"What's an old guy like that doing wearing a middle school uniform, anyway, desu?" Miura questioned, disturbed.

"They broke out of prison with Mukuro," Reborn answered.

"There were other escapees with Mukuro, and we weren't told about this sooner... why?" Hana demanded.

"According to Dino, the prison break was caused by Mukuro and his close friends, plus M.M, Birds, and the Twins. We knew about the others," Reborn explained, "but we didn't imagine that they would have rendezvoused."

"You didn't imagine," Tsuna repeated, incredulous.

"But Dino said these guys didn't matter," Reborn said with a deliberately pathetic expression.

"And they were all pathetically easy to deal with," Tsuna acknowledged. "But knowing in advance that we would have to deal with them would have been helpful. On that note, is there anything else you've been keeping back? Any more people we're going to have to face that we weren't told about until after the fact?"

"There is," Bianchi said as she looked pointedly at a particular bit of the flora that had cropped up since the Kokuyo Centre had closed down. "Stop hiding and come out!"

A mop of sandy hair peeked out from around a tree.

"It's me," the child said, a sorry, worried look on his face as he stepped more clearly into view.

"Fuuta-kun," Tsuna recognised. "Strange kid, but harmless," she assured her friends who hadn't met him. "Well, in and of himself," she corrected herself. "You're the one who made the list of the strongest fighters at Namimori, aren't you Fuuta-kun? That's how Rokudo knew who to target."

"I'm sorry, Tsuna-onee-san," Fuuta apologised. "I did. You need to stay away, Tsuna-onee-san. I can't go back with you."

"Yare yare," Tsuna sighed as the boy ran. "Miura-chan, will you go after him?"

"Sure thing, Sawada-chan!" Haru chirped.

~oOo~

"You will not defeat me," declared a man with a very large metal ball on the end of a very thick chain. He matched the picture that Reborn had supplied.

"You're -" Yamamoto started.

"Rokudo Mukuro," Kyoko finished.

"What did you do with Fuuta?" Bianchi demanded.

"I don't know any Fuuta," the man said, and started casually twirling the massive ball and chain around. He was definitely not a weakling.

"Then you are not Rokudo Mukuro," Tsuna said. She refused to be intimidated by the show of strength, and focused on what actually mattered. Incidentally, once more living up to her high ranking for being inclined to try solving conflicts without committing violence.

The man jolted in surprise where he stood. A clear give-away that Tsunahime had it right. As if that weren't enough, he dropped his metal ball right down next to him with a great crunching thud as it cracked the concrete.

"A fake?!" Bianchi yelped.

"But... you were the one in that prison photo," Yamamoto objected.

"The real Mukuro would never allow himself to be recorded like that," the man said, "and he... is the one who took everything from me."

"And yet, you work for him," Hana stated.

"What is your real name? Or shall I just call you 'Pawn Number -', what are we up to, Hana-chan?"

"Gokudera did a mutual KO with one. Miura-chan and Kyoko-chan got the second and third, Yamamoto got the fourth with Miura-chan's help when we got here. Bianchi-san and I dealt with the fifth, and you got the last one," Hana counted off.

"Right. 'Pawn Number Seven', then," Tsuna said with a nod.

"My name is Lancia. I was the strongest bodyguard in northern Italy!" the man insisted vehemently. "And that... that... brat that my family took in -! He... controlled me, possessed me, I don't know. He made me kill my family with my own two hands!"

"And yet, you still work for him," Hana said again.

"What choice do I have?" Lancia bemoaned.

"Good question. Reborn-san? What choices does he have?" Tsuna asked.

His options turned out to include being attacked by the same person who had taken out Gokudera – from a distance, so immediate and direct confrontation wasn't an option.

"Sawada -!" Bianchi said, a strain in her neck. The desire to exact sisterly vengeance pumping through her veins.

"Go."

~oOo~

"I wonder if they destroyed the stairwells, or if they crumbled on their own," Hana mused when they found the first impassable stairwell.

"Either, both," Tsuna said with a shrug.

"They're choosing our path for us," Reborn said, his tone both firm and unhappy. "It's easier for them to defend against us if they limit the number of paths between us. On the other hand, they need to be able to flee as well. They'll be prepared for a fight."

