Let it never be said Mammon was above enjoying making a profit off of other people's misery and suffering. Case in point the mystery illness that kept afflicting the External Adviser whenever he was unable to keep it in his pants. Considering there was still a lot of speculation over whether the woman and child that were brought to the Iron Fort really were Iemitsu's wife and son, they quietly enjoyed the free show.

Right up until Lal bit the bullet, called them and asked for a second opinion.

"Your boss pissed off a gypsy," said Mammon the second they got a good look at him.

Lal twitched.

"I thought gypsies died out after the last World War?"

"More like went to ground, and there are always branches that have simply been more discreet than most. Do you have a recording of the language that the woman and her son used that you couldn't identify?" asked Mammon crisply.

Lal handed over a tape. Upon listening to it, Mammon's face twitched upward in dark amusement.

"I'd bet my fortune his wife put a curse on him to remind him to be faithful to their marriage vows. Considering there have only been 'light' reprimands so far, I wouldn't be shocked if he suddenly turned up dead in short order within the next few years."

Gypsy curses, especially the 'freshly cast' kind, often came with a grace period that included warnings. That was mostly so that the offender had a chance to find who cursed them and grovel until they had sufficiently 'appeased' the one they pissed off.

This not only doubled as reparations to the gypsy who cast the curse, but it also acted as a sort of 'offering' to the old gods who would power the stronger curses later.

Considering the symptoms Iemitsu had been showing lately, it was clear this curse wasn't one of the stronger ones.

Lal thought back to what caused the 'symptoms' to appear, before snorting.

"Right, his wife finally teaching him a lesson about actually being a good husband or else is not my problem," said Lal.

It was Iemitsu's own damn fault if his wife decided to curse him as a way to make him behave, since the idiot couldn't be bothered to actually honor his marriage vows...despite being Catholic.

In Japan...

It had been three months, and Mukuro felt an odd sense of boredom set in. Sure his training was progressing at a pace he could grow to enjoy, but he felt a restlessness in his soul that was difficult to ignore.

Nana called it the "Gypsy Spirit", and didn't comment when he went wandering for hours on end at all hours of the night. This was a civilian city and the Hibari kept on top of things when it came to keeping the less pleasant elements out.

She also said nothing about the budding rivalry between Mukuro and Kyouya, who thrived on having someone who enjoyed fighting as much as he did and wasn't afraid to use lethal attacks. It meant he had to step up his game for once.

Still, Mukuro felt restless and to be quite honest, a little bored.

It was only natural someone who had suffered as he had would be drawn to one of the most dangerous place outside the city limits. An abandoned theme park that was rumored to be haunted.

"You want us to what?" said Tsuna baffled.

"There's a theme park I found that has all sorts of interesting things...and I'm fairly certain there's something there. We could easily turn it into our own little base if we were so inclined," said Mukuro, eyes gleaming.

If Tsuna were a normal kid, he might have declined the idea outright citing how dangerous it was.

Except he was the descendant of gypsies, and from what little he knew of the area he suspected Mukuro was interested in, there wasn't going to be anything too dangerous to deal with outside of a few restless ghosts from accidents.

Besides... he could openly admit that Namimori could be rather boring once you got over the 'oddity' that were the Hibari family.

"Just so we're clear, if we do take over the place then I want Mama to inspect it just in case. I really don't want to explain to the Hibari or the doctors that we got sick from tetanus or something," said Tsuna flatly.

Mukuro blinked.

"You're okay with the idea?" he asked carefully.

"To be honest the idea of a secret base sounds awesome, it's far out enough that the Hibari wouldn't have a reason to bother us directly for causing a disturbance, and this way we have a place to practice our...less friendly...skills without having to deal with collateral damage," admitted Tsuna. "Plus we get to decorate it and have our own little workshops if we want, so long as no one buys the place."

Tsuna knew that with a little training, Mukuro could create a 'shortcut' from the house to the base.

Mukuro was still in a little shock that Tsuna was willing to go along with it so easily.

The park wasn't exactly as Tsuna remembered it, but he did recall that the main reason it closed was because a landslide had hit and the owners were too afraid of a second one. It had happened a year or two ago, so the land was more or less settled...but he still warned the others of a few problem areas he vaguely recalled.

Iemitsu had only brought them once, shortly before he stopped coming at all.

Tsuna inspected the building Mukuro wanted to take over, which dominated most of the park. They could get a good view of the street here and it was still structurally intact with little chance of a landslide happening near it.

"What do you think?" asked Mukuro with poorly hidden interest.

Tsuna grinned.

"If we can clean the place up I think it would make a perfect base," said Tsuna.

Ken perked up at that.

"Really?"

"Yeah, it's a pity we don't have the money to buy the area outright... then we could do some real modifications to it," said Tsuna.

Mukuro's eyes lit up at that.

"Oh?"

"We don't perform curses for personal gain."

Ieyasu coughed at that.

"Actually he could easily brainwash someone into handing over the deeds to the place using his Mist flames..." said Ieyasu.

"What are Mist Flames?" asked Mukuro.

"You know that indigo fire that you use instead of the orange one Tsuna has? That's Mist," said Ieyasu helpfully. "The main thing I remember Daemon telling me about it was that so long as you believed in something enough, you could create anything you wanted...like yen solid enough to fool most civilians."

