Mechanical Bonds
Summary: Tsuna decided to appoint new guardians after becoming the Vongola Decimo officially. He does not give the rings to his friends. Instead, robots were appointed as guardians for the first time in the entire Vongola history. No one can do anything to change Tsuna's mind, not even Reborn. Then something goes wrong with the robots and Tsuna faces death. Will human bonds win over the programmed robots?
Chapter 10
Final Act
Author's Note: I was overseas for a while and could not write but here is the new update ^^ Let me know the omake scenes you would like to see once the series is officially done~
Xxx Destiny Aitsuji xxX
By the time Hibari dragged Dino back with Squalo and Mukuro trailing behind, Shamal was already analysing the results of his tests. There was nothing much the others could do except for watch over the sleeping brunet.
Shamal was perplexed. The tests did not reflect the ordinary illnesses or diseases. Could it be a new mutation of virus that he hadn't seen before? He sighed. It would take more than ordinary medical tests to confirm the roots of Tsuna's illness. The laboured breathing told Shamal time was not something they had on hand.
He took a sample of Tsuna's blood cells and placed it on a sterilised glass slide. He adjusted the lens and focused the view. At first glance nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Then he zoomed in and saw something strange. The red blood cells looked fine and behaved in the manner they should. However, when Shamal zoomed in, some red blood cells were exploding in a haphazard manner before they suddenly come to a halt before moving in an organised manner.
Shamal focused his lens's view on the strange behaviour and observed. He saw it. That small silver droid was chasing the red blood cells and then it caught one. Without blinking, Shamal observed how the droid attached itself to the cell and merged. The red blood cell then moved in an orderly manner along with the other infected cells and grouped together. Shamal watched how the grouped infected cells suddenly burst and multiplied into more cells with some decolouring. The nearby cells, that was uninfected before, slowly but surely became less active. Shamal was silent for the whole time he witnessed it. The process had killed one small section of cells in the glass slide in ten minutes.
Normal humans at most take a minimum of four weeks to fully replace their red blood cells. That makes it an average rate of three and a half minutes for the regeneration of one millilitre of red blood cells.*
Shamal made his mental calculations. Tsuna would be dead in thirteen days max. However, the time to be able to even save Tsuna before the lack of red blood cells causes severe implications would mean they had a week and a little more at most. Shamal recalled when Reborn had noticed the changes in Tsuna and mentally plotted a timeline.
He grimaced. Tsuna had been infected for about twelve days now if not more. An ordinary person should be dead but Tsuna was blessed with the deathperation flames which made them stronger than ordinary humans.
Shamal was almost happy when he thought about using sun flames to stabilise the brunet's condition but then recalled how the nano virus behaved just like cells and it would only make the situation worse if any sun flames were used.
Shamal looked over to the brunet worriedly. Time was running out. He gave Reborn an urgent call to report his findings.
Xxx Destiny Aitsuji xxX
Reborn was busy sieving through the records that Chrome had brought. Mammon was with him when the phone rang.
"What did you find?"
Shamal made his report brief and Reborn cursed. "Send me your findings ASAP. I'll find someone who can make an antidote although I'll hate to owe that person favours."
Another pause from Reborn's side and then the hit man nodded. "Please make sure my student doesn't die."
After ending the first call, Reborn dialled for the CEDEF chief. "Iemitsu. We found the cause. Shamal will send me the finding. I trust that you have convinced him as well?"
Reborn smiled this time. "Tell him to hurry then. No price is too steep for the life of the Decimo. I don't know how much longer Dame Tsuna can hold out."
With that the line went dead. Mammon gave Reborn a quizzical look. The fedora infant merely smirked. "It's time for you to go as well. Leave the back end to me. The girl probably has something for you."
The illusionist took off without another word and Reborn closed his eyes. He did something he hadn't done in a long time – pray.
Xxx Destiny Aitsuji xxX
Verde was calculating the returns of his efforts to help save the boy when the CEDEF chief's phone rang. He didn't need to know the conversation to understand what was going on. It was about time anyway.
