Target 27: Mountain Training Trip (Part 2)

When Hitomi wakes up the next morning she's not in the comfy bed that she went to sleep in. Instead of being in a nice, warm bed inside of a nice, warm house, she's outside… in a tree. The girl screeches, flailing around and effectively falling from the tree. A loud thump resounds from her body hitting the ground and she groans, rolling over and staring up at the tree branches with blurry eyes. Her eyes widen and her vision clears as the mattress smashes against her and crushes her with a small yelp. "What a nice way to start the day…!" Hitomi grunts out, pushing the mattress off of her just in time to see three knives come towards her.

"Rise and shine, princess." Reborn greets evenly, "It's time for you to start your training." Hitomi looks at him, eyes wide in disbelief. Reborn only remains calm, his face devoid of emotion or expression. Hitomi sits up quickly, eyes darting around the area. All she can see are trees, dirty paths and bushes, green grasses and woodland creatures for miles. She doesn't know where she is but the mountain that Colonello lives near seems so far away.

"You just tried to kill me!" She accuses. Reborn only shrugs, turning away from her, "Why did you just try to kill me?!"

"I knew you'd dodge, so I didn't try to kill you. I don't try things. I do them." Reborn merely states, "If I truly wanted to kill you, I'd have done so." Sepia eyes follow the hitman as he walks, "Now come along, we need to start our training."

Hitomi sighs, knowing that there was nothing else she could say that would really make a difference. She opted to follow Reborn quietly, albeit a little slowly and wearily, but she nonetheless followed him. They'd walked for what felt like an hour when Hitomi finally saw Reborn stop. She stumbled a bit, so as not to bump right into him and fall over. They were now closer to the mountain, though Colonello's house seemed to be nowhere in sight.

"You're gonna go for a run." Reborn simply stated. "Around the mountain, twice." Hitomi looked up at the mountain and scoffed. It didn't seem that big.

"I'd ask if I could change but I don't have any clothes." Hitomi comments, running a hand through her hair.

"When you get back, there will be clothes for you." Reborn informs her, "Now stick to the path, if you don't, you'll get eaten by a bear." Hitomi chuckles nervously, rubbing the back of her head, "You think I'm joking, but I'm not. Have fun, Dame-Tomi." Reborn gives a mock-salute and leaves Hitomi after marking the ground with a chalk line. Hitomi only groans, shaking her head and lining up.

The scream tore through the forest. Reborn sat on a branch, sipping tea easily from a small cup. Colonello sat on the ground below him. The difference between the two was that only one seemed completely calm. Colonello was a little worried, after all, Hitomi was a young girl and she definitely wasn't Tsuna. Another scream ripped through the forest and Colonello bolted upright.

"Calm yourself, Colo." Reborn said, as he set down his cup. "She'll be fine. She's almost done because the screams are getting louder."

That didn't help reassure him but Colonello sat down, frowning. Meanwhile, close to the finish but not exactly near enough to think she was safe, Hitomi was running for her life. Who knew that it would be hard to even find this path?

Skipping back to at least a few hours ago, Hitomi though this would be easy, then she actually started. Reborn pulled no stops. The first short length was fine, then she tripped and when she got up, there seemed to be no type of straight path anymore. Hitomi looked in front of her and behind her, but there was no straight dirt path as there had been moments before.

She grunted, acknowledging her lack of luck and continued walking. If she went slowly, maybe she could figure out how to get out of this place. That didn't seem to be the best choice because a few steps later, she tripped again and two large axes came swinging down at her. She screamed, trying her best to army crawl out of the way and once gone, she scrambled backwards, staring at what just chopped down three trees, knowing that if she hadn't tripped, that probably would've been her head. She loosely massaged her neck, her breath coming out in heavy pants as she eyeballed the shiny metal axes.

"They're gonna kill me..." She mumbled as she stood, dusting herself off. From past experience, she knew that if she stayed, Reborn would come after her and that would be even worse than this stupid forest.

Dirty and a little angry, Hitomi continued. She didn't run this time, she only walked. The path seemed quiet, almost a little too quiet. Hitomi looked up and around. She didn't hear the chirping of birds and small animals scurrying around. It was completely quiet. Hitomi stopped walking and that seemed to be her first mistake.

