Disclaimer: I do not own Katekyo Hitman Reborn
A/N: Thanks for the Reviews!
"Talking"
'Thought'
Most Wanted
Chapter 14
Not one student or teacher could hold in the shock they felt when they arrived at their school the next morning. In the middle of the courtyard in front of the doors to the school were two poles stabbed into the ground. Between the two poles was a student strung up with each arm and leg tied to a pole. Dried blood was crusted over his beaten and bruised body.
"X for Tenth." Gokudera said quietly so the shell shocked students wouldn't hear him.
"Mochida-san," Tsuna whispered in shock as he stared up at the fourteen year old. How could this happen to him? Tsuna defeated him, but Mochida was by no means weak so how could he be defeated and strung up like this? He was too prideful for such humiliation like this.
"Tch," Reborn roughly grabbed Tsuna's arm in a bruising grip and dragged the teen into the school with his friends following them. "Gokudera, find Dr. Shamal. Yamamoto, Lambo, get Mochida down and to the infirmary."
All three teens nodded their heads and ran off to complete the tasks assigned to them. They only paused briefly to look at Tsuna, who gave them a weak smile before he was dragged away by his annoyed tutor. Reborn took Tsuna to an empty classroom and pushed him into a chair.
"Reborn?" Tsuna asked, but immediately fell silent when Reborn's black eyes sharpened intensely on him. He rubbed his aching arm where he was sure Reborn caused a bruise with how tight he was gripping earlier.
The hitman let out a breath as he stood towering over his student. "I don't care how well you think you can take care of yourself, from this moment on, you do not go anywhere without at least one of your friends."
"That again?" Tsuna asked annoyed.
SLAM!
Tsuna winced back as Reborn's hand hit the desk and he leaned down to glare deeply into the teen's eyes. "I don't want to hear any complaints. Whoever is this doing has made their target crystal clear, Tsunayoshi."
Brown eyes narrowed in response. "For someone that is always torturing me with training, you sure do seem to care about my safety."
"I am training you." Reborn hissed dangerously, which made Tsuna unconsciously lean back into his seat to try to get away from his tutor. "If you die, it means I failed in my mission to train you to be Vongola Tenth, and I do not fail, Tsunayoshi."
A wince escaped Tsuna at the second use of his full first name by his tutor. He didn't like ever being called Tsunayoshi, but now he hated it even more. Hearing it from Reborn when he was like this not only scared him, but it made him feel like he was in trouble. It made Reborn seem that much more dangerous.
"Do not argue with me on this. I know you are strong, but you are not invincible. You are to have at least one friend with you at all time so he can watch your back. You protect each other." Reborn said as he stood back up and pulled his cell phone out, quickly dialing a number.
Tsuna stayed where he was, watching with apprehension as his tutor waited for someone to pick up. Seeing his tutor like this really made Tsuna believe he truly was the number one hitman out there. He was scary as hell so he was kind of glad he was on his side at the moment. Though, he was also annoyed that his tutor was making his friends protect him. Tsuna did not do well with protection. He has always relied on himself in the past and he would like to keep it that way so no one got hurt because of him.
"I need you in Namimori, Japan now." Reborn said with no greeting at all before he quickly hung up and looked back at Tsuna. "Class now."
Tsuna looked out the window to see the students still outside…though, it looked like Hibari was approaching with the Disciplinary Committee. And Hibari did not look happy at all, but that hardly surprised Tsuna. Two students from their school were attacked and one was hung up on display at the school. For someone like Hibari who deeply loved the school, this was the best way to piss him off. Which meant that Tsuna was going to have some damage control to do later.
And that was something he hated doing when it involved Hibari.
Sighing, Tsuna got up and followed his tutor to his classroom. Just what was going on and who was looking for him? He really hated dealing with the mafia. Innocent people shouldn't be getting dragged into this.
When Tsuna entered his classroom with Reborn, he was surprised to see Kyoko and Hana in there already. They were the only ones there, though they were looking out the window.
"I can't believe this happened. I wonder who did it." Kyoko said worriedly as she bit on her bottom lip, and seeing that, Tsuna wanted to tell her to stop before she ruined her lips with that.
"Tch, the monkey is a playboy jerk, but no one deserves something like this." Hana agreed. While she was absolutely furious when Sawada ousted Mochida as a cheating playboy, she never wished pain and humiliation on someone like this.
