"Tsu-chan! We did it! We won!" Nana cheered as she flung open her daughter's bedroom door, a coloured card held aloft in her other hand.

"Eh?" Tsunahime asked as she spun around on her desk chair, glad for an excuse to take a break from her summer homework. "What did you win this time, Mama? Another year of free groceries? That was a really good prize... Or maybe a day at the amusement park? I'm sure Lambo-kun would love to go with you..."

Over the course of Tsuna's life, Sawada Nana had won forty all-expenses-paid trips to the local amusement park, thirty-one lots of dancing lessons (numbering from just one to a set of twelve, and for seventeen different dance styles), twenty-four reverse-tabs to various shops around Namimori, fifteen magazine subscriptions (free for a year), a total of four years of free groceries from the supermarket, a fishing trip, an expensive make-up kit, a night in a fancy Tokyo hotel, and tickets for two to an opera.

Nana shook her head happily.

"This was a magazine competition, not one run by the local shops," Nana corrected, which meant it would be a more 'fancy' prize.

"Another expensive make-up kit? Or do we get to see another opera?" Tsunahime asked, her smile starting to stretch as well. She and her mother shared the make-up kit, though they only used it if they were going out somewhere fancy, rather than every day – and the opera had been a really glamorous experience. Very fun.

"Better!" Nana insisted. "It's a trip to an island on a luxury cruise-liner!"

Tsuna blinked.

"I don't remember that competition," she admitted, "and I would have, because I get seasick." They had found that out on the fishing trip they'd won. Luckily, the captain of the boat they were on had some seasick pills, so Tsuna had been able to enjoy herself when they kicked in, but...

"You've only been on small boats, Tsu-chan," Nana said gently, and gently patted down Tsuna's fluffy fly-aways. "You won't feel the rocking on a big cruise-liner. It's like a floating hotel. They've got a fancy restaurant, a pool, a casino, even a concert hall!"

"Wow..." Tsuna breathed, awed.

"And then a South Sea paradise, where the tropical sun will wash away all the unwanted things in your life!" Nana swooned.

Tsuna blinked, and her smile slipped away from her face.

"Tsu-chan, what's wrong?" Nana asked, surprised by the sudden down-turn in her daughter's mood.

Tsuna smiled a little sadly.

"Troubles aren't washed away so easily, Mama," she pointed out softly.

"Mm," Nana agreed, and her own smile fell away. "Ara, and the tickets are only for two people. We couldn't leave Lambo-kun behind without anybody to care for him..."

"He has plenty of friends at the elementary school he could have a sleepover with," Tsuna pointed out. "He would probably enjoy that a lot more than being in a fancy cruise ship where people would be looking down on him just because he's a loud and mischievous little boy... How long is the holiday?"

"You should go," interjected Reborn from his (miniature) plush leather chair. He'd been supervising Tsuna as she did her homework. "Spend some quality time with your family."

Tsuna did not at all trust her tutor's wording. After all, he was trying to turn her into a Mafia boss, in charge of a 'Family'. She'd have to call everybody who might qualify, in Reborn's mind, and fully explain the situation to them. She would also be calling a few people who Reborn might think of as 'not part of the family yet', because she was very good at hiding feelings behind formality, and there were times when the man-in-toddler-form mercifully didn't dog her every step.

~oOo~

It was quite the crowd that arrived at Mafia Land – the resort island that was the ultimate destination of their cruise. As Tsuna had suspected from Reborn's comment about spending quality time with family, Reborn had arranged everything. Including the tickets that Nana had 'won'. At least Lambo had been happy to have a long sleep-over with one of his elementary school friends, so Hana didn't have to suffer a small child being underfoot. Fuuta had come, but he was ten. Hana could handle ten. Five, on the other hand... no. Definitely not.

"You can't play yet," Reborn informed Tsuna as they stood at the entrance to Mafia Land – after he'd banished members of the press that had come running and got down on their knees to beg an interview. "You have to go to the reception office and inform them of your arrival," Reborn ordered, a faint smile on his lips.