A surprised shout tore from her throat as she fell downward. The fall seemed to go on forever, but within a few short moments, Hitomi hit the ground with a dull thud. She groaned, staring up at the bright sky before everything went dark.

Time was unknown to Hitomi when she woke up, all she really knew was that she was in a cramped space with barely enough room for her to stretch her arms. The farthest she could get was stretching her elbows, since they both bumped and scraped against the hard dirt. She tries her best to stand and with the walls around her, she managed to do so. After letting herself reorient to her surroundings, Hitomi gripped at the wall. She had to get out of there, after all, she didn't know whether or not Reborn was coming after her or if he sabotaged this hole. Something could happen any minute she stayed in here longer.

"Reborn," Colonello greeted tersely as he joined the hit-man on the branch he'd perched on.

Reborn doesn't respond with a greeting, instead he looks over at Hitomi. "She's about to use her flames."

Colonello' eyes widened. "How can you be so sure?" He asked and Reborn merely chuckled.

"How can I not? I've been watching her, I think I can tell when she's ready and when she's not. She's going to use them. Although I'm not sure if it'll be consciously or unconsciously."

Colonello leaned back against the tree. For a moment, he stared at Reborn before shaking his head. "…she's not Tsuna, y'know."

"If she doesn't use them then I'll owe you, but if she does, then you owe me." Reborn looked at him with a mischievous glint in his eye.

"Fine." The blond said. He didn't want to take part in this deal, but he had a feeling that he was right. After all, from what he'd seen, Hitomi definitely wasn't the ebst fighter nor did she seem to be entirely too interested in this—neither was Tsuna, but he sucked it up.

"Get ready to eat your words." Reborn pointed upwards. A scream was heard and a large stream of fire went upwards. Colonello grunted, crossing his small arms, he underestimated her.

"Dammit!"

Hitomi looks around. There's no way she can get out of this hole, after three failed attempts at climbing out, she doesn't know exactly where to go from here. Her elbows are scraped and she knows that she's bleeding from somewhere. She can smell the copper-ish scent she'd become so accustomed to smelling, not that it was a good thing, but she nonetheless knew the smell of blood. Grunting, she pressed down on various spots on her body, until finally, she elicited a groan of discomfort from her mouth and tried to double over, only to smack her head against the dirt wall. Grunting again, only louder, Hitomi shot back up, leaning heavily against the wall. Now she knew where she was bleeding and was pretty hurt somewhere else. She was bleeding from a cut on her leg, though it wasn't noticeable and—Hitomi ripped a shred of her shirt and tied it around her leg like Teru showed her—it wasn't that bad. Her head seemed to be fine too. The momentary pain had passed and Hitomi looked up.

She hadn't even considered calling for help. The idea seemed ridiculous, especially since they were in the middle of nowhere. She shrugged, it couldn't hurt to try. Hitomi cupped her mouth, ready to yell when she heard a soft voice. 'Use the flames...'

Confused, Hitomi looked around. She couldn't see anyone, "Hello? Is someone there? I'm stuck in this hole! Help would be great!" She yelled back, only for the voice to repeat, except this time, it sounded a little closer.

'Use the flames...'

"Wh-What flames?" Hitomi yelled back, "Stop playing around! I don't know what flames you're talking about! I need help!" It was quiet for another minute and Hitomi feared for the worst. Maybe the person was fed up with Hitomi and moved on, leaving her to rot in this hole. She grunted as she looked around. Tears formed in the corner of her eyes as she left loose a scream of pure anguish. "This sucks! Now I'm stuck in this stupid hole without any food or water and I'm missing my TV shows and I could be home, doing nothing but instead..." She banged her fists against the wall, unaware that they were sparking against the rock. "I'm here, trying to learn how to fight but I'm not even learning anything! And I'm hearing things and I'm running around doing useless shit and—!" Hitomi cut herself off with a scream. She rocketed upwards, a trail of fire behind her and when she was high above the trees, the trail of flames seemed to short out, stopping midway through her decent and cut off, allowing her to freefall, her scream never breaking, only rising in octaves as she fell back towards the Earth.