Seeing as Reborn already slipped away to hide in the shadows of the classroom, Tsuna closed the door behind him and went over to his desk. "Sasagawa-chan, Kurokawa-chan." He greeted quietly.
Both girls turned away from the window to look at the younger boy.
"Tsuna-san." Kyoko replied politely with a gentle smile as she recalled when the boy stopped her from making a mistake with Mochida.
"Sawada-san," Hana said equally polite. He was a monkey, but a monkey she respected when he put Mochida in place, even it was weird. "You know, since Gokudera-san and Reborn-sensei arrived here, I noticed that you've been acting strange."
Tsuna blinked and looked up from taking his stuff out of his bag, surprised that Hana would continue the conversation and that she noticed his strange behavior. "H-have I?" He stuttered before wincing when he felt an intense glare burning into his back from Reborn. It was all because of Reborn that he dropped his stutter at school. The hitman hated his stutter and clumsiness and anytime he brought his fake act out, Reborn promised a punishment game. Tsuna didn't want to know what the punishment game was, since he knew somehow it involved pain, so he did his best to avoid falling into his fake act.
Hana nodded. "Your grades have improved a lot and you know the answers to questions in class now. You were able to face off against Mochida-senpai the other day and your clumsiness and stutter have all but disappeared."
Tsuna cursed silently in his head. He lost all his dame traits much too quickly. But he honestly feared Reborn more than he cared about his classmates noticing a sudden change in him. "W-well, that's be-because…" He trailed off, unsure of what to say to this.
But it seemed he didn't have to when a sudden chuckle was heard and Reborn was behind Tsuna, hand on his head. Unknown to the girls, the hand was actually gripping his head tightly and he had to quickly hide the urge to wince so the girls wouldn't notice anything was wrong. Oh, yep, he was facing a punishment game later for his stuttering. He wasn't even faking it this time too, which probably made the whole thing worse actually.
"That's because I spoke with your teachers about taking Tsuna as a special charge of mine. They agreed to let me work with him privately as a tutor as a way to help my studying to be a teacher." Reborn explained with a charming smile that left Tsuna twitching at the fakeness of it while the girls seemed completely charmed by him.
"That's amazing." Kyoko said. "Tsuna-san has always had trouble in class but in just a few weeks, you've already helped him so much. I'm sure you'll be a great teacher one day, Reborn-sensei!"
Tsuna's brow twitched in annoyance. Stupid bloody hitman. He could only pray that Hana and Kyoko didn't spread it around that he was being privately tutored by Reborn. That was something he actually wanted kept quiet!
"Thank you, Sasagawa-chan." Reborn replied. "The fruits of my tutoring Tsuna will be seen in no time at all."
Tsuna twitched a bit. That sounded like a promise of pain. He didn't care what anyone else said, anything Reborn said had to have some meaning of pain in it. Why did he have to suffer the horror of Reborn's training alone?
*K*H*R*
"His life isn't in any danger, Tenth."
Tsuna nodded as he walked down the hall with Gokudera, Takeshi, and Lambo. "That's good. It looked like he lost a lot blood, but if it's Dr. Shamal saying it, then I guess we have nothing to worry about."
"But I don't understand the point of this." Lambo replied as he looked out the window down at the courtyard. The blood that stained the ground and the posts were already gone. Hibari made sure to have his committee clean it all up immediately after he and Takeshi got Mochida down. It seemed the older teen didn't want anything blemishing his precious school. "Whoever is doing this clearly knows that these boys aren't the heir he wants since he is calling you out. So why isn't he going after you instead of these teens that you don't even associate with."
"Who was the first victim?" Tsuna asked. "Reborn never gave me a name."
"Osamu Kaneda."
Tsuna blinked. "Seriously?" He frowned thoughtfully and looked ahead, eyes catching sight of the room he was heading to.
"Why? Is something wrong with that?" Lambo asked confused.
"Not really, just a coincidence it seems." Tsuna mumbled. "You guys wait out here. Hibari really hates crowds."
When it looked like Gokudera and Lambo were about to protest, Takeshi caught them both around their necks and dragged them back. "Tsuna is right. Only he should go in since he has the best relationship with Hibari."
