Chapter 62:

And There Are Times

I would like to thank ShamelessDilettante for building on the idea of time limits for me and helping me to flesh it out!

It is important to always look where you are going for you never know when a bazooka rocket might be heading directly towards you.

Storm tried to look anywhere but at Sky. Strategist looks away too, holding his stomach. Sky was being rather scary at the moment. The pair didn't like the look their friend and boss had on his face.

"Lucky. Just safe." Roboticist says in his usual calm voice. That voice had broken into the silence in his usual style, breaching the tension. But lucky was right.

Sky keeps hold of Storm's wrist, hands shaking slightly as he stares at the watch. "Six minutes." He whispers harshly. He looks up, the power of his glare forcing Storm to look at him. "Six Minutes Hayato! If you had stayed there 6 minutes more then you would have been over the weekly limit. You know the consequences of over staying in an alternate dimension don't you? You know how long your limit is don't you?" Storm nods silently.

"Say it Storm."

Uh-oh, that was the Boss voice. "5.9 hours Juudaime. My limit is 5 hours and 54 minutes." He faithfully replies, albeit rather guiltily. He'd been careful, he really had. He'd set the machine to bring him back at regular intervals so that he didn't go over his time limit.

"Exactly." Sky says, nodding his head sharply. But then his grip on Storm's hand loosens and his eyes soften. "I just want you to be alright. I couldn't take it if you got sick trying to fix a mistake I made." He leans forwards and places a hand on Storm's forehead. "No fever. You're not feeling sick? Tired? Hungry? Like you're about to die? Nothing?"

Storm smiles and shakes his head. "Don't worry Juudaime. I am perfectly fine." He twists his hand to be able to hold Juudaime's and brings the knuckles to his bowed forehead in a gesture of apology- Juudaime didn't like him bowing anymore. "I apologise for making you worry Juudaime. Thank you for your concern." However, he receives a bop on the head. "Ouch."

"That's for making me worry." Sky pouts. "But I'll forgive you. Really what would I do- ouch!... Ah…" Sky suddenly hisses, placing a hand against his temple.

"Juudaime?"

"Tsuna?"

"Vongola?"

Sky ignores the three worried calls from his friends, instead trying to clear his pounding head. This was much worse than the last headache he had had. And that had been when… Oh No.

He stumbles over towards the security camera footage that Shoichi and Spanner had in their lab and quickly scans over all the screens. The last time a shooting pain like this had happened, admittedly on a much less painful scale, had been…

And there on Screen 8 was a very familiar looking cloud of smoke, although looking a lot lighter blue than the one the enemy used. Slowly the cloud dissipates and Sky gets a flash of fluffy brown hair.

His stomach drops as he realises just who that must be. He hisses as another wave of pain goes through his skull and down his spine. He needed to get out of here.

"Ah, I'm fine. I'll get Verde to look at it. I..ah…need to see how far he's gotten on… um…hss…the medicine, yeah, the medicine for you Hayato." He straightens up as best as possible, trying to look more Boss like in an attempt to make Storm listen to him. "And I need you to…ahh… take very good care of our guest. I'll be back…ow, in exactly 26 hours."

Before the others can question him, Sky runs over towards their garage, grabs his flame-powered hover bike and hightails it out of there.

"But I'm not sick, Juu…daime?" Storm stutters. What was wrong with him? He really should chase after Juudaime, but he'd just given out an order.

He shares a look with the other two mechanics in the room, before shrugging his shoulders and exiting the lab. Juudaime had said they had a guest, so he had better go and greet them. Although he had to wonder just who this guest was if Juudaime didn't want to meet them. If it was Xanxus and the Varia with more bills then Storm would personally shove some dynamite down Xanxus's throat.

"*sniff* Owwiee… My head hurts." Mumbles Tsunayoshi, rubbing his head. But where had this light blue smoke come from. Oh, it wasn't from a training exercise Lal was putting on was it? She would go straight back to training, wounds or no wounds. Poor Colonnello. Or maybe it was Reborn? Hmm, if it was then he'd better get off the floor quickly before Reborn shot at him. How had he ended up on the floor anyway? Oh yeah, he'd tripped when the blue smoke surrounded him.

Hearing a noise somewhere outside the smoke, Tsunayoshi rolls out of the cloud, onto his knees with his hands ready to fend off whatever Reborn or Lal was about to throw at him. Knife, bullet, grenade, whatever, he was ready for it.

"Che, hands up B*****ds. You're in the middle of Vongola Neo territory. If you've come to assassinate Juudaime then you're going to have to get through me first."

"Hey! No naughty words!" Tsunayoshi admonishes, slapping the wrist of the man infront of him. He calmly takes the dynamite out of the man's hand and puts out the fuse before something bad happened. Hayato got hurt enough with them for Tsunayoshi to know how to put them out.

"Huh?" Says Storm, slowly looking down. That certainly wasn't one of the Enemy. And now that he got a better look, the cloud wasn't dark blue but a light baby blue. Like a mixture of the Dimension Bazooka and the Ten Year Bazooka.

