appearance and nodded, standing up as well as she hurried out the door with her laptop, hanging back just to say goodbye to everyone before heading out behind her, leaving the whole group there wondering if Natsu really would survive her training with him.

I was knocked back to the ground again, breathing hard and panting, body covered in bruises and burns; though they weren't as bad as they could've been thanks to the fire resistant clothing Hibari was letting me use. I wiped the soot and sweat from my face and glared at the man in front of me, not pleased at how slowly my training was going.

"You're still holding it back." He said with a frown. "The flame will not burn if you don't want it too."

"And how am I supposed to do that if I can't even stop it from getting out of control?!"

I blinked and in that split second, he had me pinned to the ground, half-choking due to how hard he was pressing the tonfas to my neck.

"You are testing my patience, Natsu. Figure it out or I will bite you to death before the day is over." He yanked the tonfas away as I rolled over and coughed, and he took up his place across from me once more, tonfas ready. "Come."

I growled, but got up on shaky legs, charging up the flames in my hands again and charging at him with a ferocious yell, only to be knocked back once more as the ball exploded. I cursed, patting out a tuff of flame still burning on my sleeve, and stood only to see Hibari walking away.

"Wait! Where are you going?!"

He didn't even turn and just left, leaving me to slump to the floor with a huff of annoyance. He takes breaks whenever he wants without a freaking word. I don't even think I'm getting anywhere. It's been the same training for the past few days. Make the exploding balls of flame, blow them up, get burned because I'm apparently not doing it right. Hibari doesn't even explain things! It's like he just wants me to figure it out myself! I-Wait…figure it out…That's it! I quickly crossed my legs and went into my meditative trance, breathing slowly and thinking, digging through the archives in my head until I found what I was looking for.

Smirking, I made the explosion ball once more, watching as the grey and orange flames swirled together and concentrated growing smaller and smaller with more of the concentrated energy until I let it explode, this time, changing things. As the fire spread out and landed on the floor and myself, I smirked as the flame didn't burn.

"I did it…" I slowly began to grin and stood up, hurrying out of the training room and into Hibari's office, still on fire. "I did it, Hibari!"

He looked up from his desk and gave me a bland look, making my enthusiasm shrink.

"You're dripping your flames on my tatami mat."

I looked down to see that some of the flame had indeed dripped off my arm and was now burning the tatami mat below me and I chuckled awkwardly, reaching my foot over and snuffing it out as I snuffed out the other flames on my person.

"Sorry. Heh…"

He rolled his eyes with a sigh and gave me a look. "Now explain it."

I raised a brow. "What? Why?"

"So I know you know exactly what you did and didn't end up doing it on some kind of fluke."

Sighing, I began explaining. "I always viewed the flames as actual fire. Something that burns and eats away at everything, so I tried thinking of it as light instead. A, uh, liquid light, I guess. Instead of burning, it flows. It's malleable."

He smirked. "Hn. Then let's go."
"Go? Go where?"

He pulled out his tonfas, already back at the door to the training room. "The next level. Time to mix what you've learned with your fighting."

I got up with a grin, excited to fight some more, despite the protesting of my aching and tired body. Because I was fighting Hibari, after all. He gave me a challenge and got my blood pumping. He wasn't much of a teacher, but when he worked with me, I felt like I learned more than I would've with anyone else. He made me figure things out on my own and…it felt nice. It felt nice to have someone beside me who could think like I could and work hard and argue with. But it's also nice to have someone to care for me and worry about me…A brief image of Tsuna's worried face passed through my head and I couldn't help the small smile that appeared on my face as I brought out my tekagi-shuko and faced the smirking Hibari.

"Ready or not, here I come."