Chapter 61:
There are places
Please make sure that you have read the last chapter that shows the Varia and 1st generation's points of view. I uploaded it yesterday instead of Sunday like I was supposed to since I was so busy.
Sometimes there are places where you really want to be.
Sadly for Tsunayoshi, that day, it was two places at once. And even Verde hadn't figured out how to clone someone yet.
The moment everyone had gotten home, Bermuda fell to his knees in a coughing fit. Tsunayoshi was quick to scramble out of Lal's arms and check on the Mafia Jailer. But he didn't like what he saw, for the bandages covering Bermuda's face were getting redder and redder by the second.
"Verde! Verde! Quick! Something's wrong with Bermuda. Verde, fix him quick!" Tsunayoshi cried, trying to hold Bermuda up. Fon soon came over and picked Bermuda up before carrying him down the stairs behind Verde. Tsunayoshi starts to run in the same direction, not wanting to leave Bermuda alone. However, a pair of arms pick him up and stop him.
Tsunayoshi struggles in this person's grip, determined to get down and follow the others. "Let me go! I need to help!"
"Calm down, kora." Orders Colonnello, holding Tsunayoshi even tighter despite his struggles.
Luce walks over and holds Tsunayoshi's face in her hands. A light tap against his cheeks brings his eyes to hers instead of looking over her shoulder in the direction of the Laboratory. "Tsunayoshi, calm. You know that Bermuda is in safe hands. Verde will do everything he can to help Bermuda, okay?"
"B-but, what if Verde wants to take Bermuda's bandages off? He can't be allowed to do that! Bermuda got hurt because of me and I want to help." Tsunayoshi sniffs as tears start to run down his face.
"Verde wouldn't do that. Remember he's dealt with Viper for a long time, and with many other difficult people too. Bermuda had been with us for nearly a year now Tsunayoshi, so Verde won't do that, he knows not to. I know you want to help Tsunayoshi, but the best thing you can do is stay out of Verde's way. There's nothing else you can do."
"But I can hold the needles and fetch the plasters and I'm really good at cleaning cuts with the germ-defence cream! I can help, I really can." Tsunayoshi pleads, his expression pulling at Luce's heart strings.
She takes Tsunayoshi out of Colonnello's hold and hugs him tightly, slowly stroking his back. "Verde's got Fon to help him with that. I'm afraid that what's wrong with Bermuda isn't something that a plaster and a kiss can fix." A plaster and a kiss on the boo-boo was Luce's magic formula to make cuts disappear quicker.
"I need a plaster and a kiss though Tsunayoshi," says Skull, in as happy a voice as he can muster at this point. It was horrible seeing Tsunayoshi like this. Skull would make sure to bring Tsunayoshi's smile back. He walks forwards and shows Tsunayoshi one of the smallest cuts he had on his forearm. "See? I want Doctor Tsunayoshi to fix me up, not Professor Verde." Tsunayoshi looks up at Skull and his infectious smile, and smiles too.
Poor Skull, however, is soon kicked out of the way by Colonnello. "Hey! Lal's going first and then I'm going after, kora. You can wait your turn lackey." Colonnello decides.
Luce gives Tsunayoshi a small bounce on her hip, "So think you can handle that? That's a lot of plasters and kisses." Tsunayoshi nods, of course he could handle that!
"Good boy. Now let's get you out of those clothes and into something cleaner." Luce suggests, since Tsunayoshi's clothes were just as ripped as everyone else's. And she had worked so hard on that lion outfit too!
Luce decided that they might as well fix Lal and herself up first. The other two could either wait or ask each other for help. However, before she and Lal got fixed, Tsunayoshi needed to be tended to first. Luce sits Tsunayoshi on the edge of the bath tub whilst Lal digs around for her army grade medical kit. Finding it, she uses her knife to help remove the clothes that had gotten stuck to Tsunayoshi's skin. Luce then used the warm water of the bath to wash off any blood that was on the boy.
"Ouch, Lal that hurt." Hisses Tsunayoshi as Lal plucks a splinter out of his back.