Seeing Mukuro didn't get it, Tsuna borrowed a phrase from Ken and Chikusa's favorite foreign series.

"'I reject your reality and substitute it with my own'," clarified Tsuna amused.

Ieyasu nodded.

"Dude... did you just quote Mythbusters?" said Ken amused.

Tsuna snickered.

"Sounds like the same concept applies here. So why not?"

Mukuro looked thoughtful at the idea.

"Reject reality and subsititute it with my own?"

He concentrated on something he wanted to appear. Something he believed was right there.

He felt something tap next to him. It was Chikusa, who pointed at something.

Mukuro looked...and almost stared in shock.

There was Ieyasu, down to the last detail...except he was visible to everyone. Not just Tsuna and Mukuro.

Ieyasu looked at it with interest, and poked at it...only to be sucked in!

"This is really weird," he said flatly.

"You're visible!" said Tsuna in shock.

"Who is that?!" said Ken.

"That's Ieyasu, the ghost that hangs around Tsuna," said Mukuro.

Ieyasu flexed his hands a little. While it was a bit strange, and he didn't really feel alive, it was still more than he had been able to do as a ghost. He grinned.

"Wait...this is Ieyasu?" said Ken.

Ieyasu grinned and waved at them.

"You know what this means, don't you?" said Tsuna.

"What?" asked Mukuro.

"It means we can shut those idiot neighbors up about Mama not having a man around the house, so long as Ieyasu-nii doesn't mind pretending for us."

Ieyasu blinked, then he recalled how similar he looked to Tsuna and grinned. Oh this would be fun.

Tsuna stared at the odd pizzaria that had lost it's customer base when the park closed. For some reason all the hauntings had managed to migrate to this particular building and he wanted to know why. That, and from what he could tell the landslide in question was entirely the fault of the angry ghosts inhabiting the place.

He had to wonder what had pissed them off so much that they would cause that sort of disaster to happen and why.

He cautiously entered the place.

"Okay, this isn't a good sign. The grounds are literally soaked in blood from a malevolent force," said Ieyasu.

"How bad?" asked Tsuna seriously.

"On par with the labs you three were rescued from, but it seems that it's only active at night," said Ieyasu after a moment.

"What is this place anyway?" asked Ken.

"It used to be called Freddy's and some American brought the concept with him since there were hardly any restaurants that had an American-based menu save for the specialty ones that cost too much. It's basically a pizzeria," said Tsuna. "It had moving animatronics and a really cheesy song-selection, though there were rumors that the animatronics were leftovers from something that closed down before and they were trying to branch away from some bad press in America."

Tsuna made a note to find out what the 'bad press' was.

"Anyway the source of the landslide a couple years ago stems from this particular building, so if we want to claim the area we have to cleanse the place first to insure the spirits don't bother us," said Tsuna.

"So... we come back tonight?" asked Mukuro. He eyed the animatronics on the stage with open interest.

"After we do some research first," said Tsuna firmly.

A few hours later...

If Tsuna were a normal child, he might twitch at the thought of dealing with very murderous animatronics.

He was not a normal child.

"Hey Mama, I think we found something right up Mukuro's alley!" said Tsuna.

Hearing the weird noise that Mukuro used in lieu of a proper maniacal laugh...Ieyasu had given him weird looks for that one... when Tsuna explained why the pizzaria had to move to another country that didn't speak English as the main language in order to get away from 'bad press' as they called it was somewhat amusing.

Mostly because Tsuna wouldn't be surprised in the least if Mukuro somehow managed to capture and control the souls of the dead security guards for his own personal use, while Tsuna attempted to rehabilitate the souls in the animatronics. He knew they were there...he could see the souls of the dead children chained to them!

Besides...helping the souls of those dead kids might also help Mukuro, Ken and Chikusa get past some of the trauma inflicted in the labs. Being forced to murder people wearing a guard uniform repeatedly couldn't possibly be healthy for them. They looked more like they were in torment when they saw Ieyasu, rather than any of the similar signs of anticipation that Mukuro sometimes got when he was trying out a new curse on someone stupid enough to get a 'seal of approval' from Mama.

Not like those rapists and pedophiles didn't deserve what happened to them, but still!

"This is going to be fun," said Mukuro.

"From the way they were looking at Ieyasu-nii, I think whatever causes them to become murderous only targets adults," said Tsuna. "Which means they might ignore children to some extent, or we might just draw whatever force is keeping them chained those machines beyond the fact I could hear something crunching inside them."

"You think they shoved bodies in those things?" said Ken openly horrified.

"We can find out easily enough once we sent Ieyasu-nii. It's not like they can actually hurt him since his body doesn't actually exist," said Tsuna.

"Great, I finally get a way to interact with the living again and you immediately use me as the bait," said Ieyasu dryly. He wasn't complaining for real so he obviously agreed to the plan.

"I think Ken and Chikusa should stay outside, in case we need to break the door down. Mukuro and I can see spirits, so we should be able to avoid the animatronics or at least distract them long enough to find out what's keeping their spirits there," said Tsuna.

"You say the nicest things, little brother," said Mukuro pleased. Tsuna beamed at him for calling him that. He always wanted siblings to play with.