From what he had extracted from the phones, Verde had found the location and hacked into the database. Unfortunately all he had seen was a bunch of useless inventions that was previously mentioned. Verde was sure those were mere distractions. How would they plan to assassinate the Decimo? It shouldn't be too flashy or obvious but Verde could find nothing of that sort in their massive database. It would take some time now. Shamal found something and Verde was sure it would give him a hint on where to start searching in the database.
The computer beeped as Verde turned around. Reborn works fast as usual and Verde adjusted his glasses. He scanned through the document quickly and smirked. "Give me five minutes. It seems like Croce isn't too dumb after all. However he isn't as innovative either."
Keiman yawned as Verde typed rapidly away on the keyboard and opening many windows on the huge screen. Iemitsu felt dizzy while Irie was stumped into silence at Verde's magnificence. Spanner was quiet as he took in whatever information he could at the inhumanly fast pace that Verde went.
Then Verde stopped at one screen. Irie squinted to have a better look at the schematics. It looked like a robot shaped like a jellyfish. Verde stared at the screen for a minute before leaving the desk for the lab.
Irie and Spanner quickly approached the screen to read the contents. It took them a full ten minutes before they understood. Iemitsu on the other hand had problems understanding the numeral jargons. Spanner gulped and Irie paled. Whatever it was didn't sound good. "I hope Tsunayoshi-kun is alright," Irie whispered and Spanner nodded in agreement. No one would be able to live for very long with something like that inside of them. It was an extremely cruel way to die.
Xxx Destiny Aitsuji xxX
Chrome waited in the room with three members of the Vendicare. Mammon materialised beside her and showed a badge which made the three guards leave. Chrome smiled. "Are we going to the final stage now?"
Mammon nodded. She sneezed into a tissue paper and the location of Liam appeared immediately. "Let's hurry along. It seems that he is on the run now."
Chrome nodded and followed Mammon.
Xxx Destiny Aitsuji xxX
"Ushishishi~" Belphegor was having a ball at setting traps and luring the armed guards into them. The blood painted the white walls magnificently and it was obvious he was very high.
Lussuria on the other hand had stripped to his underwear and no one wanted to be near him when he cuddled a dead body. "Oh my, you look so handsome I could just eat you up teehee~"
Levi was the only one decent enough in the raid. His moustache however was the only unsightly thing about him. "Levi Volta!" Several charred bodies littered the corridor.
Croce was in the basement when all his alarms went off suddenly. His system had been breached by an untraceable hacker and nothing he did to his firewall had stopped the intruder. His processing had frozen and none of the cameras were accurate. It was as if they had smoke screens thrown in front of them.
The Varia had invaded and even though there were only three, Croce knew better than to underestimate them. It was only a matter of time before they discovered his underground base. Liam the coward had already taken off from the main exit and Croce wasn't going to do the same. He had the back exit made that led to a tunnel which would open up at an abandoned street five miles from his base. It would give him enough time to escape.
Liam's scream could be heard from the tunnel and Croce scoffed. What a fool.
On the surface where the massacre took place, Chrome stood hidden behind the three Vendicare guards.
"Liam D'amore," they said. "You are charged guilty with the crime of not adhering of an oath to a Vongola Don."
Liam protested but Chrome stepped forth with the contract that Liam had supposedly gotten rid of. He spluttered helplessly as the guards shackled him and opened a void portal. "Your punishment is valid and will hereby be sent to the third level of the prison for the rest of your life."
Liam was hysterical by now and struggled madly against his captors. No one helped him or pitied him. Chrome clutched her trident tightly and only collapsed after the void portal had closed.
"Ushishi~ are you okay? Those mummies can be quite creepy even to the Prince. You did well, peasant."
Chrome managed a faint smile. It was finally over.
Xxx Destiny Aitsuji xxX
Verde wore his goggles and raised the test tube to eye level. The drop of blue liquid fell from the dropper into the test tube and the solution changed from orange to green. He smiled.