"We've all got luggage," Tsuna allowed calmly. "We should sort out rooms before anything else."

"You're our representative," Reborn clarified.

"I get it," Tsuna waved him off. "I'll take care of procedure. Everybody else gets to carry the bags though," she said, and headed for the building Reborn had pointed to.

"Next person, please," called the receptionist.

"Heir apparent of the Vongola Family, Sawada Tsunahime," Tsuna presented herself.

"Do you have a nomination or an invitation?" the woman asked.

"I'm not sure which it counts as, but you've got giant balloons of his head above the building," Tsuna answered, deliberately obliquely. "The person who arranged for my companions and me to be here."

The receptionist blinked at that, and Tsuna could just about see the gears turning in her head, and the moment the light came on as she realised exactly who Tsuna was talking about.

~oOo~

Enemy Attack! Enemy Attack! Blared over the speakers, so that the entire resort heard. Everyone, please evacuate to the shelter!

Tsuna sighed, but all the same, she rolled up the towel she had been sunbathing on, and followed everyone else to the shelter.

"We, the Difo Family who run Asia, will take control of this battle," declared one guy with, quite possibly, the most ridiculous topknot known to man. Arrayed behind him were others with similar topknots, and all wearing black with the same emblem stitched on in white and black.

"No. We, the Beccio Family who uphold tradition and formality within the alliance, is fit to lead," countered a weasel-faced European man. He, and everybody with him, were wearing suits and ties.

"Hey, hey. You've got to be kidding me. What do you plan on doing without the Neuvo Family?" demanded an overweight man in a purple t-shirt, and wearing a chain (an actual chain, not a necklace, a chain) around his neck. At least he looked like he might be on holiday at the resort, unless looking like a 'hood' (per American phrasing) was how he dressed all the time.

"You two, stay out of this!" snapped the Difo man.

"You wanna fight?" countered the Neuvo guy.

Tsuna reached into her handbag, pulled on her gloves, and removed her riding crop.

Gokudera and Yamamoto had come along on this particular trip, so she'd known that disciplinary measures would be required at some point. She hadn't expected to need to slap grown men just because they were being prideful.

"Sawada-hime, let me."

Tsuna blinked up at Kusakabe, who had set one of his large, calloused hands on her shoulder, and still had that perpetual stick of grass hanging from one corner of his mouth. She looked between him and the three arguing mafiosi, then slowly nodded. She didn't put away gloves or crop though – she might yet need them, after all.

Kusakabe stepped up, banged two heads together and slammed the third straight into the ground.

"Who do you think you are?!" the three roared once they'd pulled their faces out of the dirt.

"He is the right hand of my left hand," Tsunahime said breezily as she stepped up.

"And what little family are you from? Shouldn't you have gone inside with the other women to cook?" sneered the weasel-faced man.

"Allow me to present," Hana said with a smirk as she stepped up, "the Heir Apparent to the Vongola, Sawada Tsunahime."

"And you were being Stupid in her presence," Kusakabe said, as though being Stupid in her presence were a heinous crime – much like Crowding before Hibari was considered to be.

That shocked them all out of their anger and into whisperings. They were very soon bowing to her though.

"Please forgive our rudeness!" the weasel-faced man begged.

"Now we know who our leader is gonna be!" agreed the corpulent man in the purple t-shirt.

"Tradition, formality, size and force; in all attributes, Vongola is superior," the weasel-faced man said. There really was something very unpleasant about his face.

"Everyone! Follow our leader, Vongola the Tenth!" yelled the man with the topknot to his subordinates.

"Difo to the left, Beccio to the right, Neuvo for direct confrontation," Tsuna snapped off quickly, and pointed where she wanted them as she gave her orders. "Miura-chan, Yamamoto-san, with the Difo. Gokudera-san, with the Neuvo – yes you can use your dynamite. Kusakabe-sempai, Hana-chan, with the Beccio."

