Reborn- "High School is Just Like the Mafia ..."
SO OUT OF PRACTICE? But hey, one down... a ton to go. ^_^;;
Title: High School is Just Like the Mafia in that You Have to Protect Your Turf and Make A Name For Yourself
Universe: Reborn
Theme/Topic: N/A
Rating: PG-13
Character/Pairing/s: Vongola
Warnings/Spoilers: Crack and randomness
Word Count: 3,240
Summary: Sequel to “ High School is All about Cliques and Fear”- Jimbo’s absence leaves a hole Tsuna and company are morally obligated to fill.
Dedication: juin’s thank you fic for her donation! Is it cheap to do a sequel to something I wrote months ago? SOB. Let me know if this is not up to snuff ORZ.
A/N: I seem to have gotten wordy.
Disclaimer: No harm or infringement intended.
Tsuna did not mean to begin his high school career by spearheading a vicious assault on the established delinquent hierarchy of Namimori High and then replacing it with one of his own.
He maintains that it is not his fault that Gokudera is trigger happy, or that Yamamoto has good reflexes, or that Hibari is slightly megalomaniacal and Ryohei is just a little bit over-enthusiastic and forgets his own strength sometimes.
And most of all, he definitely did not mean to let all of these things about his friends lead to his eventually being seen by the entire girl’s basketball team while standing over the comatose and slightly bloody body of the former gang boss of Namimori High School, a third year by the name of Jimbo who must have had some intense thyroid problems and unaddressed rage issues.
As it stands, Tsuna’s family had wiped out Jimbo and his much feared and respected gang of upperclassmen well inside of six hours, on the first day of school.
Reborn had called it admirable efficiency. Tsuna thinks it is psychotic.
As for everyone else at Namimori High, they think that Tsuna is a scary delinquent with a killer one-two combination that moves so quickly it’s like he never even moved at all. They all duck out of his way in the halls and hurry to give him their lunch money even though he never asks for it. Sometimes some of the braver boys challenge him to a fight for the title of school boss whenever they catch him walking behind the gymnasium, out of the sight of the teachers. And even though he assures them that they can just take the title if they want it that badly they never do; in fact, they don’t seem to understand the concept of a peaceful transfer of power at all, and before Tsuna can explain it to them, Gokudera has usually finished blowing them up by then.
And so here he is. The terrible, horrible delinquent leader of Namimori High.
He’d never meant for any of it to start off like this at all. All he’d really hoped for upon entering high school was to have a normal life, particularly with no blood involved at all.
It’s too late.
As it is, he already can’t wait until school lets out every day, and they’ve barely been in session for a week now.
All he really has to look forward to lately is the time when he is outside of school, where he is not known as that scary kid who commands all of those other scary kids. He is not Sawada-sama the delinquent boss, or the mysterious Tenth, a silent assassin rumored to have ancient and powerful European bloodlines.
After school he can just be Tsuna again, on his way home from school, with Gokudera chattering excitedly next to him and Yamamoto admiring the warm sunshine and Kyoko-chan and Haru-chan stopping in front of cake shops to admire the displays every now and then.
Even if his school life isn’t very peaceful, Tsuna supposes he should at least be grateful that this part of his life still is. It’s ideal and nice and does not involve blood or violence or anything that could get anyone maimed or killed even remotely.
Thus, he supposes later, it is something that is destined to end up like all of the other peaceful, normal, non-violent things in his life.
It has to die.
~~~~~
A little over a week after the fateful day that Jimbo and company are officially ousted from Namimori High’s student hierarchy, Tsuna and the others are walking back to his house after school, just like usual.
And then they pass a scene.
It is a scene that involves some students dressed in the beige blazers of neighboring Azabu High; more specifically, three Azabu students are currently gathered in a semi-circle on a side-street, standing menacingly around someone wearing a familiar Namimori High uniform. They are kicking said Namimori kid mercilessly while the kid’s friends are yelling from where they are backed up against the wall, begging the victim’s assailants to please leave them alone.
Tsuna stops dead in his tracks when he sees this; Gokudera and Yamamoto don’t notice anything because Gokudera is too busy calling Yamamoto names and threatening to put dynamite on him in places that would be particularly unpleasant for him if they were to go off. Luckily Kyoko-chan and Haru-chan haven’t stopped admiring the cakes in the bakery window a few doors behind them and don’t notice the violence either.
“Um,” Tsuna begins, because he is the very articulate and fearsome boss of Namimori High. He stares.
Gokudera doesn’t stop walking though; Gokudera keeps going until he accidentally walks right into one of the kids who is committing acts of violence upon their school mate.