"He," Kyoko corrected. "Bianchi-san is chasing one of the able-bodied accomplices, and we've left everybody else in no condition to join the fight. There is only Rokudo Mukuro left."

"Unless there's someone else you haven't told us about," Hana added with a scowl at Reborn.

"No one else," Reborn confirmed, just a little sheepishly.

"Alright, then since there's four of us, not counting Reborn, and only one enemy, I think we should be safe to split up," Tsuna decided. "Yamamoto-san, please give Hana-chan a boost."

Kyoko was boosted up onto the edge of the broken stairwell after that, but when Yamamoto braced at the third one, Tsuna shook her head.

"You next," she corrected as she spread her stance and laced her fingers together, so that they made a firm, braced platform that Yamamoto would be able to use as a spring to launch himself up. "I'm going to follow the path they want me to take."

"Sawada-chan..." the tall baseball enthusiast said softly, awed. Then he smiled. "Okay!"

Once Yamamoto was gone, Tsuna reached into one of her pockets, and pulled out something that she'd picked up back when Hana was being boosted up. It was a phone. A simple, black, flip-phone. Damaged, and it had been dusty when she picked it up, but it wasn't completely broken. It belonged to Hibari.

He would never leave his belongings lying about like that on purpose. Which meant that he had to be somewhere nearby.

"Tsuna," Reborn called. He was sticking with her, rather than tagging along with any of her friends and keeping them safe. Then again, he was her tutor, not theirs.

Tsuna tucked the phone back into her pocket.

"Sawada!"

"Ah, Bianchi-san. You have your vengeance?"

"Yes," the rose-haired woman confirmed as she jogged up and came to a halt in front of Tsuna and Reborn. "That boy with the yo-yo shouldn't be waking up for at least twenty-four hours, and I may have broken a few of his bones as well."

Tsuna smiled at that.

Bianchi blinked. "Sawada, Reborn... where are the others?" she asked.

"Since there is only Rokudo left, and since so many of the stairwells have been destroyed, we split up," Tsuna explained. "I'll be taking the rout that they have left intact."

"Deliberately walk into the trap, while your allies have gotten into position to pull you out if need be," Bianchi guessed, voice soft.

"Hai."

"You know, they could be turned into extra bait, if they aren't careful."

"I know."

Bianchi let herself be pushed up the next broken stairway.

Tsuna kept searching for a way up that wasn't destroyed.

"Midori tanabiku Namimori no~" sang a high little voice.

Tsuna looked up, seeking the source of the song, and spotted a fluffy little canary perched on the top of a dividing barrier at the bottom of a set of stairs. On the ground in front of that barrier, a pair of familiar tonfas lay.

"Hibari-sempai!" Tsuna called, and raced towards the weapons.

He would definitely never leave them behind.

"Small Animal."

The answer came from the other side of the barrier that the bird was perched on top of.

Tsunahime picked up the tonfa and put them in her bag. She pulled out a bright pink grenade. Just because she had confiscated Lambo's weapons, did not mean she had gotten rid of them. What with being involved in the Mafia now, having an explosive handy for emergencies and just-in-case seemed to her to be an eminently sensible idea.

"Fire in the hole," she called the warning as she pulled the pin, then dropped she dropped the explosive against the wall and ran back up the short stairwell to take cover.

"I could have gotten out on my own," Hibari said, once the rubble had stopped falling and the dust had cleared. "But I suppose this works."

"Please forgive me, Hibari-sempai, but you weren't getting out soon enough for my tastes, and I could help," Tsuna answered him firmly as she hurried back down the stairs to him. "Kusakabe-sempai is occupying a bed in the hospital as well," she informed him more softly as she started unbuttoning Hibari's shirt. There were red stains on it, some very dark, which meant he'd been bleeding.

Tsuna bit her lip when she saw the wounds, but pulled out the bandages she'd been carrying, and got to work.

"What did he do?" she asked softly as she carefully cleaned the first wound. "You aren't nearly hurt enough to have been defeated... he must have used some kind of trick..."

