Chapter 64

What we were Expecting.

"Scientist! Scientist!... Hey Professor Verde!" Sky shivers in the wind of the mountain air. Why Scientist had his laboratory entrance here he didn't know. Most likely to deter intruders and those after the secrets inside this scientific gold mine, he reckoned. But still, why not somewhere nice and warm like the forest he had passed by earlier.

He hoped that Chibi was doing okay, there was no telling what his Guardians would do to the poor child. Except for a few, like Hitman, Mist, Scientist and a few others, no one else knew what Chibi looked like. The closest image they had was their imaginations of what he looked like as a child.

He'd have to ask Scientist what was going on. How did Chibi end up here? And why was he still in the same dimension? Maybe the Dimension Bazooka worked differently to the Ten Year Bazooka… Bazooka! Of course, this must have been caused by a Bazooka of some sort. And since he hadn't been hit with one it must be from Chibi's dimension.

"Verde-e-e! Let me in please!" Scientist was nearly always here, so why wasn't he opening the door? Sky was one of the few people Scientist let into the laboratory, Storm, Mechanic and Roboticist being the other Vongola members that occasionally were allowed access. Sky's only 'get in free card' relied on him being a test subject for anything Flame tested- the other side of the bargain being that Scientist was not allowed to make Box Weapons for public Mafia consumption.

But none of that mattered when he was freezing his butt off.

"VEEEERRRRDDDEEE!"

Back in the not-so-disused disused room, Scientist sneezes, breaking the silence following Chibi's dramatic exit.

He was, he was safe. He pants and sits on the floor after his run. He then remembers that he had just run into someone.

"Oh I'm sorry." He says whilst looking up, and up, and up into faces that he both did not and did recognise.

Standing infront of him is a pair of people that he recognises. Hundreds of images flash past his eyes but he can't clearly see a single one of them. Swords, boxing, laughing, shouting, friends, love, family. Safe.

"Chibi, what was with all the screaming? Tell me and I'll blow the f***rs into next week!" Storm announces reverently, a sharp gleam in his eyes. He even had his dynamites out ready.

"Oi oi, Storm, he's only a chil-"

"No naughty words!" Tsunayoshi says, taking the unlit dynamite and giving Storm a bop on the head with it. There are two rather loud sniggers in the background. "You shouldn't be using such naughty words Hayato." Tsunayoshi gives the man a stern look, wondering who had taught Hayato such naughty words and why he hadn't gotten rid of the habit already. Did he not care about the naughty words in the future?

Storm pales once again. How could he have forgotten that he was talking to a child? What if Chibi copies his language? He didn't want pre-cursed Arcobaleno after him! Storm quickly bows infront of Chibi, smacking his head into the floor.

"Please forgive me Chibi. I won't say anything like that infront of you again!"

"Hahaha, ahahaha!"

"HAAHAAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

The pair in the background couldn't take it anymore. The tiny boy looked like a child-King without a crown, with his faithful servant bowing at his feet. It was hilarious. They hardly ever saw Storm bow like that anymore, it brought back memories. But what was the most funny was that Storm, the hot headed, loud, short tempered, scary Storm had just been told off by a child. Where was a camera when you wanted one? That could be blackmail material for YEARS. If they could stop laughing long enough to even hold a camera straight, that would be.

"Tako-head you look stupid to the EXTREME!" Sun roars loudly, holding his stomach as he laughed. He'd never seen Storm look so stupid, and in his opinion, Storm did a lot of stupid things.

"He does not, to the Extreme!" Tsunayoshi shouts back, turning to face this mysterious not-stranger with fists on hips. It was a habit to use Ryohei's catchphrase whenever he was around the older child. It was so fun to say and made him smile too. Ryohei didn't even mind. It was such a habit that whenever the phrase was said, he nearly always repeated it back. He would have too, but realised in time that it would be an insult to Big-Hayato if he agreed.

"Yes he does to the Extreme!"

"He does not, to the Extreme!"

"Yes he does to the Extreme!"

"He does not, to the Extreme!"

"Maa maa," comes a calming voice before large hands pick him up. "Of course Storm doesn't. We just don't see him like that too often anymore. He's usually just a boring meanie that shouts at us." This man with kind yet sharp eyes, says, a huge silly smile on his face.

"Why you, Rain!" growls Storm, slowly and threateningly standing up, a horde of lit dynamites in his hands.

"YEESSS! That's true to the extreme. It's always, 'where's this report, where are those money graph things, why did you destroy another building?'" Exclaims Sun, punching a fist into his hand.