“Ngh,” Gokudera says, instead of, “Why don’t we try and see?” like he’d meant to, in response to Yamamoto’s earlier, cheerfully chuckled declaration of, “I don’t think dynamite can go in there!”
The student (Giant Man-Eating Beast) that Gokudera had walked into pauses in his vicious kicking of the Namimori High student and turns around, meaty fist raised mid-air.
“You wanna die?” Giant Man-Eating Beast asks, five o’clock shadow impressive and menacing as he looks down at Gokudera darkly. “Huh, more Namimori brats.”
Gokudera glares back impassively. “Only idiots stand in the middle of the sidewalk and get pissed when people walk into them,” he says, before turning back to Yamamoto and spitting out the original, “Why don’t we try and see?” he’d been going for earlier.
“Um,” Tsuna tries, again.
The Namimori kids, kicking victim included, all look at the new arrivals with hope and awe.
“He’s here!” one shouts.
“We’re saved!” shouts another.
“I’m gonna kill you,” Giant Man-Eating Beast says to a Gokudera who isn’t listening, and turns with the aforementioned meaty fist still raised. He viciously swings it at the back of Gokudera’s unprotected head while Gokudera continues to hotly threaten Yamamoto with explosives.
There is a THUNK.
And then a scream.
Neither of which involve Gokudera at all.
Giant Man-Eating Beast howls in pain when his meaty fist comes in full contact with the end of Yamamoto’s very hard, very wooden baseball bat.
“Is that a new type of game or something?” Yamamoto asks in the meantime, in response to Gokudera’s question and not looking at Giant Man-Eating Beast at all. Yamamoto has always had very good instincts; sometimes they are so good he acts on them and doesn’t notice he did afterwards. Reborn says it’s the mark of a great hitman.
“Oh god not again,” Tsuna manages when it starts, and is relieved that he’s graduated back to words again, instead of just pained, inarticulate noises.
“Tsuna-kun, Haru-chan and I are going to have some cake at this shop, would you like to join us?” Kyoko-chan’s voice rings out from down the street. He looks over his shoulder and forces an awkward, horrible smile at her in response.
“Just a minute,” Tsuna says, anxiously. “We’ll be with you in just a minute. Go first. Please. Please.”
“Sure!” the girls say, and disappear into the cake shop with a tinkling of bells and oblivious, cake-obsessed girlish laughter.
“I broke my goddamned hand!” Giant Man-Eating Beast yowls in the meantime, and his friends look angry on his behalf, as all friends must, even if those friends are members of a ferocious pack of were-creatures that only slightly resemble humans.
Giant Man-Eating Beast’s leftmost friend, whom Tsuna’s mind decides to call Very Large Crushing Thing, advances on Yamamoto to retaliate while Yamamoto is still being screamed at by Gokudera. Gokudera says something along the lines of “Sure it’s a game. One I always win!”
Yamamoto’s baseball bat is back to its spot resting against his shoulder and he doesn’t seem to notice Very Large Crushing Thing bearing down on him at all. He is smiling amiably, and just as Gokudera whips out a stick of dynamite, Very Large Crushing Thing’s foot makes a straight-line path towards Yamamoto’s happily grinning face.
There is an explosion.
And a scream.
This time, both instances, in a sort of way, do end up involving Gokudera.
Very Large Crushing Thing topples over onto the pavement between Gokudera and Yamamoto. His body is smoldering angrily, particularly his foot, where most of his shoe and his sock are charred and full of holes, revealing burned toes and blown off nail bits.
Yamamoto courteously states, “Oh, excuse me!” when he finally notices Very Large Crushing Thing, and steps backwards to allow the collapsing and smoking boy enough room to fall down unhindered.
“What an asshole,” Gokudera gripes as Very Large Crushing Thing’s face slams into the concrete, and steps over him.
“What the fuck?!” the last of Giant Man-Eating Beast and Very Large Crushing Thing’s friends (hereby known as Oversized Hulking Mass of Ape Man) curses, looking slightly less sure of himself as his gangmates either howl or burble nonsensically around him in pain.
“That’s right!” one of the abused Namimori kids pipes up from where he is pressed against the wall, gaining courage with each subsequent Azabu defeat. “That’s Sawada-sama, the new boss of Namimori! You can’t mess with us and get away with it!”
“Right!” another of the Namimori representatives informs Oversized Hulking Mass of Ape Man proudly. “Just because Jimbo is gone doesn’t mean you can try and take over his turf anymore! We’ve got a new gang to protect us!”