"Chibi?" He says. Unless Juudaime had just gotten hit with the Ten Year Bazooka twice? But Juudaime had just gone in the opposite direction, and was now wearing totally different clothes too. He had never seen Juudaime wear a neko hoodie before.

"Cheebii?" Tsunayoshi asks, tilting his head. "What does that word mean? Some of the people in Mafia Row Central call me it. It must be Japanese but I don't know much."

Mafia Row Central? Then this really must be Chibi then. One way to find out. "Never mind, ask them later. Tell me, who's your mother?"

"Mamma Luce is!" Tsunayoshi sings happily.

Yep, this was Chibi. That would explain why Juudaime said he'd be back in 26 hours exactly. Time limits for inter dimension travel changed from person to person; Juudaime was amazing and somehow had a time limit of 27 hours. Coming back in 26 hours meant they had an hour to get Chibi back to his own dimension. But how did Chibi get here? "Yes, that's right." Well, it wasn't, but to Chibi it was, as far as Storm had been told. "Can you tell me where you think you are?"

Tsunayoshi looks around him, now realising that they weren't outside anymore. They were inside. But this wasn't Hayato's house. It didn't look like any house he knew. Plus, this was Big-Hayato, not his Hayato. "Ah! You grew up again. Now you're just like the man in the cell again." Storm blinks. Tsunayoshi looks around again, something niggling at the back of his mind. "We are, we are in… my house?" But this wasn't the Arcobaleno's house either. He should know that best.

"Yes, we're in your house. But not Your house, but my you's house." Explains Storm quickly. Tsunayoshi doesn't get any of that.

"Hayato, you're not making sense again." Tsunayoshi says, sitting down on the carpet. See, Hayato was smart, really really smart. And sometimes he'd say stuff that Tsunayoshi didn't get. So he'd sit down and wait for Hayato to explain it in a way so that he did make sense. Sometimes it took a while, but Tsunayoshi usually got there eventually.

"I'm not the Hayato you know." Storm explains.

"That's right. You're Storm aren't you?" Tsunayoshi says, saying out loud what those 'strange feelings' he gets are telling him. Storm nods once again. "Can you tell me where I am then? Reborn won't be happy if he doesn't know where I am."

"Reborn won't be able to find you here. You're in a different time. You're in the future." Again, that wasn't exactly true, but at this age, Chibi was more likely to understand the concept of being in the future better than the concept of Alternate Dimensions.

Tsunayoshi's eyes light up. "So that's why you're all grown up Hayato!" He runs forwards and jumps up to hug Big-Hayato. "Thank you for looking after me the other day. I was really scared in the dark but because you looked after me, I was fine and really brave and I stopped that bad man from killing the Arcobaleno. Aren't I good?"

Storm splutters, taking a few steps backwards at the power behind the hug (Tsunayoshi had Luce's hugging habits, meaning he could hug things to death too) and quickly wraps his arms around the boy to stop him falling. "I ah, er, well… you see… er… Well done. Looking after family is top priority." He finally manages to say.

Tsunayoshi leans backwards slightly to be able to look Big-Hayato in the face. "That's what Luce told me before they tried to kill the bad man." Tsunayoshi looks down, a frown on his face. He didn't like the fact that they had wanted to kill him. He understood the reasons behind the Arcobaleno wanting to kill someone, that's what happened in the Mafia after all, and they were only trying to stop the man from hurting someone else, but surely there was a better way.

Storm looks down concerned; that must have happened after he and the Hitman had left. Chibi must have inherited Juudaime's desire not to kill. He slowly tightens his arms around the boy since he didn't do girly things like hugging that often.

"I stopped them though. Bermuda is going to keep the bad man in the Vendicare." Tsunayoshi changes positions, fidgeting with nervousness. However he kicks something around Big-Hayato's waist. "Oh sorry. What was that?" He asks.

Storm puts the boy down quickly. He sure hoped that no one was watching that, he'd never live it down otherwise. "J-just my belt, don't worry about it." Luckily enough his belt didn't have the boxes on it anymore unless he'd lit his Vongola Gear.

"Wow, you wear lots of rings don't you?" gapes Tsunayoshi, grabbing Hayato's hand. But one in particular catches his eye. "You know, this one looks like Uri. I didn't know you liked my present that much!" He beams, laughing as he rubs a finger over the ring.

"Prrr"

Tsunayoshi freezes. It had sounded like the ring had purred at him.

Storm freezes too. Not now you damn cat. Shut the hell up!

Curious, Tsunayoshi rubs the ring again, despite Storm's attempts to move his hand away. It purrs again. He looks up at Big-Hayato, eyes wide and sparkling with surprise and happiness. However he finds Big-Hayato biting his lip and looking away. Oh, did that mean that it was just Big-Hayato playing with him?

"You nearly had me there Hayato- err Storm. I almost thought the ring was making a sound but it was you wasn't it?"