"Of course," Gokudera praised. "Only Jyuudaime is fit to be the Boss!"

While men (and a couple of teenagers) ran to their places, Tsuna sighed.

"Hibari-sempai would have enjoyed this," she said to herself, as she thought of the older teen who had stayed behind in Namimori, rather than join them.

Ah, but the enemy were approaching. The three well-armed Families and the teenagers with them did very well, until the giant octopus showed up. Reborn and one of his compatriots (another dwarf with a pacifier, this one a blonde with a very big gun) seemed to have that well in hand though. The person leading the charge was apparently Reborn's 'lackey', so Reborn took responsibility. Very quietly, after Reborn had left behind the twitching, mutilated body of the one known as 'Skull' (yet another dwarf with a pacifier), Tsuna slipped him a piece of paper with her phone number on it.

"If you feel like changing sides," she offered softly, as she slipped the paper into his helmet through a crack in his visor.

"Ah... thank you..." the infant-sized man with the purple pacifier whimpered.

~oOo~

Tsuna collected the post that morning. Even on Sunday, there was mail. Among the catalogues and magazines that Nana had subscriptions for, there was a single post card. A single, incongruous, post card... from her male progenitor.

He'd scrawled a very short missive on the front of the card, and left the back completely blank, except for their address and the stamps. Black marker over penguins that waddled around on ice and bobbed about in water. Italian stamps. In fine print, and in Italian, was written that the picture was of penguins at some Italian zoo.

Tsuna tore the card into eight little pieces, and stuck them in her pocket. She'd drop them into the compost bin beneath the sink in the kitchen after she'd given her mother the magazines, and before she started chopping up things for her breakfast and the bentos she made every day.

She knew it was perhaps a cruel thing to do, but seeing her mother become even more air-headed than usual at the prospect of Iemitsu showing up 'soon'... no. Was she grateful that she and her mother didn't have to work in order for the bills to be paid? Yes. Was she aware that her mother very dearly loved the man? Yes. But it had been two years without anything more than cheques in the mail and the occasional mushy love-letter that had no actual content – and honestly, was probably lifted straight out of a Harlequin Romance.

The last time he'd left, he'd told Nana – on his way out the door – to tell Tsuna that he'd disappeared to become a star because it was 'romantic'. She'd seen the whole ridiculously sappy farewell from her window. As far as Sawada Tsunahime was concerned, her 'father' (who had been a shitty excuse of a one to begin with, whenever he was actually around) had been dead for the last two years, and they had been living off his savings and very large life-insurance payments ever since.

Besides, if he failed to follow through – again – then it wouldn't hurt Nana as much.

"I'm going to school!" she called, bag over her shoulder and two extra bentos in her hand as usual, as she slipped on her shoes and headed out the door.

"Have a good day!" Nana called back.

First stop was the elementary school, to deliver I-Pin's bento. This was the routine. Because Hibari had duties at the school (Namimori High now, though he still hung about Namimori Middle whenever he could), I-Pin was always early to the Namimori Elementary as well. The little girl had joined one of the clubs that had their activities before class in the mornings. Tsuna delivered the bento to I-Pin while she was at the club, and then headed off to meet with Hibari.

He was waiting for her at the gates of Namimori Middle. He always waited by the gates for anybody who was improperly attired or tardy.

"Small Animal," he greeted her, but said nothing of thanks as he accepted the bento.

"Good morning, Hibari-sempai," Tsuna answered, and did her best to smile for him as she usually did.

From the way his eyes narrowed, she clearly hadn't quite managed it.

"Sit," he ordered her, and pointed to a nearby bench.

Tsuna sat without argument.

When each of her friends arrived at the gate, Hibari didn't allow any of them to linger.

"Jyuudaime -" Gokudera was smacked across the shoulders and through the gate.