“I hate my life,” Tsuna says, to no one in particular.
Oversized Hulking Mass of Ape Man makes a disgruntled noise in the back of his throat and grabs his comrades before making a hasty exit down the street.
“Thank you for saving us!” the Namimori kids chirp to Gokudera and Yamamoto in gracious awe after their defeated foes retreat.
Gokudera and Yamamoto stop and blink.
“Who the hell are you and what do you want?” Gokudera asks, seeing them for the first time.
“Oh hello,” Yamamoto responds when he too sees them. “Are you all lost?”
Tsuna makes a whimpering sort of groan through his nose before turning around and going to join Haru and Kyoko at the cake shop.
Yamamoto and Gokudera cheerfully follow, while the inadvertently rescued Namimori students sing praises to their retreating backs.
Tsuna tiredly enters the cake shop and hopes that the worst of this is all over now, but part of him-the part that has been carefully honed by long exposure to both Reborn and the Vongola-thinks that this is probably just the beginning.
He prays that nobody gets killed. He never wants Reborn to have to teach him how to hide bodies.
~~~~~
The following evening, Ryohei is met at the front gate of the school after boxing practice lets out by a menacing Hibari, who glowers at him as he patrols the grounds. The prefect coolly recommends that Ryohei quickly remove himself from school property for the night now that all school sanctioned activities have ended for the day.
Ryohei growls and tells Hibari to shut up because boxing club never ends, and training is forever.
Then, just as Hibari prepares to bite Ryohei to death for disobedience to the disciplinary committee’s orders while on school grounds, six junior Yakuza members suddenly step out of the shadows and ask the quarreling pair if they know someone by the name Sawada. “Gotta thank him for taking care of my little brother and his friends last night,” is the explanation.
Hibari ignores them because they are outside of the school’s property, but Ryohei grins and says he and Tsuna are great and manly allies.
“Good to know,” the Yakuza foreman says, and cracks his knuckles as he and his friends advance into the gate and onto Hibari’s sacred school grounds. “We have a message for Sawada. Can you give it to him for us?”
“I can give you his number if you want,” Ryohei offers helpfully, because he believes that true men should always speak directly to one another when it comes to either love and gratitude or hatred and rivalry. He eyes the six strangers thoughtfully and as they draw nearer, realizes that they are all good sized young men. “Say, would you like to join the boxing club? I’m the captain!” he asks, and strikes a sparring pose to impress them.
Hibari just glowers at the interlopers as they encroach on his territory and tells them, “No trespassing.”
~~~~~
In the morning, school is cancelled when the police find six young Yakuza members smeared against the front gate of Namimori High. The criminals beg for mercy and are missing teeth when the authorities apprehend them, and all of them make concussed, groggy comments about how terrifying the school’s boxing club is.
Tsuna sees the report on the local evening news that night and quickly changes the channel.
Reborn tsks to himself and says that they really don’t make the Yakuza like they used to.
~~~~~
Things come to head that weekend, when Yamamoto is scheduled to play in a baseball scrimmage for the club. Gokudera and Tsuna are on their way to watch the game with Reborn, Lambo and I-Pin in tow; Tsuna is excited because they are going to meet Haru and Kyoko there and eat hot dogs in the stands and cheer for his friend’s victory even if it isn’t really a real game. It’s a nice, normal high school thing to do.
Gokudera and Lambo start to argue (as they do) halfway there, and before long Lambo is crying and reaching into his hair for explosives.
“No boom, Lambo!" I-Pin tries to chastise the Lightning Guardian sternly, but is routinely ignored as Lambo emerges with a bomb in his hand.
From there, Tsuna is too busy trying to keep Lambo from throwing hand grenades in public at a very not-helpful Gokudera to notice the black sedan that pulls up to the curb beside them, or the men in dark suits and sunglasses that get out of it.
“Sawada Tsunayoshi?” a menacing voice asks, and finally gets Tsuna’s attention as he successfully wrestles a purple explosive out of Lambo’s tiny hands.
“Er…y-yes?” Tsuna asks, and reluctantly leaves Gokudera and Lambo’s scuffle to turn to the man addressing him.
The man smiles dangerously and spits his cigarette on the ground. “My name is Yamazaka. Sometimes people call me the Hurricane.”
“Pleased to meet you?” Tsuna responds, swallowing and getting a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. “Did you need directions or something?” he asks next, hopefully. He’s always hopeful.
Yamazaka does not look lost. “A couple of my nephews made it onto TV yesterday, and I was told you were responsible for making them famous.”
