Tsuna noticed that something was off when Ryohei Sasagawa failed to give him a customary greeting of 'SAWADA, JOIN THE BOXING CLUB!'

He didn't think much of it, just glad that his ears would be spared.

He also noticed that Kyoko's eyes had been a bit redder and her overall appearance was a bit frazzled.

He pretended not to notice when she held back a sob, not wanting to break what little strength she was using to keep herself composed and smiling.

He later found out about her break-up with Mochida and decided that that was probably the reason for her tears. Tsuna pushed down his uneasiness about the unseen situation, until a certain Hitman brought it to his attention.

"Sasagawa Ryohei is in the hospital." The tiny yet commanding voice said.

Tsuna didn't even comprehend what he was doing before his body was dashing to the closest exit. Vaguely, he could hear his chair clatter to the ground in his haste, but he ignored it in favor of pulling the window open and hopping onto the nearest ledge. He grappled his way across the building until he came to the drainage pipe, sliding down the three stories.

"Dame-Tsuna?!"

"That was Dame-Tsuna? It can't be."

"What's gotten into him?"

While normally Tsuna would have been mortified that the other students were paying attention to him, he found that he didn't care. Maybe it was the constant mortification that he received from Reborn and his antics, but the brunet was becoming callous to the astonished reactions of his classmates.

Even if Tsuna hadn't memorized the whole of Namimori for 'parkour practice spots' and 'hiding from bullies spots', he would have still been able to know where Namimori Hospital was. It was the largest building in town and could be seen from anywhere in Namimori. The problem was that even if you could see it, you couldn't really tell which roads led to the hospital. The average trip could take anything from twenty minutes to an hour, as the city surrounding it twisted with a mesh of modern and ancient designs. Luckily for Tsuna, he didn't need roads. Instead, he was bounding curbs, ignoring fences and rails, and climbing buildings to utilize a nonexistent straight line to the hospital.

He got there in ten minutes flat, only to see a stream of injured coming in through the automatic doors he just bounded through. Stretchers were brought through behind him, five at a time. Members of the Kendo club, archery club, even the boxing club were lying and groaning, filling Tsuna with a sense of dread.

There was something else as well. It twitched at him, urging for his attention to be drawn to the corner of the lobby. He looked, watching a little boy clutch a book while his wide eyes scanned the lobby. He was obviously a foreigner, the features apparent against the sea of Japanese, but his brown eyes were keen and watching. To anyone else, he looked like a lost kid trying to find his guardian.

To Tsuna, he radiated a fear that was unnatural for a child his age.

He was about to approach the child, (arm stretched out, eyebrows furrowed in a worried gesture) but a man appeared behind the kid, pinning him down with two different colored eyes. Tsuna looked around, confused as everyone else seemed to freeze in place, like time itself had stopped. He looked back at the pair, shivering at the smirk the man was sending his way. (Belatedly, he wondered why he kept referring to the other one as a man when he couldn't have been much older than Tsuna was himself)

Something in the back of his mind clicked. The brunet wasn't sure what it was, but an aching feeling echoed in his heart at the sight of the flinching child, clutching his book like a comfort blanket. Tsuna was reminded of Lambo. A child forced to grow up in the worst way possible. A child who didn't understand, but went along with whatever was in front of him for the comfort of safety. Only, instead of coping with it through loud statements and violent protests, it seemed like he decided to shut himself out. To hold himself tightly when he felt that he was falling apart at whatever seam he stitched together himself.

Tsuna knew the feeling.

Before Tsuna could get his wits about him, to try and stop the man who was about to whisk the child away, time flowed again. A stretcher, holding another injured, obscured his vision of the pair across the room as it was brought through. Something twitched within the brunet as he stared at the now empty corner, knowing that they were long gone. Clicking his tongue, Tsuna turned to the front desk, not even bothering to be polite to the secretary as he asked for Sasagawa Ryohei's room.

No one was in the room except for Ryohei. As a consequence, the only sound coming from it was the light echo of a beep, beep, beep, the only indication that the normally exuberant boy was alive.

Sighing heavily, Tsuna sat down in the chair situated next to the hospital bed. This whole situation . . .didn't sit right with him. Of course, seeing anyone injured in the hospital wasn't a pleasant feeling but Ryohei had always been a loud person. Jumping up and down, running around Namimori, asking (yelling at) students to join the boxing club.

It shouldn't have happened.

"But it did, Dame-Tsuna." A high-pitched voice reached his ears. Tsuna barely stopped himself from rolling his eyes at the familiar nickname, irritated that his tutor continued to call him that. "So what are you going to do about this?" The baby hitman didn't say anything more as the brunet shuffled in his uncomfortable chair and watched the white-haired boxer in his slumber. Instead, he waited for a response that he doubted he would get.

A solid five minutes passed by. Neither student nor teacher speaking to one another. Reborn watched as the brunet just sat there, staring at Ryohei as if he were waiting for something. It's hopeless, the hitman thought, he's not ready to let go of his detached attitude, at least not yet. Sighing, the baby turned his heel, intent on trying to find some decent coffee when the voice of his student made him pause.

"'To protect . . .'" It was little more than a hoarse whisper, piercing the silence of the hospital room. Curious at the sudden change of atmosphere in the room, Reborn turned back around and leaned over his student's shoulder to get a glimpse of his face. Tsuna's eyes were shut, his face pinched in pain, and beads of sweat were running down his forehead. "Reborn . . .what does a Mafia Boss . . .ultimately protect?"

It would have been easy to lie to him. To tell him what he wanted to hear, but Reborn wasn't nearly as kind as to give his student white lies that would have made him feel better. "The Famiglia." Was his prompt answer.

The lines in Tsuna's face relaxed, looking less in pain and instead shifted to a look of exhaustion. "I don't want to be a Mafia Boss." He said, eyes still closed. Reborn didn't saying anything, sensing that his student was going to say more. "Vongola has done nothing for me, so why should I protect it? It's an organization that hasn't done much good in this world, so why should I care?" The hitman refrained from hitting his student across the head. "Maybe it should just disappear, but that doesn't matter to me." Tsuna's eyelids fluttered a bit as he slowly started to open them, "I don't care much about family, it's a notion I've never really understood, but friends . . ." Reborn could only watch on, mesmerized as a pair of orange eyes pinned him in place with a determined glare, "Who did this?"

Reborn should have smacked his student. He should have corrected him, scolded him, or even just told him 'no'. But even as his lips formed the name "Rokudo Mukuro" he couldn't stop the swell of pride that blossomed itself at the pit of his heart.

Me: I'm having a little trouble with these few chapters, mainly because Tsuna is in a major transition period. So, sorry for the slow update, but things should be picking up soon enough.

About Futa. I thought about having Tsuna meet him but I thought about it in terms of Rankings and decided that Futa wouldn't go to him, as he is no longer in the top categories that would have caught Futa's interest. That, and because of Tsuna's new habits, running into Futa would've been unlikely as Tsuna doesn't even use roads half the time. So, Mukuro found the Ranking Prince first.

Next up: Tsuna prepares for his fight against Mukuro while dealing with the notion that he has a set of people to protect.