"Sawada-chan? Oh, Hibari-sempai..." Yamamoto was glared at until he left, laughing awkwardly.

"Tsuna-chan?" Kyoko moved on when Tsuna just shook her head.

"Oh, Sawada-imouto!" Ryohei was smacked across the shoulders as well, and glared at.

Well, he let one of them linger. He had to discipline one of the students who had arrived at school with pink streaks in their hair. That was against regulations.

For a while, Hana stood there and just stared at Tsuna, then she sighed.

"It's a review day, so there's no classes," she said. "I'll tell the sensei that you suddenly felt dizzy, and one of the prefects escorted you home. It wouldn't be the first time one of them did that, ne, Sawada-hime?" Hana teased gently.

Tsuna blinked.

"... Ah, thank you, Hana-chan."

"Whatever it is that's bothering you, Tsuna-chan, you let me know when I can help you, alright?" Hana requested, and poked her friend gently in the forehead. "That's what friends are for."

"Mama's husband -" she never called him her father, "- sent a card that says he will be returning 'soon' for a visit."

"So it's that monkey," Hana growled.

"The Herbivore," Hibari's tone matched Hana's. He'd finished handing out discipline and heard the explanation.

"Hibari-sempai, will you take Tsuna-chan away for the day?" Hana requested. "I'll keep everybody else away from her, if you can get her away from where people will look."

"... We'll go to Kokuyo," Hibari decided firmly.

"Then we should stop by some of the shops on the way," Tsuna suggested. "I think today will be the day."

The Kokuyo Centre had gone from a hide-out for Rokudo and his two allies, to their prison. Each of them was kept in a separate, completely lightless room, and were granted only a salad sandwich and a single plastic cup of water every other day. Once a week, a bucket of water was thrown on them so that they didn't get to stink too much. Every third day, either Hibari or Tsuna would visit them personally. Otherwise, it was generally one of the Disciplinary Committee.

Slowly, they had been breaking.

Tsuna had already found out that Rokudo had wanted to possess her body so that he could take control of the Vongola, and from there, destroy the mafia. She knew that Ken and Chikusa followed him because, in the wake of the horrors committed against them by their so-called family, Rokudo was the first to accept them. She even knew that, recently, Rokudo had made a friend – one that he had been able to reach because, like him, she had been clinically dead for a short time.

Tsuna had looked the girl up, and had visited her in her hospital room.

Nagi, or Dokuro Chrome as she preferred since Rokudo had come into her life, had been very receptive to having a female friend. Especially one who had saved her saviour from Vindicare. It turned out that Rokudo was somehow able to reconstruct Chrome's many missing internal organs with powerful, physical illusions. Tsuna had talked to both of them about that, and had even asked Reborn for a doctor who might be able to help sort out a way to use those illusions to eventually properly heal the girl.

Tsuna hadn't been particularly thrilled with Dr Shamal as a person when she met him, but presented with such a medical anomaly, he had practically transformed. Away went the womanising pervert, and in its place stood a very professional and efficient doctor. The illusions weren't fixing the problem, just masking it. Organ transplants were possible, but getting a match made things more complicated, and there was a waiting line for such things. In the end, a compromise was reached. A compromise that, boiled down, said that Mukuro would make his illusionary organs very, very slowly shrink away, forcing Chrome's own body to produce the cells it needed to heal the (what it thought of as) tiny gaps.

It would be a very slow process, but it would be effective. Eventually.

Thinking about such things was a very welcome change from thinking about the possibility of Iemitsu's arrival.

"Hibari-sempai... if he does come..."

"The house is dusty, and I-Pin should start learning how to make something other than gyoza," Hibari said.

Tsuna smiled gratefully. That was practically an invitation to stay for a week at Hibari's house. It was very big, and if he wanted her to clean all of it and keep up with school and homework, as well as teach a little girl about cooking... well, it would take some time.