“No!” Tsuna denies instantly, while Gokudera continues to wrestle angrily with Lambo in the background. “I definitely did not do that! Reborn! Tell them!” He turns to his home tutor for confirmation.
But Reborn is conveniently sitting on the sidewalk, sucking on his fist and making age-appropriate gurgling baby noises.
In the background, Lambo sobs, “Endure!” under Gokudera’s noogie assault and reaches into his hair again.
Yamazaka ignores the toddlers. “That’s not what my nephews told m…”
And suddenly there is a bang, followed by a cloud of purple smoke.
The space where Yamazaka-san had been standing is now filled with Yamazaka-san again, only ten years older.
“Boss!!” his entourage exclaims, looking disbelieving.
Yamazaka-san blinks and looks around, and then his eyes settle on Tsuna, who is wincing in a way that says he expects to be hit any second now.
The slightly older Yakuza boss recognizes him instantly. “Tenth!” he breathes. “What a surprise!”
Tsuna blinks. “Excuse me?”
Yamazaka-san squints and looks down at Tsuna more carefully. “It’s you,” he concludes eventually, “but a different you.”
The rest of his entourage look completely baffled.
After looking at them, Yamazaka-san seems to get it. “The Ten Year Bazooka!” he realizes, shaking his head as he turns back to Tsuna. “Amazing.”
“That’s…a word for it,” Tsuna manages, awkwardly.
And then Yamazaka-san makes it even more awkward, when he suddenly gets onto his hands and knees and bows to Tsuna.
Reluctantly, the rest of his men follow suit.
“Please allow me this opportunity to pledge the fealty of the Yamazaka Group to you once again, Tenth! Or for the first time, as the case may be.”
“Um, that’s not neces…” Tsuna starts, before his hand is grabbed and his ring is kissed reverently by the older man.
Yamazaka-san turns to glare at his confused underlings. “Well?”
“WE THE YAMAZAKA GROUP PLEDGE OUR LOYALTY TO YOU, TENTH,” the men all quickly declare, at the top of their lungs and in perfect unison.
Everyone else on the street instantly stops to stare at the scene.
Tsuna notes- with a defeated sort of horror- that several of the onlookers seem to be members of the Namimori Home Economics Club. He recognizes them because all of their muffins always seem to be paid to him in tribute in the hopes that he won’t hurt them.
They hold bags of groceries and gape incredulously at the scene of Sawada Tsunayoshi, feared boss of Namimori High, as a local Yakuza group pays homage to him right there on the street.
Tsuna concludes that it probably looks bad.
A few seconds later, there is another puff of purple smoke, as the proper Yamazaka-san returns from his trip to the future, looking kind of dumbfounded and traumatized.
Tsuna wonders if he’s going to get shot now.
A moment.
And then, Yamazaka reaches into his coat pocket and shakily pulls out another cigarette. “We should probably go, shouldn’t we?” he asks Tsuna conversationally after a beat, apparently greatly disturbed by whatever he had seen in the five minutes he’d spent ten years in the future.
Tsuna watches him light his cigarette with violently shaking hands.
“Um, please forget about this run in, Sawada-san,” Yamazaka-san manages eventually. “I didn’t know.”
He bows one more time, before he and his men quietly climb back into the car and drive down the street very quickly.
Silence.
And then, “Nice recruiting, tenth!” Gokudera exclaims loudly, and flashes dual thumbs ups at Tsuna.
A few feet away, the Namimori Home Economics Club still has their mouths hanging open.
Tsuna hurries everyone down the street.
Once they turn the corner Reborn finally deigns to pop his fist out of his mouth; he dusts his neatly pressed suit pants off. “Isn’t that great, Tsuna?” he asks, fully articulate now. “You’ve become the boss of the entire neighborhood.”
“I WAS NOT TRYING TO BE!” Tsuna shouts hotly.
Reborn just smiles and wipes his hand off with a silk handkerchief. “I’m glad we didn’t have to kill the Yamazaka Group today,” is all he says in response to that, before he continues to walk casually towards Namimori High.
Tsuna wonders, hopefully, if maybe the Home Economics Club won’t say anything about what they’d seen to the rest of the school.
~~~~~
“He’s a real Yakuza boss!” the rumors say the following Monday morning, as Tsuna trudges to his shoe locker with a defeated slump to his shoulders.
Behind him, Yamamoto and Gokudera make exclamations of surprise and delight when they each find dozens and dozens of muffins stuffed in their shoe lockers.
“Lucky!” Yamamoto exclaims after biting into one and finding five thousand yen.