"Let go, sword freak!" Gokudera screamed annoyed.
Tsuna sighed. "Keep it down too. He will attack you if you make too much noise." Though he said that, it seemed his noisy friends didn't notice as Gokudera was too busy yelling at Takeshi and Takeshi was just laughing it off while Lambo looked ready to pull his gun out and shoot Gokudera, but he didn't join the actual argument since he was too lazy to. Sighing, Tsuna chose to ignore them and entered the Disciplinary Committee's office without bothering to knock.
Hearing the door close, Hibari looked away from the window he was glaring out of to glare instead at Tsuna. "Omnivore, learn to knock and shut those noisy herbivores up."
Shrugging, Tsuna shoved his hands in his pockets and made his way across the room, ignoring the sudden BOOM that occurred on the other side of the door. Hibari would no doubt bite them to death for setting explosives off in his school. They really needed to understand that now was not the best time for that after what happened this morning.
"You gave my number out."
It wasn't a question, but a statement of a fact.
"Ah, so you got the warning from Hayato the other day." Tsuna replied, not even bothering to deny the fact that he did give Hibari's number to his friends. "I'll make it up to you, but this is an emergency situation."
"I'll take care of the herbivores causing a disturbance in Namimori myself." Hibari retorted as he turned to look back out the window.
Tsuna sighed. That was such a Hibari Kyoya answer. Despite respecting Tsuna's strength and taking all the mafia and hacker stuff in stride, he still preferred to work alone. With his loner streak, Tsuna was amazed the Disciplinary Committee survived. Well, maybe if it was Tsuna's loner streak it would collapse. But Hibari's longer streak also had a touch of fear and dominance in it so his committee made sure not to mess up and feel his wrath.
"What has Reborn said about this?"
Tsuna stiffened, fearing Hibari would blame him and bit him to death. Letting his eyes drift to the window, he said, "He suspects someone is targeting me."
Hibari's eyes narrowed a fraction. "Is that so? So the clams and the X…"
"Vongola Tenth." Tsuna finished.
When Hibari's killer intent rose, Tsuna took a big step away from him and was immediately on watch for a tonfa aimed at his head.
"You're brining trouble to my peaceful Namimori like you said you would." Hibari growled as he stood up. "I will not let this go. For attacking Namimori students and targeting others, I will bite this degenerate to death."
"Right." Tsuna slowly backed away from the furious prefect before he decided to bite him to death too. He had only ever angered Hibari to produce this much killer intent one time before. And there was a reason why it was only one time. "Good luck with that."
Tsuna's back quickly hit the door and he fumbled with the door knob behind his back so he could keep his eyes on Hibari. He swung the door open and made his escape to pure freedom. If he didn't know it would anger Hibari enough to hunt him down, he would have slammed the door shut. But he did know so he instead gently closed it.
"Haha. You survived the lion's den, Tsuna."
Looking back at his friend, Tsuna could only sigh when he saw the hallway was destroyed with smoke wafting out the windows that his friends opened. "Please don't destroy the school." He mumbled as he rubbed his eyes. "Hibari will come after me if you do."
"What did he say anyway?" Takeshi asked.
A resigned sigh escaped Tsuna. "The usual. He is determined to solve this incident by himself." He looked back at the door to Hibari's office with a scowl. "We don't even have enough to work on besides the Kokuyo uniforms. That only gives us a general idea of where the enemy is."
Laughter escaped from Takeshi making his three friends to give him deadpanned looks. "Sorry, but it is so like Hibari to want to do it alone and use only that information to stop this."
"He can be quite….good at information gathering." Tsuna muttered, twitching a bit as he recalled a time when he and Hibari faced off against a small yakuza gang a few years back. He got any information he wanted through the force of violent, his killer intent, and just inducing fear in everyone he passed. It was no surprise that the yakuza they went after that day was never heard from again.
"So then let's just leave this whole incident to him." Lambo replied lazily.
"How can you be so lazy?! This is someone after Tenth! We should be involved." Gokudera retorted, glaring at Lambo.
"No," Tsuna shook his head as he started off down the hallway. He really didn't want to wait around for Hibari to remember the explosion that occurred in the hallway and come out to kill them. "He's right for the most part. We will let Hibari handle it for a while. It gives him an outlet for his anger, which you do not want piling up inside him, and he can gather some information. If he can take care of it, he will. If not, we will step in."