"As you say, some kind of trick," Hibari confirmed, as he obediently let his wounds be cleaned and wrapped. "It took me by surprise enough that... well. It doesn't matter now. I will not be tricked twice," he promised darkly.

"And when you have broken his body, I will break his spirit," Tsuna said in solemn agreement.

Hibari's grin was sharp and predatory.

~oOo~

"Ah, this must be the tenth Vongola," Rokudo Mukuro greeted them, his hetero-chromatic eyes fixed firmly on Tsuna, who stood behind and to the right of Hibari.

"I understand you've been looking for me," Tsuna answered calmly. "You really have gone about it all the wrong way."

"Oh?"

"Have you prepared yourself?" Hibari asked as he flexed his hands around his tonfas.

"You're very scary, but please don't get between me and Vongola. Besides, you can barely stand right now," Rokudo said, assured of his strength, and that he would be able to defeat Hibari as he had before.

"Have you prepared your last will?" Hibari asked again, and swung his tonfas threateningly.

"You say such amusing things. Very well. I'll take care of you first," Rokudo said, and stood from his seat. He pulled out a series of black tubes and clicked them together until he had a trident, as tall as his own person, in his hand. "This will only take a moment."

Blows were exchanged at great speed. It was very difficult to keep up with. They human eye and mind just didn't process that quickly.

"How long does 'a moment' last for you?" Hibari mocked, then landed the decisive blow.

Ribs cracked, and Rokudo was sent flying. He landed head-first against the edge of the small dais that a large couch was sitting on, like some kind of mockery of a royal throne.

Tsuna crossed the room and knelt over the downed form of Rokudo Mukuro. She planted one knee over his throat, and the other on one of his arms. Carefully but thoroughly, she searched him for any weapons that he might have hidden on his person that he hadn't thought to use against Hibari.

She found a pearly-white pistol, an old-fashioned single-shot thing covered in delicate scroll-work.

"Kyoko-chan, will you mind this?" Tsuna called over, and emptied the shot out of the gun.

"Hahi?" Miura yelped.

"Tsuna-chan always knows when people arrive," Kyoko said as she crossed the room from the door, so that she could collect the gun.

Hana, Yamamoto, Bianchi, and Fuuta were there as well.

"Reborn-san?" Tsuna offered the bullet to him.

"Ah," the toddler-like hitman said as he accepted the item carefully. "This is the Possession Bullet, a forbidden thing. You have to be predisposed to it -"

"I don't need the particulars right now, Reborn," Tsuna insisted softly. "I will gladly hear them, but later. There are other, more present matters to deal with."

"Such as?"

"I need some rope."

~oOo~

"Rokudo Mukuro, what do you think people are?"

"They are... toys."

"If people are toys... then I suppose, as the person in a position of power right now... that makes you my toy," Tsunahime said speculatively.

Rokudo Mukuro said nothing.

"... Did you know, I used to rip the heads off my dollies when I was little? It was always by accident, I would be brushing their hair so lovingly, but then there would be a snare, and I'd just keep pulling, and tugging, and eventually their heads popped off the ball that kept the head attached to the neck," Tsunahime divulged pleasantly.

"You don't have the stones to do something like that to a person," Mukuro countered, sure of himself.

"I'm a girl, Rokudo. I don't have 'stones' at all," Tsuna countered, distinctly amused. "I have ovaries, and oestrogen, and as much as I am a caring, nurturing, forgiving and merciful sort of person, I also have a female instinct to be protective of those I care for, as well as to be vindictive in my revenge. Don't you know the poem? 'The female of the species is more deadly than the male'."

"Ara! We studied that in English class last month," Kyoko recalled.

"Maybe, since he brought it up, we could cut off his balls?" Hana said as she picked out some dirt from under her nails.

Yamamoto winced at the prospect, and crossed his legs defensively. He knew that the threat wasn't directed at him, but he was still a guy. Even Reborn grimaced and – casually, because he didn't show weakness – brought his legs together.

However...

"Insufficient," Hibari determined firmly.

"If we did that, he'd only suffer once," Tsuna offered contemplatively. "He'd also very likely bleed out fairly quickly, so he wouldn't suffer for very long either. He must be... disciplined... in direct proportion to the suffering he has caused, and how much – if any – regret he feels for those actions."