Tsuna buries his head in his hands.
END
Edits?
Title: High School is Just Like the Mafia in that You Have to Protect Your Turf and Make A Name For Yourself
Universe: Reborn
Theme/Topic: N/A
Rating: PG-13
Character/Pairing/s: Vongola
Warnings/Spoilers: Crack and randomness
Word Count: 3,240
Summary: Sequel to “ High School is All about Cliques and Fear”- Jimbo’s absence leaves a hole Tsuna and company are morally obligated to fill.
Dedication: juin’s thank you fic for her donation! Is it cheap to do a sequel to something I wrote months ago? SOB. Let me know if this is not up to snuff ORZ.
A/N: I seem to have gotten wordy.
Disclaimer: No harm or infringement intended.
Tsuna did not mean to begin his high school career by spearheading a vicious assault on the established delinquent hierarchy of Namimori High and then replacing it with one of his own.
He maintains that it is not his fault that Gokudera is trigger happy, or that Yamamoto has good reflexes, or that Hibari is slightly megalomaniacal and Ryohei is just a little bit over-enthusiastic and forgets his own strength sometimes.
And most of all, he definitely did not mean to let all of these things about his friends lead to his eventually being seen by the entire girl’s basketball team while standing over the comatose and slightly bloody body of the former gang boss of Namimori High School, a third year by the name of Jimbo who must have had some intense thyroid problems and unaddressed rage issues.
As it stands, Tsuna’s family had wiped out Jimbo and his much feared and respected gang of upperclassmen well inside of six hours, on the first day of school.
Reborn had called it admirable efficiency. Tsuna thinks it is psychotic.
As for everyone else at Namimori High, they think that Tsuna is a scary delinquent with a killer one-two combination that moves so quickly it’s like he never even moved at all. They all duck out of his way in the halls and hurry to give him their lunch money even though he never asks for it. Sometimes some of the braver boys challenge him to a fight for the title of school boss whenever they catch him walking behind the gymnasium, out of the sight of the teachers. And even though he assures them that they can just take the title if they want it that badly they never do; in fact, they don’t seem to understand the concept of a peaceful transfer of power at all, and before Tsuna can explain it to them, Gokudera has usually finished blowing them up by then.
And so here he is. The terrible, horrible delinquent leader of Namimori High.
He’d never meant for any of it to start off like this at all. All he’d really hoped for upon entering high school was to have a normal life, particularly with no blood involved at all.
It’s too late.
As it is, he already can’t wait until school lets out every day, and they’ve barely been in session for a week now.
All he really has to look forward to lately is the time when he is outside of school, where he is not known as that scary kid who commands all of those other scary kids. He is not Sawada-sama the delinquent boss, or the mysterious Tenth, a silent assassin rumored to have ancient and powerful European bloodlines.
After school he can just be Tsuna again, on his way home from school, with Gokudera chattering excitedly next to him and Yamamoto admiring the warm sunshine and Kyoko-chan and Haru-chan stopping in front of cake shops to admire the displays every now and then.
Even if his school life isn’t very peaceful, Tsuna supposes he should at least be grateful that this part of his life still is. It’s ideal and nice and does not involve blood or violence or anything that could get anyone maimed or killed even remotely.
Thus, he supposes later, it is something that is destined to end up like all of the other peaceful, normal, non-violent things in his life.
It has to die.
~~~~~
A little over a week after the fateful day that Jimbo and company are officially ousted from Namimori High’s student hierarchy, Tsuna and the others are walking back to his house after school, just like usual.
And then they pass a scene.
It is a scene that involves some students dressed in the beige blazers of neighboring Azabu High; more specifically, three Azabu students are currently gathered in a semi-circle on a side-street, standing menacingly around someone wearing a familiar Namimori High uniform. They are kicking said Namimori kid mercilessly while the kid’s friends are yelling from where they are backed up against the wall, begging the victim’s assailants to please leave them alone.
Tsuna stops dead in his tracks when he sees this; Gokudera and Yamamoto don’t notice anything because Gokudera is too busy calling Yamamoto names and threatening to put dynamite on him in places that would be particularly unpleasant for him if they were to go off. Luckily Kyoko-chan and Haru-chan haven’t stopped admiring the cakes in the bakery window a few doors behind them and don’t notice the violence either.
“Um,” Tsuna begins, because he is the very articulate and fearsome boss of Namimori High. He stares.
Gokudera doesn’t stop walking though; Gokudera keeps going until he accidentally walks right into one of the kids who is committing acts of violence upon their school mate.