*K*H*R*
"I have to go get tortured by Reborn now." Tsuna grumbled as he looked over to where Reborn was waiting for him at the gates of the school. He had purposely made it so Reborn would have to wait for him so he would have a private moment with his friends. "Hayato, can you get the last finishing touches done?"
Gokudera nodded. "The stupid cow has been helping and we are almost done, Tenth. I will return your credit card tomorrow."
Tsuna nodded, eyes on Reborn to make sure he wasn't looking this way. He doubted the hitman could hear them with how far away he was, but he didn't want to risk the chance of Reborn being able to read lips which is why he wanted to make sure Reborn was looking away. "Don't mention my credit card out loud, Hayato. I don't need anyone overhearing I have one." And to be fair, the credit card was Erebus and had a fake name on it. Seeing as he was only thirteen and supposed to be a no-good kid, he could not justify having a credit card. Not to mention it would be suspicious so he made a fake identity and ordered a credit card to go with his Erebus account.
"I am so sorry, Tenth!" Gokudera fell to his knees and banged his head into the ground, which just brought more attention to them. "I am making a bunch of mistakes. I am unfit to be your right hand man!"
Tsuna dropped his head in exasperation and sighed. "Hayato, it's alright. Please stop that and get up. People are staring."
"And now I am bringing unwanted attention to us! I am so sorry, Tenth!" Gokudera moaned as he whacked his head against the ground again.
Whacking his forehead with his hand and dragging it down his face, Tsuna released a pained sigh. "Takeshi, could you help Lambo and Hayato finish?" He asked, deciding to ignore Gokudera for a moment.
"I could, but I actually don't know what they are working on for you." Takeshi pointed out.
Tsuna nodded with a smile. "Hayato, fill Takeshi in on what is going. If you guys finish the project today, you will redeem yourself for the mistakes you made tonight. If I am able to, I'll sleepover tonight to finish my part."
"Yes, Tenth!" Gokudera replied excitedly as he flew to his feet and bowed to his boss. "Whatever you request of me shall be done perfectly."
"Just don't destroy anything." Tsuna replied tiredly, knowing how his friends could be. Why did he befriend all the destructive people? "Anyway, I'll see you later." He walked away, waving over his shoulder as his smile morphed into a frown as he walked towards his torturer.
"You sure took your time. What were you discussing?" Reborn asked.
"Nothing important." Tsuna mumbled as he followed behind Reborn, hands shoved in his pockets.
Reborn glanced at him out of the corner of his eyes with a frown as he took in the posture his student fell into. "A boss is a leader, someone who has charisma and can get people to follow him." He stopped and turned to his student as he pulled a gun out and pointed it in Tsuna's face, who immediately started to sweat. What did he do this time? "A boss does not however slouch and follow behind. He stands up straight, hands at his sides, eyes always looking forward, and radiates confidence no matter what he does. He leads and does not follow."
Was Reborn seriously lecturing him because of how he walked? Tsuna huffed and looked away, only to jump and let loose a surprised gasp when Reborn shot at his feet.
"I know you're not deaf, Dame-Tsuna."
Scowling, Tsuna straightened up his posture and removed his hands from his pockets. He raised his head and locked his eyes in front him. "Happy now?"
Another shot at his feet had Tsuna jumping before he was marching forward.
"Don't get smart with me, Tsuna." Reborn growled. "From now on, you will walk in a way to radiate your confidence and to show yourself as a leader, not a follower. Failure will result in punishment."
Annoyance shot through Tsuna at that. Seriously? Walk like he was a leader? He didn't want to be a leader. He just wanted to go back to being Erebus without a scary hitman watching his every move and controlling his life. Sure, it was a bit lonely, but he was safe from scary hitman tutors in that life.
"Ow!" Tsuna cried suddenly as he grabbed the back of his head, eyes watering a bit in pain. He shot a betrayed look at his tutor. "Why?"
"You were slouching."
Tsuna wanted to cry. Seriously. He had a feeling that tonight's training was going to be absolute hell.
*K*H*R*
"A hacking base?" Takeshi repeated as he took in the boxes that filled up Gokudera's living. He guessed those were the computers that Tsuna had bought. "He really takes Erebus seriously."