The cracks of at least three or four branches breaking was a loud one as Hitomi slammed to the ground on top of these hard pieces of bark. She grunted, groaning as she rubbed her head, unaware of the fact that her hands were smoking. She sniffed, inhaling the smoke and stopped for a moment, taking a glance at her hand and dismissing it before looking again and yelling.

A strangled sound came out of her throat and she gasped inaudibly. Coughing, Hitomi smacked her chest and tried to speak. "H…He…" Her voice came out choppy and foreign. 'Dammit, now my voice is shot.'

Hitomi rolled off of the wood just in time to see it be cut in half by a large saw. Her eyes widened and she stared, whimpering as she tried to force a scream from her mouth, backing away from those trees and into another set. A startled noise exploded from her mouth as she picked up into a run. She didn't get far before she tripped, hair being sliced off as she laid on the ground.

These saws were no joke. Hitomi looked around, there had to have been some way to stop them from swinging and almost decapitating her, wasn't there? Hitomi's eyes widened as she caught sight of a large metal wire attached to the saw. She army-crawled towards the edge of the path and stood up as she stepped on the grass. All she had to do was climb the trees—"Or better yet…" Hitomi looked around once more. "I can just… walk around this obstacle. There's no bears in this forest." She chuckled as she began walking.

A loud grumbling sound was heard and Hitomi frowned, looking down at her stomach. "I'm really hungry." She rubbed her stomach as another loud grumbling sound was heard. "Just wait, we'll be done and I'll feed you, okay?" Thumping was heard next and Hitomi paused, "Wait…. My stomach can't… thump…" Slowly she came to the horror and realization that maybe it wasn't her stomach that she was hearing.

She turned around ever so slowly and stared in the eyes of a large black bear. "Aaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" Is the only thing heard as the birds fly away.

By the time Hitomi reaches the finish line, she's bloody, beaten and bruised. Only her finger makes it over the makeshift line and Reborn walks up to her. "You strayed from the path, didn't you?"

"O-Only a little… I hadn't… I hadn't expected it to…" Hitomi grunts, looking up at Reborn through one eye, as the other seems to be swollen shut.

Colonello walks up next to Hitomi and shakes his head, "Jeez, Hitomi." He bends down, picking her up and carrying her into the house. Reborn follows them, looking back at the forest. A strange light shines and then disappears and Reborn frowns.

"It's almost time…"

At dinner that night Hitomi isn't talking much—because the pain is almost unbearable, and she's numb in certain places despite Colonello's medical treatment. It's silent as Colonello and Reborn share knowing looks, eating quietly. "Y'know Hitomi, kora…" Colonello starts and Hitomi looks up, her eyes holding curiosity while she tries to keep it at bay. When he doesn't say anything more, she turns back to the plate, eating as fast as she can. She's not sure if Reborn will shoot at her or do something to make her food inedible, so she wants to hurry and finish.

"You could get your weapon at this time." Reborn says quietly and simply. All of the hurried eating and the scraping of a fork against a plate for scraps stops almost immediately as Hitomi turns her attention to Reborn, an incredulous look on her face.

"No way, I don't want a weapon! That's crazy, why would I want to hurt people?" Hitomi looks at them, eye wide. The thought of her having a weapon is utterly ridiculous to her. How could she, the one who messes everything up, own some kind of weapon that could hurt someone—everything, literally everything, was a weapon in her hands. With a real one, she couldn't possibly imagine what she could do with that.

Reborn frowns, "That's the whole purpose of this training trip. To make you stronger to defeat your enemies, is it not?" Hitomi chokes on her rice a bit. It's true, something she has to admit to herself with a frown. She continues chewing, not making eye contact with anyone.

Colonello looks up, pieces of rice sticking to the sides of his face as he chokes, laughing out a cough and once he's calm, he says, "Well how d'you expect to protect your friends from people who use weapons without any yourself, hey?" Hitomi ponders it for a moment while she reaches across the table to wipe the baby's face and pops the food into her mouth, turning back to Reborn as if nothing happened. Colonello's cheeks tinge pink for a moment before he clears his throat.

"I... I didn't think I would need one, that's all..." Hitomi responds as she turns back to her own plate, staring down at it. "I mean... I never really thought about it, to tell you the truth."