Truthfully, Storm had been looking away in hopes not to agitate Uri and make her come out of her ring. He'd been biting his lip to stop himself shouting at the ring. Because unless you were a Vongola, shouting at a ring was weird and NOT normal. But he'd go with what Chibi was saying.

"Haha, yeah, you caught me. You, err, seemed sad so I wanted to cheer you up." Storm says quickly making it up on the spot.

"Ahh, it would have been cool if Uri was a real cat." Tsunayoshi pouts. And for some reason he had a really good image of what Uri would be like if she was a real cat. She and Hayato would have fights all the time but secretly care for each other because neither liked showing affection.

Oh no, he'd made Chibi sad! He had to apologise. He quickly kneels down on the floor before smacking his head into the carpet. "Forgive me for toying with you Chibi. I should have never deceived you and made you sad. I'll go and find you a real cat right away." Maybe that would bring a smile back onto the boy's face.

Tsunayoshi giggles at Big-Hayato's antics. He was really funny and over dramatic. But maybe Big-Hayato wanted to play a game, sitting like that? So Tsunayoshi runs over and jumps onto Big-Hayato's back. "Hahaha, a Horsie ride! Yay! Come on then, let's go find a cat!" Tsunayoshi points a hand forwards as if telling his 'faithful steed' to charge. Although since this wasn't his house, he had no clue which direction a cat would be in. He and Skull played Horise all the time. Sometimes Colonnello would play it too. But Verde and Reborn never did no matter how hard he tried. Even puppy-dog eyes wouldn't get them to do it.

Storm almost chokes when Chibi jumps onto his back. He'd never played horsie with anyone before, not even Lambo or I-pin. What on earth was he supposed to do? The boy was bouncing on his back as if they were going to play a game or something and he didn't want to disappoint Chibi, but he couldn't do anything if he didn't know what the objective of the game was.

Storm is saved, however, when suddenly Tsunayoshi yawns. He'd been getting hardly any sleep recently since he wanted to check on everyone. Whenever he woke up, he'd go and sleep with someone else. He still stayed with Bermuda and Viper a lot though. He even managed to feed Viper her breakfast in bed this morning. He was rather proud of that achievement.

Storm breathes a sigh of relief hearing that and feeling the boy stop wriggling about. He leans to the side slightly so that Chibi slides off. Then Tsunayoshi is picked up again and held against Storm's chest. "C'mon Chibi, I'll find somewhere for you to sleep." Tsunayoshi nods, laying his head against Big-Hayato's shoulder. He felt quite safe here.

Storm strides down the hallways, trying to remember which room was a disused sitting room. He'd stuff Chibi in there and then no one would find him. He didn't want the others to find Chibi since they'd just fawn over the boy and want to play with him and then the poor boy wouldn't get any sleep. He looked just like Sky did when he'd been fretting over the Guardians who were out on dangerous missions. Storm had almost resorted to knocking Sky out with some sleeping pills the last time. Luckily, Hitman had gotten there first and knocked Sky out with a Leon Hammer.

"You always take such good care of me." Tsunayoshi mumbles after another yawn. "Thank you, Hayato. You're… the best…"

Storm blushes almost as red as his Vongola Ring. O-of c-course he'd take g-good care of Chibi. He was J-juudaime's Right Hand Man and he'd always look after Juudaime. Juudaime was the same in any dimension it seemed. So as long as Juudaime kept being a caring, trustworthy man deserving of love and respect, Storm would keep an eye on him, no matter the age, no matter the time, no matter the dimension.

Storm eventually finds the room he was looking for, and lays Chibi down on a sofa before finding a blanket and covering the boy. Chibi makes himself comfortable, mumbling something about Reborn being a softie- which Storm couldn't believe, the Reborn he knew wasn't a softie at all. He silently walks out of the room with plans to come back and check on him in an hour to see if he had woken up again.

Tsunayoshi wakes up slightly as the door is shut. He rolls over, lifting the blanket over his shoulders. Suddenly something soft lands next to his face. Blinking blurrily, he grabs it and looks, only to find that it's the Uri toy he had given Hayato. He smiles softly, hugging the toy close to him. Hayato was really nice sometimes, he just never liked showing his softer side.

As he slowly falls closer and closer to sleep, he reckons he must either be dreaming already, or really really wanted to imagine Uri alive, for he was sure that he could feel the cat's chest move as it breathed and feel it give him a lick on the cheek.

But that couldn't be possible for toy cats didn't move. Or maybe they did in the future?

A little while later, Tsunayoshi half wakes up when he hears noises. The noises are moving chairs and voices. He kind of recognises those voices too. They sound like the voices he knows best, but just slightly… higher pitched.

You're going to need your brains in gear for this arc since a lot of translating will need to be done. Obviously Sky and Storm are Tsuna and Gokudera. Hitman is Reborn, Strategist is Shoichi (because I couldn't think of anything else) and Roboticist is Spanner. This is the Canon!Dimension, by the way.

And we're playing a guessing game again. So who's appearing in the next chapter?

Phantom Hitman 1412

First Published 16 December 2012