"Well if someone got their act together and thought of something other than boxing then maybe I wouldn't have to!" Storm shouts in reply. Tsunayoshi got the feeling this was normal. It felt like the arguments back at home with the Arcobaleno, mean words but no mean feeling to back them up. His 'feelings' said these fights were common too.

Or maybe Big-Hayato really was mad for he threw the whole horde of dynamites right at the person who acted like Ryohei. That wasn't good! (Although he was amazed by just how many Storm could hold. The Hayato he knew could barely hold a fifth of that number.)

He wriggles out of the hold this other person had on him- it wasn't particularly tight in the first place- before jumping into the air. He took a breath before remembering the moves Fon had taught him. As best as he can, Tsunayoshi spins and reaches for the dynamites in the air around him, pinching out the fuses, or kicking them to the ground instead. He had had a lot of practice since he had snuck into some of Hayato's practice sessions and stopped the boy from getting hurt. Which in turn made Hayato even more determined to get better so that Tsunayoshi-sama wouldn't get hurt saving him.

But there were far far far more dynamites than he was used to saving someone from. So some of them end up escaping past him and continuing on towards the Ryohei look alike.

But he needn't have worried, for half of them are cut in half by a flash of silver and the rest are plucked out of the air by the target himself and put out.

Tsunayoshi breathes a sigh of relief that the dynamites hadn't gone off before remembering why Big-Hayato had thrown them in the first place. He turns to the pair of adults before pouting at them and cutely stomping a shoe-less foot. "Hayato's not a big meanie! He still sleeps with his mother's cardigan doesn't he? And no meanie would do that!" Hayato wasn't a meanie, he was actually really sweet.

The jaws of the Ryohei look-alike and the Takeshi look-alike fall before they look up to stare at Storm. The man was currently speechless, blushing as red as his shirt whilst trying to look away. It was the last thing of his mother he had left and he'd made sure to keep good care of it. BUT he d-doesn't sleep with it a-anymore, alright!

"Do you Haya-chan?" asks Rain in a girlish teasing voice.

"So do you Takeshi," pouts Tsunayoshi. This was definitely Big-Takeshi, no one else went 'maa maa' like he did. "At that sleepover we had two months ago you'd lost it and couldn't go to sleep until you'd found it. You tried to pretend but I knew better than that! We went sneaky sneaky around the house like detectives trying to find it but your daddy caught us. It turns out it was under your pillow the whole time!" Tsunayoshi waves his hands to emphasis the last point. Takeshi had slept soundly after that.

"Pfft, what girls you two are." Laughs Sun, a hand over his mouth. The pair had gone bright pink.

"Hey, at least they can swim." Tsunayoshi says, looking up at the towering man.

"He's got you there Sun." retorts Storm.

"OOII! I can swim extremely well!" Defends Sun. He had been a life guard and everything.

The other three just give him a 'sure you can' look, all knowing perfectly well that what Ryohei did was not swim but drown in manly slow motion.

"Heehee, you're just like the baby Gatekeeper behind us. He doesn't like to admit that he like small animals but I know that he fixes them up and I even once found him in the forest asleep surrounded by them. It was like that picture from Snow White or Sleeping Beauty." Tsunayoshi smiles. And Kyoya still kept that bird that had fallen out of the tree during their first meeting.

"Gatekeeper?" asks Rain. They didn't have a Gatekeeper.

"I think you should be more worried about the behind us part." Storm states, feeling the deathly aura coming in waves from behind them. It was Rain's fault for not memorising the list of names he had given the swordsman ages ago.

A blur of black and purple flashes between the three adults before there is the sound of a crash. A ploom of dust rises from the newly formed crater in the floor.

"Hello Kyoya," smiles Tsunayoshi, having stepped out of the way of the attack barely in time. He was used to close counters. An attack like this was Kyoya's way of saying hello!

Big-Kyoya was wearing something different than what he usually wore. Instead of the military/school like uniform it was one of those Japanese robe things… ah, he'd forgotten the name. A kimono or a yukata or something like that. Haru's mother had made him wear one a few times saying how adorable he looked in it.

Cloud grunts in reply. "How do you know my name?" he asks. He didn't remember letting a child know his name or even ever giving out permission for it to be used by anyone other than Kusakabe.

"You told it to me silly." Tsunayoshi smiles brightly.

"Chibi, get out of there before he hurts you." Storm warns, trying to decide what position it was best to attack from. He couldn't let Chibi get hurt.

Tsunayoshi turns to Big-Hayato, still smiling. "Don't worry I'll be fine. I have my secret weapon after all." And he taps his nose.