“Ngh,” Gokudera says, instead of, “Why don’t we try and see?” like he’d meant to, in response to Yamamoto’s earlier, cheerfully chuckled declaration of, “I don’t think dynamite can go in there!”
The student (Giant Man-Eating Beast) that Gokudera had walked into pauses in his vicious kicking of the Namimori High student and turns around, meaty fist raised mid-air.
“You wanna die?” Giant Man-Eating Beast asks, five o’clock shadow impressive and menacing as he looks down at Gokudera darkly. “Huh, more Namimori brats.”
Gokudera glares back impassively. “Only idiots stand in the middle of the sidewalk and get pissed when people walk into them,” he says, before turning back to Yamamoto and spitting out the original, “Why don’t we try and see?” he’d been going for earlier.
“Um,” Tsuna tries, again.
The Namimori kids, kicking victim included, all look at the new arrivals with hope and awe.
“He’s here!” one shouts.
“We’re saved!” shouts another.
“I’m gonna kill you,” Giant Man-Eating Beast says to a Gokudera who isn’t listening, and turns with the aforementioned meaty fist still raised. He viciously swings it at the back of Gokudera’s unprotected head while Gokudera continues to hotly threaten Yamamoto with explosives.
There is a THUNK.
And then a scream.
Neither of which involve Gokudera at all.
Giant Man-Eating Beast howls in pain when his meaty fist comes in full contact with the end of Yamamoto’s very hard, very wooden baseball bat.
“Is that a new type of game or something?” Yamamoto asks in the meantime, in response to Gokudera’s question and not looking at Giant Man-Eating Beast at all. Yamamoto has always had very good instincts; sometimes they are so good he acts on them and doesn’t notice he did afterwards. Reborn says it’s the mark of a great hitman.
“Oh god not again,” Tsuna manages when it starts, and is relieved that he’s graduated back to words again, instead of just pained, inarticulate noises.
“Tsuna-kun, Haru-chan and I are going to have some cake at this shop, would you like to join us?” Kyoko-chan’s voice rings out from down the street. He looks over his shoulder and forces an awkward, horrible smile at her in response.
“Just a minute,” Tsuna says, anxiously. “We’ll be with you in just a minute. Go first. Please. Please.”
“Sure!” the girls say, and disappear into the cake shop with a tinkling of bells and oblivious, cake-obsessed girlish laughter.
“I broke my goddamned hand!” Giant Man-Eating Beast yowls in the meantime, and his friends look angry on his behalf, as all friends must, even if those friends are members of a ferocious pack of were-creatures that only slightly resemble humans.
Giant Man-Eating Beast’s leftmost friend, whom Tsuna’s mind decides to call Very Large Crushing Thing, advances on Yamamoto to retaliate while Yamamoto is still being screamed at by Gokudera. Gokudera says something along the lines of “Sure it’s a game. One I always win!”
Yamamoto’s baseball bat is back to its spot resting against his shoulder and he doesn’t seem to notice Very Large Crushing Thing bearing down on him at all. He is smiling amiably, and just as Gokudera whips out a stick of dynamite, Very Large Crushing Thing’s foot makes a straight-line path towards Yamamoto’s happily grinning face.
There is an explosion.
And a scream.
This time, both instances, in a sort of way, do end up involving Gokudera.
Very Large Crushing Thing topples over onto the pavement between Gokudera and Yamamoto. His body is smoldering angrily, particularly his foot, where most of his shoe and his sock are charred and full of holes, revealing burned toes and blown off nail bits.
Yamamoto courteously states, “Oh, excuse me!” when he finally notices Very Large Crushing Thing, and steps backwards to allow the collapsing and smoking boy enough room to fall down unhindered.
“What an asshole,” Gokudera gripes as Very Large Crushing Thing’s face slams into the concrete, and steps over him.
“What the fuck?!” the last of Giant Man-Eating Beast and Very Large Crushing Thing’s friends (hereby known as Oversized Hulking Mass of Ape Man) curses, looking slightly less sure of himself as his gangmates either howl or burble nonsensically around him in pain.
“That’s right!” one of the abused Namimori kids pipes up from where he is pressed against the wall, gaining courage with each subsequent Azabu defeat. “That’s Sawada-sama, the new boss of Namimori! You can’t mess with us and get away with it!”
“Right!” another of the Namimori representatives informs Oversized Hulking Mass of Ape Man proudly. “Just because Jimbo is gone doesn’t mean you can try and take over his turf anymore! We’ve got a new gang to protect us!”
“I hate my life,” Tsuna says, to no one in particular.