"Of course he does, idiot! Weren't you listening at all the other day?" Gokudera snapped as he dropped the bags for the items he just bought onto the couch. "The new security system was put in place yesterday and now we need to blackout the windows. You and Lambo can do that."
"What are you going to do?" Lambo asked from where he was lounging on the couch. He really didn't feel like moving at the moment.
"Install a security camera." Gokudera muttered. They had to have the best possible security in his apartment. Anything subpar was completely unacceptable as it would put their boss in danger. His secret of being a hacker was something that he would not let anyone found out about.
Takeshi nodded his head and grabbed the bag that Gokudera just put down. He pulled out the Blackout covers. As he looked over the instructions, he found them easy enough to do and nodded as he ripped open the packaging to take the fabric and special tape out.
"Do you think Tsuna is okay?"
At the surprising question, both Takeshi and Gokudera stopped what they were doing to look at Lambo.
"Tsuna? Of course he's fine. Reborn is with him so we don't have anything to worry about." Takeshi replied. Despite seeing Reborn's scary and harsh side when he was training Tsuna, Takeshi knew Reborn would keep Tsuna safe if he really, really had to. He saw it when he dragged Tsuna away that morning after seeing Mochida. Tsuna was in good hands. And even if he wasn't, Takeshi knew Tsuna could handle himself.
After all, Takeshi always knew Tsuna was an amazing individual. It was the reason why Takeshi threw his Shigure Kintoki at Tsuna to use in his fight against Mochida. Not that Takeshi would ever tell Tsuna he gave him a bamboo sword that could turn into a real sword. He didn't think Tsuna would appreciate knowing what type of weapon he was using against a classmate. But it was all he had on hand when Tsuna fought Mochida.
Lambo shook his head and sat up on the couch. "That's not what I meant. When he saw Mochida earlier and when I told him the first target was Kaneda, he seemed rather upset about it all."
"That's because the Tenth has a big heart!" Gokudera retorted passionately. "The message was clearly calling to him so it hurt to see his classmates hurt like that."
A sudden frown made itself known on Takeshi's face. Having been in the same class as Tsuna for years actually gave him more insight to the matter than the two Mafiosi from Italy. "If I wanted to call out someone, I would target friends of that person." He muttered. "Which is why this situation weird."
"I get Mochida and Tenth don't get along. That was proven when they had that match in front of the school, but Kaneda too?" Gokudera asked, dropping the instructions for the security camera to give this conversation his complete focus as he found it intriguing now.
"Mochida's and Tsuna's dislike for each other didn't just start that day. Mochida has always bullied and mocked Tsuna and Tsuna has always found ways to blackmail Mochida. I don't know when it started, but I have heard rumors of Tsuna blackmailing his bullies to get them to leave him alone. When I heard he was a hacker, I thought for a moment that was how he got the information to stop his bullies, but then I thought more about it. Some of the information he uses as blackmail material is too personal and private. I doubt it is anything he could find online so I honestly don't know how he gets his blackmail material, but he has a lot of it and I guess he was using the fact that he knew Mochida was a cheating playboy against him to get him stop bullying him. But when Mochida challenged him to a fight for Sasagawa-chan, I guess it went too far for Tsuna and he ousted him to the whole school." Takeshi explained.
Lambo blinked in confusion as he never got the full story about this Mochida from Tsuna, but it sounded like a good one. He would have to get Tsuna to explain it to him later.
"It's weird that Mochida would suddenly challenge Tenth if he knew about the blackmail material." Gokudera said with a frown.
Takeshi shrugged. "It's rare for Tsuna to actually reveal blackmail material, but for the most part, no one knows it is him when he does it. It either goes through the rumor mill or through an e-mail or text to all the students. That's how I actually realized it was him revealing the blackmail material. I realized it after he told us about Erebus, a grand hacker. No one in all school has everyone's e-mail or number and yet we would all get the same e-mail with some blackmail information in it at the same time. Only one person could do that and I realized it was Tsuna the other day. When his bullies realized he was serious about the blackmail, I noticed Tsuna coming to class with less bruises and injuries. But that didn't mean that his bullies wouldn't try anything. They were angry about what Tsuna did with the blackmail he had so they have tried to other ways to get to him, like Mochida did. But that was the first time Tsuna screamed his blackmail information out for the whole school to hear and for Tsuna to fight back against Mochida like that. I don't think his bullies will try anything like that again."