"Be strong Tsunayoshi, I'm nearly done." Says Lal, focusing in her task. There was a lot of gravel and splinters in the boy's back and sides, like he'd been kicked across the floor.
A little while later, Colonnello walks down the corridor, Skull trailing behind. The girls had been in the bathroom ages. They were bleeding too here you know. Colonnello presses his ear against the door to see if he could hear what was going on. In fact, it sounded to him like they were having a water fight. They were laughing and giggling and everything. What happened to being patched up?
Skull can hear this too, but he doesn't mind as much. It was good to hear that Tsunayoshi could still laugh even after going through a kidnapping. But still, he really wanted to go next and get Tsunayoshi to help him clean his cuts up. He quickly hides the devilish grin he gets.
He takes a few steps away from the door before loudly saying. "Oh, Colonnello, what are you doing? Peeking at Lal in the bath again?"
Colonnello looks over at Skull with a stunned yet angry look on his face. Skull just smiles back, proud to have gotten some revenge for once.
The result is immediate. The bathroom door slams open, slapping Colonnello in the face, as well as revealing Lal dressed in nothing more than a towel.
"Pervert!" shouts Lal, giving Colonnello a few slaps for good measure. Colonnello doesn't have time to check Lal out since he's too busy running away from her. Or at least running as best as the pair can in their injured state. Still, Lal was quite accurate when throwing random objects at Colonnello.
"Ne, Tsunayoshi, why don't you go help Skull?" Prompts Luce as she finishes wrapping bandages around Tsunayoshi's torso. "And make sure to wear your doctor's outfit, okay." Tsunayoshi nods before running out of the bathroom to go and get dressed. The doctor cosplay went with Tsunayoshi's Verde-cosplay but with a few accessory changes.
Skull walks in and over to Luce, before wiping away a few tears she had. "You need to get those sorted before they stay like that." He chides. "You're so strong Luce, looking after him even with one hand of broken fingers." He takes her hand and looks her in the eyes. "Ready?"
Skull knew from the many times he had had to heal himself how to fix broken bones. They were a common occurrence, especially during training. So when Luce nods back, he looks down at her fingers and starts with her pinky. "Three, two, one." Luce hisses as the bones are forced back into their correct places. Skull works quickly but carefully, trying to cause as little pain as possible. By the time Tsunayoshi comes back into the room, her hand is tied to a splint and wrapped up.
"It seems like Doctor Tsunayoshi will see you now Mr. Skull," says Luce in a half laugh.
So person by person, Tsunayoshi does what he can to help the others not hurt anymore. Skull was the least hurt, with only cuts and bruises from his grapple with Dominic. Colonnello was hurt worse, but Lal had dealt with his bullet and knife wounds before she let him anywhere near Tsunayoshi.
Eventually, they sit in the living room with calming cups of tea and fruit juice.
And that's when the final two members return home. Reborn kicks the door in, carrying a sleeping Viper in his arms. With her broken ribs, it was too dangerous to carry her over his shoulder.
"Reborn! Viper!" Tsunayoshi shouts as they enter the room. He stands on the sofa to be at a better height to see them at. "Is Viper okay?"
Reborn nods. "She will be. Luce, get her ribs wrapped up quickly. Her breathing still sounds alright to me but I don't want to risk anything."
Luce nods, and her and Tsunayoshi follow Reborn up the stairs and into Viper's room, where Reborn puts her down.
When Luce was finished wrapping Viper's broken ribs and hand along with the other injuries the psychic had sustained, she walks to the door, holding it open slightly. Not hearing another pair of feet behind her, she turns back towards the bed. There she finds Tsunayoshi pulling the covers up over Viper's shoulders before settling down himself.
"I'm going to stay here and look after her." He replies, yawning afterwards. Luce nods before turning out the light.
Yet hardly a few hours later, Tsunayoshi is up again, pacing infront of the stairs leading down to Verde's laboratory.
"Is Bermuda okay yet?"