Oversized Hulking Mass of Ape Man makes a disgruntled noise in the back of his throat and grabs his comrades before making a hasty exit down the street.
“Thank you for saving us!” the Namimori kids chirp to Gokudera and Yamamoto in gracious awe after their defeated foes retreat.
Gokudera and Yamamoto stop and blink.
“Who the hell are you and what do you want?” Gokudera asks, seeing them for the first time.
“Oh hello,” Yamamoto responds when he too sees them. “Are you all lost?”
Tsuna makes a whimpering sort of groan through his nose before turning around and going to join Haru and Kyoko at the cake shop.
Yamamoto and Gokudera cheerfully follow, while the inadvertently rescued Namimori students sing praises to their retreating backs.
Tsuna tiredly enters the cake shop and hopes that the worst of this is all over now, but part of him-the part that has been carefully honed by long exposure to both Reborn and the Vongola-thinks that this is probably just the beginning.
He prays that nobody gets killed. He never wants Reborn to have to teach him how to hide bodies.
~~~~~
The following evening, Ryohei is met at the front gate of the school after boxing practice lets out by a menacing Hibari, who glowers at him as he patrols the grounds. The prefect coolly recommends that Ryohei quickly remove himself from school property for the night now that all school sanctioned activities have ended for the day.
Ryohei growls and tells Hibari to shut up because boxing club never ends, and training is forever.
Then, just as Hibari prepares to bite Ryohei to death for disobedience to the disciplinary committee’s orders while on school grounds, six junior Yakuza members suddenly step out of the shadows and ask the quarreling pair if they know someone by the name Sawada. “Gotta thank him for taking care of my little brother and his friends last night,” is the explanation.
Hibari ignores them because they are outside of the school’s property, but Ryohei grins and says he and Tsuna are great and manly allies.
“Good to know,” the Yakuza foreman says, and cracks his knuckles as he and his friends advance into the gate and onto Hibari’s sacred school grounds. “We have a message for Sawada. Can you give it to him for us?”
“I can give you his number if you want,” Ryohei offers helpfully, because he believes that true men should always speak directly to one another when it comes to either love and gratitude or hatred and rivalry. He eyes the six strangers thoughtfully and as they draw nearer, realizes that they are all good sized young men. “Say, would you like to join the boxing club? I’m the captain!” he asks, and strikes a sparring pose to impress them.
Hibari just glowers at the interlopers as they encroach on his territory and tells them, “No trespassing.”
~~~~~
In the morning, school is cancelled when the police find six young Yakuza members smeared against the front gate of Namimori High. The criminals beg for mercy and are missing teeth when the authorities apprehend them, and all of them make concussed, groggy comments about how terrifying the school’s boxing club is.
Tsuna sees the report on the local evening news that night and quickly changes the channel.
Reborn tsks to himself and says that they really don’t make the Yakuza like they used to.
~~~~~
Things come to head that weekend, when Yamamoto is scheduled to play in a baseball scrimmage for the club. Gokudera and Tsuna are on their way to watch the game with Reborn, Lambo and I-Pin in tow; Tsuna is excited because they are going to meet Haru and Kyoko there and eat hot dogs in the stands and cheer for his friend’s victory even if it isn’t really a real game. It’s a nice, normal high school thing to do.
Gokudera and Lambo start to argue (as they do) halfway there, and before long Lambo is crying and reaching into his hair for explosives.
“No boom, Lambo!" I-Pin tries to chastise the Lightning Guardian sternly, but is routinely ignored as Lambo emerges with a bomb in his hand.
From there, Tsuna is too busy trying to keep Lambo from throwing hand grenades in public at a very not-helpful Gokudera to notice the black sedan that pulls up to the curb beside them, or the men in dark suits and sunglasses that get out of it.
“Sawada Tsunayoshi?” a menacing voice asks, and finally gets Tsuna’s attention as he successfully wrestles a purple explosive out of Lambo’s tiny hands.
“Er…y-yes?” Tsuna asks, and reluctantly leaves Gokudera and Lambo’s scuffle to turn to the man addressing him.
The man smiles dangerously and spits his cigarette on the ground. “My name is Yamazaka. Sometimes people call me the Hurricane.”
“Pleased to meet you?” Tsuna responds, swallowing and getting a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. “Did you need directions or something?” he asks next, hopefully. He’s always hopeful.
Yamazaka does not look lost. “A couple of my nephews made it onto TV yesterday, and I was told you were responsible for making them famous.”