It was done.
Xxx Destiny Aitsuji xxX
Reborn was polishing the Leon gun while eying the phone every minute. It had been forty five minutes since the message had been relayed to Verde. A helicopter had already been prepared for Verde and the CEDEF advisor. Spanner and Irie would be following Iemitsu behind. Now all they had to do was to wait for Verde to bring the antidote out and ferry him to where Tsuna was.
Easier said than done. Reborn could almost feel his feet vibrating from not moving. What Reborn really wanted to do was to run around and kill someone. Anything would be better than not being able to do anything. He could not even go to Tsuna now because he had to stay at a distance to coordinate everything.
He had never prayed so much in his life and the past forty five minutes made him go through a whole roller coaster of emotions. How one small boy could invoke so many emotions in a cold hearted hit man was a mystery even to the hit man in question.
"When you wake up, get ready for a lot of training…"
Be safe.
Xxx Destiny Aitsuji xxX
Verde found himself waiting for the boy to respond. His antidote concoction should be correct. However, he was unsure of the time it takes to fully take effect. The brunet still slept and his breathing was not getting any better.
Shamal was beginning to have doubts in the antidote. All Verde did was inject green liquid into Tsuna and that was it. No further treatment. As a doctor Shamal knew that there would be many levels in one treatment for instance a cold several stages and the medicine used for each stage differs. Verde was doing something akin to saying a miraculous cure will apply to all stages for the cold. It was absurd in Shamal's opinion but he held his tongue.
Suddenly Tsuna's heart rate increased in spikes, his breathing worsened. He coughed so harshly even Hibari came forward. Verde sat there calmly throughout even as Tsuna threw out blood.
The blood did not stop until there was enough to fill five cups.
Shamal seethed at Verde's attitude while Mukuro went to get some cleaning supplies. Hibari held the brunet tenderly as he became silent once more after the coughing fit.
"You bastard! What have you done?"
Verde remained collected throughout, despite the fact that Shamal was now holding onto his collar tight enough to cut off his air supply.
"You wanted a cure so I made one. Don't worry, he'll be fine. It's just a small purge of the dead blood cells and infected cells. The nano droids in his stream have been thoroughly annihilated. I countered them with bio degradable droids of my own that will become supplements when decomposed."
Shamal was about to say something when Dino's exclamation echoed in the room. "He's awake!"
Verde smiled smugly. Shamal looked at the arcobaleno in disbelief before going to check on the boy. "Everyone out," he commanded and they did not argue, not even Hibari.
A few minutes later when Shamal let them all in again, Verde gave Shamal a knowing look. The doctor bowed and thanked the scientist. "I'm sorry I doubted you." Verde chuckled. "You only doubted me because you didn't know better. All is well though. I take no offense. I trust my payment will be delivered promptly though?"
Shamal smiled. "I'll let Reborn know."
Xxx Destiny Aitsuji xxX
Reborn heaved a silent sigh of relief. "About time really. There are many people who are dying to see him now that he's awake but I guess they can wait." A smirk was directed to Squalo who scoffed. Xanxus was already on the first flight to Japan.
Shamal mentioned Verde's payment which Reborn said he will communicate with the Ninth. "Expect arrangements to be made in a week although the terms might change when the Decimo is able to take on duties again."
Xxx Destiny Aitsuji xxX
Author's Note: I did my research for some of this but most of the facts are make believe so don't quote me or reference this for any of your science reports!
I can't believe I sound so smart with all that science stuff and technology stuff when I'm basically just winging this. I'm so sorry for the lack of substance really.
In any case, do read and review~ I saw how you guys liked Squalo and Dino interacting. Anyone wants to read a separate one shot for that? Let me know~
*Calculations are estimates. 4 weeks = 40,320 minutes. Average human has 5 litres of blood of which 45% are red blood cells. Hence 40,320/5000 *0.45 = 3.6288 (approximately 3.5 minutes per millilitre are stated in the story).