"Well, no use dwelling on that now, huh?" Colonello grins, "It'll all figure itself out in the end, especially if you get your weapon, kora. Depending on what type it is, you wouldn't have to actually kill anyone, that's your biggest fear, isn't it? Hurting someone is fine, but you don't want to kill or severely injure someone, right, kora?"

Hitomi's eyes widen in shock and she slowly nods while Reborn shakes his head, jumping from his chair, "Well enough talk, Hitomi. You should go to bed so that we can train tomorrow." Hitomi gets up from the table and puts her dishes in the sink and bids them goodnight before leaving the main room. Reborn looks up at Colonello, "I feel like maybe you should've been Hitomi's tutor."

Colonello chuckles, "Nope, it's gotta be you. And I'm pretty sure you know why, kora. Well," He stretches, jumping down from his own chair, "I'm gonna go to sleep too. See ya, kora." He tosses a wave over his shoulder and heads into another room, leaving Reborn by himself.

The small Hit-man sighs, shaking his head as he looks back at Leon, who was still changing completely oblivious to Reborn. "That girl..."

The next morning, Hitomi yawns, stretching as she walks towards the island counter. Sitting on a stool, she looks up to see Colonello standing at the stove and cooking something that vaguely smelled like eggs and bacon. Hitomi hums in delight as she yawns, ducking to avoid three knives, "Morning." She said as she grabbed one of the knives embedded into the counter and grabbed a piece of bread, buttering it.

"Hey," Colonello tosses a hand up before he turns off the stove and turns around. "You hungry, kora?" Hitomi nods eagerly, a smile gracing her lips as Colonello chuckles. The blond brings the large pan over to the counter, plate in one hand. Hitomi takes it from him and she begins piling food onto her plate.

"Y'look better from last night." Colonello commented and Hitomi looked down at herself, glancing over at the shiny pots and seeing her reflection.

"I feel better. I nearly cut up every part of my body last night… but whatever you gave me really helped, so thanks." Colonello only looked back at her, smiling, "Reborn's not eating with us?" She asks, munching on a piece of bacon. Colonello shrugs, looking around the kitchen and past Hitomi and into the parts of the living-room he can see.

"I guess not. Maybe he went to set some things up. There's only a few days left." Colonello reminds Hitomi, to which the girl smiles gratefully. Colonello moves from the counter to the fridge, grabbing a cup from the dish rack on his way and filling it up with milk. He sets the cup down on the counter, nudging it towards Hitomi.

"Thanks... And, y'know what? That's great, that's wonderful." Hitomi sighs contently, "Food's great, by the way..." Colonello leans against the counter, watching Hitomi eat more calmly than he's seen her in the past few days. "Hey, uh, Colonello?" Hitomi suddenly asks after a few minutes of silence. Blue eyes meet brown ones and Hitomi clears her throat, chugging down the glass of milk and burping lightly. "Er, I have a question..."

"About the switching thing, I'm guessing, hey." Colonello smiles and sees that he's hit the right on the mark when Hitomi's shocked look goes to one that's a little less obvious, then she nods and he rubs the back of his head and stands to his full height.

"A glitch in my system from something in the past," He turns, smiling at Hitomi as he pounds his bare chest, Hitomi tries not to stare but can't help it. There's a large scar running across his torso. It's faded, a light pinkish color, almost completely contrasting his sun-kissed tan. "Nothin' for you to worry about, kora." Hitomi blushes, looking away from him and out the window where she can see Reborn.

A frown returns to her face as she looks back to Colonello, "So, um," She starts, but is cut off by Colonello.

"No," His voice is serious, instead of the light tone he had before, which startles Hitomi momentarily. "He, uh, well it's never happened to him before." Hitomi grunts, frowning, "It's caused by different factors, so," Colonello walks back over to the stove, dropping the pan on it as he turns back to look at Hitomi, "Eat up, we're doing a lot today, hey. Tomorrow's your last day, kora."

"Right..." Hitomi looks down at her the little bits of food left and begins trying to get them together so that she can eat them. The effort proves worth it and soon enough, she's done eating, but she can't help but think about Colonello's words.