Eventually Verde climbs the stairs up and grabs the boy. He could hear the boy fretting from down there.
"Bermuda is in the clear, but he is still very weak. It's going to take a few days for the poison to leave him totally." Verde explains in simple terms for Tsunayoshi to understand. He sees Tsunayoshi's hopeful expression, "Yes, it is safe to do so if you are careful."
Tsunayoshi's face lights up before he walks over to where Bermuda is resting. He would have run over, but running is not allowed in the laboratory. He climbs up onto the bed and gives Bermuda a careful hug.
"Don't worry, something like this cannot stop me. I'll be back to fighting crime in no time." Bermuda says reassuringly. Tsunayoshi giggles since that made Bermuda sound like a super hero.
"You got new bandages on." Tsunayoshi states, brushing a hand against them. Seeing the red bright against the white and black Bermuda wore had been rather scary.
"Yes, Jager came over for me and helped Verde out." Bermuda supplies. "He also tells me that Reborn and Viper brought the man to the Vendicare for a visit." Tsunayoshi makes to protest, but Bermuda stops him. "No, Tsunayoshi. He broke Mafia Law by involving an innocent child. He will be punished fairly for his crime before being released. You should be glad that no one killed him after you left."
Tsunayoshi can't argue back to that. So instead he just hugs Bermuda tighter and the pair end up falling asleep.
But yet again after a few hours he is up and checking on Fon and Verde, making sure that all of their cuts have plasters on.
Then he goes and checks back on Viper, falling asleep next to her.
Two hours later and he's back with Bermuda.
And then Viper.
And Bermuda again.
Viper.
Bermuda.
Viper.
Bermuda.
And even if it does mean getting hardly any sleep, sometimes there are just places that you need to be.
Later on that evening, Reborn finally catches Tsunayoshi, asleep with his arms around Viper's uninjured arm. He sighs. That boy needed to learn how to be selfish. Reborn could see how much pain the boy himself was in. Most of the wounds were the type to bruise, like the hand print around his neck or the bruise from a kick to the stomach. Plus, Tsunayoshi seemed to be rather stiff, the effects of using the Dying Will bullet on someone so young. He still hadn't found out who had shot that bullet either. And he knew it to be a Dying Will Bullet since he had found the casing after everyone had left.
He places a glowing yellow hand on Tsunayoshi's hair, stroking it. Reborn was the least hurt out of all of the Arcobaleno and had already healed himself whilst Viper finished whatever illusion she had been doing. So he had Sun Flames to spare. He heals the boy enough to remove the stiffness from his joints and to make the swelling of the bruises go down.
Finally he leans across further and places the same glowing yellow hand on Viper's shoulder. Her immediate reaction is to hold Tsunayoshi closer before lashing out with a conjured up knife. Reborn doesn't mind, already moving away from that attack. He had trained that instinct into her when they were training under the Ninth. Although it used to be that she held her money closer rather than Tsunayoshi.
With the pair now a step closer to recovery, Reborn leaves the room before he can be discovered.
But still, one little boy smiles at the Hitman's antics before snuggling back down to sleep.
A few days later, Tsunayoshi was walking down the Row on his way to see Hayato to apologise for missing their play date. Not that it was his fault, but still, it was polite to. As he walks past the house belonging to the Bovino Scientists, he hears a lot of shouting. That usually meant that something had gone wrong in their experiments, or that there were conflicting theories on a certain topic and the scientists were having an argument over which one was better. You knew the argument was a bad one when they resorted to asking Verde his opinion.
Although the shouts didn't sound like an argument. No, they sounded more like something gone wrong. Maybe one of their robots was chasing them, or many they'd created a moving plant. Tsunayoshi giggles to himself at that thought.
Absently, Tsunayoshi looks in that direction as anyone else would do, trying to see through the gates to find out what the commotion was about.
But maybe if he had been looking at where he was going, he would have seen the baby blue bazooka rocket heading straight for him.
There we are people. Hope you enjoyed it.
Phantom Hitman 1412
First Published 13 December 2012