Lambo whistled. "I never realized Tsuna had a system like this going."
Takeshi nodded. "That's because only the bullies ever knew. I managed to piece the puzzle pieces together with the clues I saw over the years and when Tsuna gave me the final hint the other day about Erebus. If it wasn't for that, I probably wouldn't have realized it." He sighed and scratched the back of his head. "Anyway, we are off topic. Kaneda was also one that bullied Tsuna a lot when he was acting like he was a no good at everything. Of course, Tsuna has blackmail on him, but that doesn't stop the harsh teasing from Kaneda. It only stopped the physical bullying. If it doesn't go beyond harsh teasing, Tsuna isn't going to oust him. So both Mochida and Kaneda were people that hurt Tsuna in the past which is why everything about this is weird. It would have made better sense to target one of us or Ryohei or Hiba….Well, no one would be insane enough to target him."
"Hmm," Gokudera put a hand to his chin as he thought. "That's true. I highly doubt our enemy didn't do his research so he must have targeted those two for a reason. Perhaps it is because our enemy doesn't know who Tenth is, just that he goes to our school."
"That could be a possibility." Lambo agreed.
"Well, in any case, their target is still Tsuna so all we can do for now is protect him." Takeshi replied with an impish grin. "No matter how much he doesn't want protected."
*K*H*R*
Dressed in a pair of shorts and not bothering with a shirt, Tsuna found himself climbing the cliff once again. Since he refused to be shot by that bullet again, Tsuna decided to just climb the cliff without his Dying Will mode. That made the task a lot harder for Tsuna, but he was going to do it this way. He didn't want his clothes destroyed again.
Pausing in his climb, Tsuna huffed a few times as he tried to steady his breathing. Sweat dripped down his face and into his eyes. He wanted to rub it away, but he knew that if he took just one hand off the cliff to do that, he would most likely slip and fall. He didn't want to start this climb all over….again.
The hot sun was beating down on his bare back, making Tsuna even hotter than he already was.
At the top of the cliff, Reborn stood looking over the edge at his student. His sudden determination to climb the cliff without the use of the Dying Will mode surprised him, but he actually relented to let Tsuna have his way today. It wasn't because he was being nice, but because he wanted to see how far his student could go without being in that mode.
"Evil cliff….Evil bloody cliff….Evil, bloody tall cliff." Tsuna kept grumbling to himself as he climbed the evil cliff of doom. His hands were aching so much with the feeling that they were all scraped up. He wouldn't be surprised if they were with how he kept falling which had him dragging his hands against the rough rock.
"Stop wasting energy mumbling to yourself and focus on reaching the top." Reborn called down to him.
Tsuna's brow twitched in annoyance. "I'm always focused." He grumbled as he moved his hand up to grab the next section, which just so happened to be weak so when he pulled down on it, the rock crumbled and left Tsuna faltering in surprise before he was falling back, cursing as he thought about all the mocking he was going to be getting from Reborn from this. He swore he was going to reach the top of the damn cliff if it killed him…which he really hoped it didn't. Living was something he preferred to do for a very long time.
His body slammed into the river and Tsuna let himself drift underwater for a few seconds, feeling refreshed from the rapid cool down. As soon as he hit the bottom of the river, Tsuna pushed himself off and broke the surface of the water, coughing a bit at the little bit of water he managed to swallow.
"Evil bloody tall cliff." Tsuna growled as he climbed out of the river and made his way over to the bottom of the cliff to start again.
"Do you plan to ever make it up here?"
Tsuna shot a glare up at the hitman at the top of the cliff. Stupid hitman who took the easy way up the cliff should not be talking.
*K*H*R*
"I'm actually impressed you managed to make it to the top in just two days."
A pained, tired groan escape Tsuna who didn't even bother to turn to face his tutor. He much preferred to stay face down on his bed, suffocating himself with his pillow. Every muscle in his body was screaming out in agony. He felt that this was worse than last night when he returned from training.
"We are going to start the next part of the training tomorrow." Reborn continued, ignoring his student's groaning.