“No!” Tsuna denies instantly, while Gokudera continues to wrestle angrily with Lambo in the background. “I definitely did not do that! Reborn! Tell them!” He turns to his home tutor for confirmation.
But Reborn is conveniently sitting on the sidewalk, sucking on his fist and making age-appropriate gurgling baby noises.
In the background, Lambo sobs, “Endure!” under Gokudera’s noogie assault and reaches into his hair again.
Yamazaka ignores the toddlers. “That’s not what my nephews told m…”
And suddenly there is a bang, followed by a cloud of purple smoke.
The space where Yamazaka-san had been standing is now filled with Yamazaka-san again, only ten years older.
“Boss!!” his entourage exclaims, looking disbelieving.
Yamazaka-san blinks and looks around, and then his eyes settle on Tsuna, who is wincing in a way that says he expects to be hit any second now.
The slightly older Yakuza boss recognizes him instantly. “Tenth!” he breathes. “What a surprise!”
Tsuna blinks. “Excuse me?”
Yamazaka-san squints and looks down at Tsuna more carefully. “It’s you,” he concludes eventually, “but a different you.”
The rest of his entourage look completely baffled.
After looking at them, Yamazaka-san seems to get it. “The Ten Year Bazooka!” he realizes, shaking his head as he turns back to Tsuna. “Amazing.”
“That’s…a word for it,” Tsuna manages, awkwardly.
And then Yamazaka-san makes it even more awkward, when he suddenly gets onto his hands and knees and bows to Tsuna.
Reluctantly, the rest of his men follow suit.
“Please allow me this opportunity to pledge the fealty of the Yamazaka Group to you once again, Tenth! Or for the first time, as the case may be.”
“Um, that’s not neces…” Tsuna starts, before his hand is grabbed and his ring is kissed reverently by the older man.
Yamazaka-san turns to glare at his confused underlings. “Well?”
“WE THE YAMAZAKA GROUP PLEDGE OUR LOYALTY TO YOU, TENTH,” the men all quickly declare, at the top of their lungs and in perfect unison.
Everyone else on the street instantly stops to stare at the scene.
Tsuna notes- with a defeated sort of horror- that several of the onlookers seem to be members of the Namimori Home Economics Club. He recognizes them because all of their muffins always seem to be paid to him in tribute in the hopes that he won’t hurt them.
They hold bags of groceries and gape incredulously at the scene of Sawada Tsunayoshi, feared boss of Namimori High, as a local Yakuza group pays homage to him right there on the street.
Tsuna concludes that it probably looks bad.
A few seconds later, there is another puff of purple smoke, as the proper Yamazaka-san returns from his trip to the future, looking kind of dumbfounded and traumatized.
Tsuna wonders if he’s going to get shot now.
A moment.
And then, Yamazaka reaches into his coat pocket and shakily pulls out another cigarette. “We should probably go, shouldn’t we?” he asks Tsuna conversationally after a beat, apparently greatly disturbed by whatever he had seen in the five minutes he’d spent ten years in the future.
Tsuna watches him light his cigarette with violently shaking hands.
“Um, please forget about this run in, Sawada-san,” Yamazaka-san manages eventually. “I didn’t know.”
He bows one more time, before he and his men quietly climb back into the car and drive down the street very quickly.
Silence.
And then, “Nice recruiting, tenth!” Gokudera exclaims loudly, and flashes dual thumbs ups at Tsuna.
A few feet away, the Namimori Home Economics Club still has their mouths hanging open.
Tsuna hurries everyone down the street.
Once they turn the corner Reborn finally deigns to pop his fist out of his mouth; he dusts his neatly pressed suit pants off. “Isn’t that great, Tsuna?” he asks, fully articulate now. “You’ve become the boss of the entire neighborhood.”
“I WAS NOT TRYING TO BE!” Tsuna shouts hotly.
Reborn just smiles and wipes his hand off with a silk handkerchief. “I’m glad we didn’t have to kill the Yamazaka Group today,” is all he says in response to that, before he continues to walk casually towards Namimori High.
Tsuna wonders, hopefully, if maybe the Home Economics Club won’t say anything about what they’d seen to the rest of the school.
~~~~~
“He’s a real Yakuza boss!” the rumors say the following Monday morning, as Tsuna trudges to his shoe locker with a defeated slump to his shoulders.
Behind him, Yamamoto and Gokudera make exclamations of surprise and delight when they each find dozens and dozens of muffins stuffed in their shoe lockers.
“Lucky!” Yamamoto exclaims after biting into one and finding five thousand yen.
Tsuna buries his head in his hands.
END
Edits?