It's quiet. After all of the past few days' training exercises have finished, a completely exhausted Hitomi, Reborn and Colonello are standing outside, the former feeling worse than the two latters. In front of Hitomi is a large cardboard box. "What's this about?" Hitomi asks, looking between the two.

"You've managed to survive until the end," Reborn begins, "Something I'm kind of surprised about." Hitomi frowns, "Nonetheless, we've finally arrived at the last day—and the last test. Maybe you'll actually do this one the way that we want you to. If you do, you won't get hurt, if you don't, well maybe you'll die."

Hitomi chokes and Colonello looks at Reborn, "You won't die… you'll just be in a lot of pain." He says, "And I'd say you do this one right, because we don't want a repeat of the fishing trip or the bear thing… or the thing with the bats… and the underwear… and well, maybe this whole entire trip, okay?"

"Wh-What do I have to do?" Hitomi asks.

"I'm glad you asked that," Reborn says, "While you didn't really notice, because you're pretty dense, " Hitomi makes a noise that Reborn promptly ignores, "You've been releasing a lot of flames, which have helped you. What we want you to do now is release those flames voluntarily."

"If I do this, then we can leave, right? I can go back?" Reborn nods and Hitomi shakes out her limbs. "Alright, easy, easy I've been doin' this for days, right? Yeah, I can do this…" She holds her hands out in front of her, "Flames, go!"

She waits. And waits. And waits. Colonello leans over, looking around. "Nothing happened!" He yells over at her. Hitomi opened her eyes.

"What! I totally felt it!" She yelled back. "Okay, let me try again!" She does the same thing. Repeatedly until she's pacing around. "Why can't I do this? I've done it before!"

"Flames are born from inside you and in your case, they're purely fueled by emotion." Reborn said, "You need to control your emotion and when you do, you can produce the flames."

Hitomi looked over at Reborn. "That… that was strangely helpful. So you're saying I need to calm down, right?" Reborn nods slightly and Hitomi lets out a deep breath, trying to calm herself. Within a span of ten minutes, she's feelin a lot more calmer.

When she opens her eyes, they're darker in color. She snaps, a spark igniting on her finger and on her forehead, unbeknownst to her. Hitomi's eyes widen, as she smiles. Reborn and Colonello look on, impressed. "She's conditioned… she can take her trail." Colonello says.

Hitomi swirls the fire around her finger. It grows into a large fireball of pure flames and she hurls it at the cardboard box. Reborn watches in awe as it disintegrates before their very eyes. "I did it!" Hitomi yells before falling back.

"She… she completely destroyed it." Colonello's eyes widened, "A whole block of that indestructible shit and she destroyed it."

"She's far beyond the level Tsuna was at when he was her age." Reborn said, "He couldn't destroy a block of this stuff until he was in his mid-twenties."

"She's incredible. We made the right choice." He looked over to Reborn who seemed… strangely taller.

"Of course we did," He said, "I never make a wrong choice." He walks over to Hitomi, who is passed out, "She used up the last of her energy get into dying will mode of her own volition, but once she learns to control this, she'll be able to handle a weapon and the full force of her power."

"I take it you're getting out of here?" Colonello asks and Reborn nods.

"It's time she returned, I have a feeling that someone is going to undergo a trial soon and Hitomi needs to be there to bring out their full potential."

"Give this to Hitomi, will ya?" Colonello tosses something at Reborn who catches it and pockets it. "She'll know what it's for." Reborn only nods as he walks away, Hitomi in his arms.

Colonello watches, "He finally managed to half-break…" He shakes his head and looks away, "It's not as great as one would think…"

WOW OK. Hey guys, Katt's back for a limited time only! This has taken months and I'm sorry for the bad quality, school literally has been frying me, papers and tests and all that nonsense. College is hard! But, then again, it's college! I just really needed to get this out and right now, this is the best I can do right now, but worry not, however, because you're all so wonderful that I won't leave you with this really crappy chapter for as long as I did with the last one! Give me a month or so and I'll have a better, new, shiner chapter! Chapter 28 will be out during my break and we'll be meeting a new character! It'll be great! If you want to get the full-extent of Hitomi's training, you'll have to wait until the Omake chapter comes out, because, as Colonello mentioned, she did a lot.

Anyway, yeah, that's it for now, see you next chapter!