"Spartan." Tsuna moaned into his pillow. Was it so wrong for him to take a break from training? His body was going to be torn apart at his rate. Maybe he could just pass out at school tomorrow. He definitely wouldn't skip school. If he tried, Hibari would bite him to death or Reborn would make him go to school or decide to let him skip just to start the torture session early.
A sudden ringing broke Tsuna from his thoughts and with a silent muttered curse, Tsuna moved his protesting limb to grab his cell phone. Turning his head on his pillow, Tsuna brought the phone up to his eyes to read the text message he got from Gokudera.
Are you still coming over?
And of course there was that promise he made to Gokudera and the others about coming over tonight, but with how he felt, he doubted that he could escape Reborn and get there.
Not tonight. I am exhausted from training. Reborn watching me closely.
He sent the message and dropped his phone onto his bed before passing out, completely forgetting the fact that schools assigned a little thing called homework.
Oh well, he would deal with that when it came….
"Tsuna-nii! Tsuna-nii!"
"Tuna, you might want to get up."
And morning came way too soon for his liking.
Cracking an eye open, Tsuna found Fuuta sitting on his bed and staring at him with a small smile while Lambo leaned against his doorframe. "Tsunayoshi is not here right now. Leave a message after the beep." He turned his head back into his pillow. "Beep."
"No, no, no, Tsuna-nii." Fuuta replied as he started to shake the older boy. "Reborn-san said he would shoot you if you aren't up, dressed, and at the table in five minutes and that was two minutes ago!"
"Reborn isn't going to shoot me." Tsuna muttered.
"Reborn is ranked number three for doing what he says he will do, Tsuna-nii! Get up!"
'Only number three?' Tsuna thought in surprise before realizing he was focusing too much on the conversation at hand and that he really should go back to sleep. Which was really not possible with how much Fuuta was shaking him.
"Only two minutes left, Tsuna. You really don't want to test Reborn." Lambo warned.
'Don't I?' Tsuna wanted to retort, but instead he just rolled onto his back and looked up at Fuuta's worried face. "I'm up. Go downstairs so I can get ready."
"Don't fall back to sleep." Fuuta replied in all his childlike seriousness.
"I won't. I won't." Tsuna said as he swung himself up to a sitting position. "I'm up."
Fuuta nodded with a smile. "Good." He jumped off the bed and ran over to Lambo, grabbing the older boy's hand. "Come on, Lambo-nii. Tsuna-nii needs his privacy."
As Tsuna watched the cheerful young boy drag his friend away, Tsuna frowned as he recalled the conversation he had with Fuuta his first night here.
*Flashback*
Tsuna rubbed his aching muscles as he sat on the floor with his back to his bed. He murmured a thank as Lambo handed him a steaming cup of tea before the Bovino member handed a similar cup to Fuuta, who was sitting at the small table in the room.
Fuuta thanked him as well before putting his cup down on the table.
Lambo placed the tray he used to carry the drinks on the table before he moved to Tsuna's side. "How was training?"
A groan escaped from Tsuna. "Don't even mention it." He muttered. "I feel ready to keel over, Lambo." He winced as he shifted his arm a bit. At this moment, all he wanted was to pass out on his bed, but he promised Fuuta that they would talk so they would. "Okay, Fuuta, do you feel calm enough to explain what happened?"
The young boy looked up from his tea with a frown. "Well…" He paused to nervously gnaw at his lip, making Tsuna smile a bit as he recalled doing that when he was younger and very nervous.
"Don't be nervous, Fuuta. Nothing here will hurt you. Speak whenever you feel ready." Tsuna said softly before taking a sip of his tea. "Mmm, good tea, Lambo. You have gotten better at making it."
"Tch, only because I was tired of your criticism." Lambo muttered.
"I was giving advice so you can brew a delicious tea." Tsuna retorted as he took another sip. "Though it could still use a bit of work…"
"Shut it, Tsuna." Lambo snapped. "I make you tea with special herbs to help relax your muscles and this is what I get?"
Tsuna gave him a silly grin. "You should be used to it, but really, thanks." He finished with his silly grin morphing into a sincere, thankful one.
"Hmph," Lambo muttered. "I have better things to do then learn how to make tea."
"Like laze around?" Tsuna retorted with a mock glare at his friend.
"Of course. You should learn how to do it, you workaholic." Lambo countered with a lazy smirk as he lounged against the side of Tsuna's bed.