~oOo~

"He's an irresponsible guy," Tsuna said as she sat, in the dark, at the other end of the room that Rokudo was kept in.

Hibari was standing in the corner nearby, also in the dark. It was like a kind of confessional. There was no one to see, so even if they could hear, they still couldn't judge, and Tsuna didn't have to feel their stares.

"The things he says and does have always been insane. Maybe I just don't understand because I'm a girl, but I'm pretty sure I'd still feel the same way if I were a boy."

"What sort of things?" Rokudo asked.

"I remember I once asked him what he did for a living," Tsuna recalled. "He said he flew all around the world and managed traffic at construction sites," she scoffed. "And the last time he left, he told my mother to tell me he died, in not so many words, just because it sounded romantic, and Mama likes romantic things. I decided that if he wanted to say he was dead, then he could just be dead."

"Small Animal," Hibari spoke up.

"Hai, Hibari-sempai?"

"If he is alive, why is he not the successor for the mafia family, instead of you?"

"I can answer that," Rokudo spoke up. "Sawada Iemitsu is known as the 'Young Lion of the Vongola'. He's in charge of the Consulenza Esterna Della Famiglia, the CEDEF, which makes him ineligible for the succession. He sucks at it too, by all accounts," he added with a scoff. "Much more useful as a field operative than a CEO, but he has the favour of the Ninth, so no one can kick him out."

"Why didn't you possess the Ninth, Rokudo-san?" Tsuna asked curiously. "He's already in charge of the Vongola, after all. I'm only the 'heir apparent', and the last three all died in mysterious circumstances."

"People would notice a change in his behaviour," Rokudo explained simply. "You're an unknown in the Mafia world, so no one would have guessed at the truth."

"Old people go funny in the brain all the time," Tsuna countered.

"The Herbivore is a fine example," Hibari quipped.

"Iemitsu always said weird things," Tsuna agreed, then sighed. "And Mama just lapped it up like he had hung the stars. She doesn't even care that he only rarely visits, or that those visits are never long. I haven't seen him in two years, and I know I will never trust him."

"Oh?" Rokudo hummed. "That might be awkward, since he's the External Advisor," he reminded her. "The CEDEF are also supposed to handle intelligence, I believe."

"If I ever move up from 'heir apparent' to actually being the Tenth, I plan on firing him," Tsuna decided and decreed. "Possibly with real fire. External advice and intelligence... sounds like a good job for Hana-chan."

"Hn," Hibari agreed.

Midori tanabiku Namimori no ~

Hibari flipped open his phone.

"Hai. Mm. Ah. I'll be right there," he said, and hung up.

"Somebody is disturbing the peace of Namimori?" Tsunahime guessed.

"Yes," Hibari grunted, frustrated.

"Then you had better go," she permitted, and stood. "I'll walk out with you."

She opened the door, and light spilled into the black little room. Behind her, Rokudo gasped. He got to see true light so rarely now. Tsuna turned in the doorway to look back at him.

"I hope that, one day, you will be willing to walk out of this door at my side," she told him. "And then walk with me to meet your friends. They miss you, you know? To them, you are Onii-sama, beloved and respected and adored. You all three have so much potential. I do wish you would ask to leave the darkness of your sins behind. I know that Chrome-chan wants to meet you in person as well."

"Small Animal," Hibari summoned softly.

"Hai, Hibari-sempai," she agreed, and reached out to lace her fingertips with his, just lightly.

To Rokudo, at that moment, Sawada Tsunahime was herself made of light and warmth. He wanted to reach out and touch that, for her to reach out and touch him in turn. He could see though, in the cold glint of silver eyes that flashed through both the warming light and the freezing darkness, that while Hibari might let Rokudo get close... he would not allow him to touch her more than was necessary for him to kiss her feet.

Then darkness engulfed him again as the door shut, and the many locks, bolts, and bars were replaced.

Next time, he resolved, the next time they opened his door, he would ask.