Cloud is enraged by this. A mere child believed it could beat him? What foolish misguidings this herbivorous sheep had. And he had never slept in a forest surrounded by animals before. Just Hibirds.

Cold eyes remain on the boy as he talks to the bomb herbivore. Hn, he'd teach the herbivore to never take his eyes off of a predator. He raises his tonfa up and goes for another strike.

Tsunayoshi scrabbles backwards- Kyoya as an adult moved a hell of a lot faster than the one he knew did. Tsunayoshi had forgotten about that. He reaches out for the tonfa, his fingers brushing against the part he needed to press before Big-Kyoya moves his hand backwards for another strike. Tsunayoshi jumps backwards, the tonfa landing in-between his legs and cracking the floor. Phew that was close. He leans forwards, pressing at that spot again… he was nearly there.

Cloud grabs the herbivorous sheep by it's fluffy clothing, holding it still. This child had not had permission to enter the mansion, had dared to call him by his first name and had even shared secret personal information. It was disrupting the order and peace of things. It needed to be punished.

Even if the child was a lot better fight than any other child he had ever fought.

Tsunayoshi grabs at the hand holding him down. Luce would get mad if he ruined this outfit too!

Cloud draws his hand back for the next strike, but suddenly something feels off with his other hand. It's numb and tingling and… no longer holding the child. Staring at the hand, Cloud tried to get it to move. It doesn't. Had the… child done this? While his concentration was lacking in surprise, Cloud finds that the boy had attacked his other hand. The sound of his tonfa rolling across the floor resounds sharply in the hallway. Quickly the herbivore crawls across the floor and grabs his tonfa. What was it going to do, attack him with it? Cloud would certainly laugh if the child attempted that. But no. The child… the child… the damn Brat!...

Dismantles it!

The four adults don't believe it when the tonfa falls to pieces in the child's grip, chains and metal teeth clattering against the ground along with metal panelling.

Tsunayoshi looks up, shocked to find the adults looking shocked. "What, don't you remember? I did this to you the first time we met. Haven't I used it since?"

No the Omnivore certainly had never done that before.

Wait, Omnivore? Why had he thought that?

A Carnivore that hid in sheep's clothing, a child that could fight, a limb numbing move centred around pressure points, just like the Storm Baby, the likeness to Sawada Tsunayoshi and finally Storm's protectiveness over him…

He knew who this child was.

"The Arcobaleno have trained you well. I can't wait for you to grow up; it seems that you'll be a worthy opponent. I shall certainly bite you to death properly then." Cloud smirks.

"Hmm? What does Cloud mean?" asks Rain, looking between the child and the two people who seemed to know what was going on with the boy.

Storm drags a hand down his face. Really? Too bad the boy was here, he really needed a cigarette. "That's Chibi." Storm explains, pointing to the boy to make sure that the stupid idiotic pair got this. They stare blankly back at him. "He's Juudaime, just from a different Time and Dimension. Did you not read the report I gave you?"

Sun comes in closer, watching at the small child put all of the tonfa pieces back together as if it was a 3D puzzle. "Oh, so this is him. The one Sky decided could save us." He looks over the child with a critical eye, assessing what he could see and what he had already seen. His fighting forms were already coming along quite well. He was quite proud of the boy.

Rain too turns serious eyes on the boy, the eyes that could have belonged to a hitman once upon a rewritten future. Chibi seemed so much like the usual little boy, all smiles and tears. But that wasn't totally true, underneath was something more, something dangerous and the boy didn't even know it. The boy saw it all as natural. What had they done to an innocent child? No normal child smiled when getting attacked as if it was an everyday occurrence. No child didn't even bat an eyelid at dynamites. No child knew how to disarm and disable an attacker. But at least the boy seemed set on peace, even telling Storm off for his use of foul language. So far he'd used all of his powers for good. Rain just hoped that stayed that way.

"You can stop laughing at Kyoya now you know."

The four adults look at the child as if he's mad. None of them were laughing after all. Plus the child wasn't even looking in the right direction.

"That's not very nice. What has Kyoya ever done to you? Enemies? When did that happen?"

"But I'm glad you know. Seeing you like this means that you were saved!"

So who is Chibi talking too this time?

I, the Mafia Row Committee, Tsunayoshi and everyone at Mafia Row wish you all a very merry Christmas!

Make sure to look out for my Secret Santa fic coming out some time tomorrow or on Christmas day. It's called The Day Santa Wore Orange. And I'm very happy to present it to one of my reviewers!

Phantom Hitman 1412

First Published 23 December 2012