A small, quiet chuckled ended their war of retorts and drew their attention to the ten year who was unsuccessfully trying to hide his chuckles behind his hand. When he noticed the two older boys staring at him, Fuuta blushed and lowered his hand. "You two are silly." He wrapped his hands around his cup and sighed. "My name is Fuuta de la Stella, known as the Ranking Prince in the Underground for my ability to rank people by their abilities." Somehow, Fuuta pulled out a big red book from his jacket which left Tsuna completely baffled at how he hid it. He planted it on the table as he opened it to a certain page and read, "Tsuna-nii is ranked number one at not being able to refuse a request."
"Huh?" Tsuna replied unintelligently.
Fuuta looked up with pleading brown eyes that simply tore at Tsuna's heart so he had to look away. "Please, Tsuna-nii, I came here with a request."
"What is it?" Tsuna mumbled, still not able to meet the pleading eyes that he knew would make him falter.
The young ranking prince crawled over to Tsuna until he was kneeling in front of him and grabbed one of his hands, drawing Tsuna's eyes towards him. "Please give me protection."
Pleading brown eyes. Pleading brown puppy dog eyes. This was so unfair. "Of course." Tsuna found himself saying as he thought back to those people who were chasing Fuuta earlier. "But we need information about who is after you."
"That's a long list." Lambo spoke up with an amused smile. That ranking Fuuta gave them was probably true. Tsuna was never good at turning anyone away. It was why his list of friends was always growing. He helped them all so they all wanted to return that favor. "A lot of Mafiosi want to take advantage of Fuuta's ability to rank."
Tsuna sighed. That was certainly true. From his playing in the Underground network system, he heard a lot about the Ranking Prince and how some Famiglias paid him an insane amount of money just to get a copy of one of his rankings.
"That is true." Fuuta replied as he dropped Tsuna's hand, looking rather distressed. "But the ones chasing me now are different." He paused for a moment before he threw himself into Tsuna's arms, surprising the teenager. "They've been chasing me since I was in Italy. They are relentless. I love ranking and have no problem doing it for people, but this group is terrifying. They are tearing through the Underground to get me."
Smiling softly, Tsuna pat Fuuta's head. "Don't worry. You are safe with me and my friends."
*End Flashback*
Tsuna sighed and ran a hand through his hair. He made that promise, but he didn't even know who was after Fuuta. So, even though he despised Reborn's Spartan training, he would deal with it to get stronger to keep his promise to keep Fuuta safe….the best he could with his body always aching anymore from the training.
BANG!
A scream tore from Tsuna's throat as he twisted out of his bed and hit the floor. He looked up at Reborn standing in the doorway of his room. "Why?!" He shouted as his eyes shifted to the smoking bullet hole in his pillow. He needed a new pillow now.
"You were warned." Reborn replied. "A boss is never late, Dame-Tsuna."
"I'm not a boss." Tsuna muttered, but then he had to immediately dodge to the left to avoid getting hit by a bullet. He rolled to the side to get to his closet and to avoid another gunshot. Standing up, he opened his closet, but kept an eye on Reborn in case he decided to continue his stupid training.
Lucky for Tsuna, he was able to dress without any more interruptions from his trigger happy tutor. He ran passed his tutor and down the stairs. Once he made it to the kitchen, he was surprised to see Takeshi and Gokudera sitting at his table, eating breakfast. For a moment, he just stared blankly at them.
Feeling his stare, Takeshi looked up and grinned. "Yo, Tsuna!" Noticing the question in Tsuna's eyes, he explained, "Reborn told us you were running late so Mama invited us to breakfast while we waited."
"Ah," Tsuna said as his eyes drifted to the clock. "Late!" He scrambled over to the table and grabbed a piece of toast. He put it in his mouth before grabbing Takeshi's collar and then reached across the table to grab Gokudera's arm. He yanked on both of them and dragged them along with him to the front door.
"We're off!" Takeshi said, laughing as Tsuna didn't release his hold even as they put their shoes on.
"Thank you for the meal, Sawada-san!" Gokudera called back.
"Just call me Mama like everyone else." Nana replied with a gentle smile as she stood in the kitchen doorway to watch her son and his friends. "Have a good day at school."
That was the last thing that could be said before Tsuna yanked his friends out of the house and started running down the road.