Leon, Reborn's magical chameleon (who had dropped his tail earlier and had been randomly shifting into all sorts of things for a while, before turning into something like a jelly-blob and just sticking to the back of Reborn's jacket), suddenly inflated and rose through the air to the ceiling, and lit up brighter than a disco ball.

"Reborn-san, what's going on?" Kyoko asked, bewildered.

"He's finally emerged. For some reason, he becomes a cocoon when my students are given a trial," Reborn explained. Okay, so Leon hadn't been a jelly-blob. He'd been a cocoon. "When the student grows, he emerges. He's about to spit out a new item, just for you, my student."

The chameleon spat out a pair of gloves and a riding crop, and finally reformed into his actual, usual lizard body.

"Ah, the perfect item for negative reinforcement," Tsuna said as she caught the items. She wasn't sure about the very fine grey kid gloves, but for now, she definitely had use for the crop. In any event, she'd put the gloves on as well. They were very nice gloves, with no silly trim on them at all, but it felt like... there was something about them that teased at something within her that burned hot and passionate.

It felt right wearing them.

The riding crop pulled at that inner heat as well, and Tsuna wasn't sure if she was seeing things or not, but it looked like the crop sparked orange flames when she struck Mukuro with it.

~oOo~

The Vindice arrived shortly after two of Rokudo's pawns managed to crawl their way back to be with their leader.

Tsuna stepped away from Rokudo to greet them. Hana took her place.

"If you please, I'm not finished with him yet," Tsunahime said to the tall, imposing figures with their bandage-covered features and black clothing, "and I cannot ask you to leave him, and let you take his pawns. That would be ridiculous and imbalanced."

Hana and Hibari had strung up the pawns when they arrived (crawling, weak, battered, but determined), each one tied to a tine of Rokudo's trident. Kyoko had bandaged their injuries, and asked them (very politely) which of them had been the one who hurt her brother.

The sweet sunshine girl had then very respectfully asked Hibari for an impromptu lesson in how to use tonfas. She might have used her bare fists, like her brother did, but Kyoko didn't want to have to explain to her brother why she was the one who had bloody knuckles for once.

Hibari agreed, and demonstrated a strike on one captive before he handed over the tonfas and Kyoko attempted to replicate the strike on the other – the one that had hurt her brother.

"Tsuna, you don't have the pull for this," Reborn warned. "You had better not interfere."

"You are much too late to be saying that," Hana quipped as she used the scissors from Kyoko's medical kit to shave Rokudo bald, occasionally deliberately nicking him, just as she had for the other two between their being hung up and the beginning of Kyoko's tonfa lesson. Of course, scissors were not meant for shaving, so there were a number of accidental cuts, as well as deliberate ones.

"It might not be the discipline you would give them, but I promise that it will be very effective. They will be reformed, repentant, and respectful members of society by the time I am done with them," Tsuna swore.

"Why should we agree to such a thing?"

"If they are my prisoners, then you won't have to feed them," Tsuna pointed out, entirely reasonable. "Besides, I was 'ordered' by Vongola to capture them, or be killed as a 'traitor' to an organisation that, to my knowledge, I never actually joined. No one said anything about handing them over. A full accounting of all crimes committed by and upon them would, however, be very much welcomed. I wouldn't like for their discipline to be too much or too little," Tsuna said with a sweet, innocent smile.

Butter wouldn't have melted in her mouth.

~oOo~

"Kusakabe-sempai? I apologise for calling so late. A man broke in through my window and... Yes, of course I hit him over the head. With my science text. Mm, the heavy one. Well, I would drag him off down to the police station myself, but I think he had a stroke or a heart-attack at the same time as I concussed him. Well, he doesn't seem to be breathing, and I can't find a pulse, but I know I didn't hit him that hard. Ah, thank you so much! I owe you a month of special bentos. Well, it's the middle of the night and an awkward situation. Eh? Hibari-sempai? Well, yes, I suppose, but you know how he gets when people wake him. I'll tell him first thing in the morning, I promise. Yes... Yes... Yes sempai, I promise."