Happy New Year guys!

I decided to update to wish everyone a grand year. 2014 was certainly a time for geeks to freak and I can't wait to see what 2015 has in store for us. So, you guys mad at me? Fear not! I have a shield! *obnoxious laughter* ye can't hurt me!

But really, jokes aside, I apologize for my absence. I didn't mean to leave it hanging like it did, I was just... busy. I won't be updating steadily but I stand by what I said that yes, I will finish my story. BTW, I have a new story "Sunset Hue" that I decided to test-run to see if my romance skills are good enough. I missed Mare and Lia and I just wanted to see if its... well... not shoujo cliche. Try reading it and reviewing?

Disclaimer: I don't KHR but I own Mare and that is better because he's my sassy baby!

"I-I'm Tsuna." He got to his feet, standing slowly before her. She raised her hammer and Tsuna quickly said, "And these are my friends! Please don't hurt us!"

She snorted. "I wasn't going to hurt you."

Gokudera sprang to his feet. "You tried to kill me!" He said, pointing a finger at her.

"Watch it lad, I have no qualms beating you into every inch of your life." She warned. Tsuna grabbed Gokudera's arm and lowered it gently.

"Don't fight her Gokudera-kun. We need her to help us," Tsuna quietly pleaded. Gokudera nodded (unwillingly) and both turned to look at the Storm Arcobaleno. Lambo shifted closer to Tsuna and grasped his shirt.

"Smart aren't you boy?" Rhan told Tsuna.

He didn't reply. The rest followed his example and didn't dare to talk. She eyed them all with disinterest and lowered her hammer. "Out with it you brats. Who are you really?" After a quick evaluation, her eyes narrowed. "Unless you're not really brats." She strode forward and grabbed Tsuna by his shirt, lifting him effortlessly.

"Jyuddaime!"

"Tsuna!"

"Sawada!"

"Tsuna-nii!"

"Now talk."

Tsuna remained still while their eyes remained locked on each other. Instinct told him to do as she says. Intuition told him that he should tell the truth. It only took a split second to decide what he should do.

He opened his mouth. "We're from the future," he said.

~ Vongola Famiglia ~

Usually, Hibari would often imagine smashing Mukuro's face in. Like a pineapple, it would splatter all around with bits of pulp hanging here and there. Right now Hibari was intent to see Mukuro's head do the same. They had parted away from the group when Hibari felt a foreign presence and decided to investigate it. Mukuro followed with Chrome in tow.

Nothing good would come if the skylark and pineapple were together.

Hasn't it always been like that though?

Mukuro had thought it would be fun to annoy Hibari. Well that plan turned to shit.

He whistled the Namimori school anthem in an annoying way – practically everything he did was annoying for Hibari – and made tapping noises with the butt of the staff.

Surprisingly so, Hibari was ignoring him. Usually, even a bit of breathing from him would set the skylark in a bad and murderous mood. He didn't even spare a glance at him. The table had suddenly turned and Mukuro was the one to get irritated. Who was the skylark to ignore him? His fingers twitched.

"Kufu – "

"Shut up."

"Did you just tell me to shut up Hibari Kyoya?" Mukuro asked in a steely voice.

Hibari ignored him.

"He did Mukuro-sama."

Don't get Hibari wrong, Mukuro really was grating on his nerves. He really wanted to take his tonfas out and just make the pineapple go SPLAT! But there were more important things to focus on. Like the faint residue of Lightning Flames that were still in the air. Nobody could have noticed it unless they went looking for it and Hibari, who instantly figured out that the owner was a herbivore, was on a hunt. Only herbivores would cover their tracks and he was the only carnivore to follow it.

Stupid goddamn pineapple. He just had to follow him. His instincts to battle and curiosity battled each other. Hibari had learned how knowledge was a vital part of winning. Curiosity won. Amazingly so he had managed to ignore Mukuro for a while. But that wouldn't last. His patience was quickly dwindling into nothing.

Hibari whipped his tonfa behind him, defending his back from Mukuro's trident. Both weapons clashed and Mukuro jumped back as Hibari swung at him.

"Herbivore," Hibari growled.

"Kufufu, that'll teach you to ignore me."

Never once dropping his stance, Hibari cocked a brow and smirked.

"Are you really that needy for my attention?" he mocked coolly.

Mukuro gaped, stunned. "I-I-I… Kufu, I'll kill you Skylark." He said with pink dusting his cheeks and charged at him, swinging his staff around in wide arcs. Hibari was still smirking as they fought, which only infuriated Mukuro more.

Chrome watched with her mouth set in an 'o' the whole time, silently applauding for the Cloud man's balls to say that to her Mukuro-sama. She saw Hibari kicking Mukuro up into the air and watched as Mukuro-sama flip himself upright. She didn't notice the bushes behind her moving. A hand reached out from the bushes and idly touched her shoulder.

If Chrome were Tsuna, she would have let out her highest pitch scream right now. But she wasn't. What she did do though was jump away with a gasp.

Mukuro looked towards her direction when he heard her gasp, giving Hibari the perfect opportunity to hit him.

"Chrome!"

WHACK! Hibari gave him a tonfa-version of a bitch slap and sent him sprawling on the ground. He huffed in satisfaction and turned to face the newcomer. In front of him was a young male teenager with curly brown hair and forest green eyes. He had his hand reaching out in the air.

Hibari did not lower his weapons even though Chrome lowered hers.

"Kufufufu, what's wrong? Our fight isn't finished yet," Mukuro said as he sat up with one knee propped.

Hibari didn't answer and Mukuro turned to studying the newcomer. "Kufufufufu, I see now. Chrome, step away from the Arcobaleno."

"Eh?" Chrome took a closer look and saw, to her surprise, a diluted green pacifier dangling around the teenager's neck. She quickly ran to Mukuro's side and stayed there, holding her trident out.

"Herbivore." The teenager looked at him and Hibari knew that his opponent wasn't worth fighting. He lowered his weapons at last and tucked them away. The teenager merely nodded, large eyes blinking owlishly at them. Chrome was waiting for Hibari to charge in like usual to beat the boy senseless like he would, but didn't. Confused, she glanced at Mukuro.

"Kufufufu, what's wrong Hibari Kyoya? Is he not worthy for your tastes?"

Hibari snorted. "How can I when the Herbivore is mute and blind?"

~ Vongola Famiglia ~

They had moved deeper into the cave and into a dining-room like cavern. From there, Rhan continued to grill the story from them. Tsuna fidgeted nervously, being this deep underground brought back dark and unwanted memories.

"So let me get this straight, you're from the future?"

"Yes."

"You're Vongola Decimo?"

"Yes."

"These are your guardians."

"Yes."

"The world and time itself was going to collapse so to save it, your demonic tutor from hell sent you to the past to find all the missing Arcobaleno and solve whatever problem the tri-ni-sette has while doing so had gotten adopted by the Vongola Famiglia which ironically you shouldn't be involved with."

Tsuna swallowed. "Long story short but yeah."

"And Kishim is dead?"

"I-I'm not sure."

Rhan gave him a look and grabbed a barrel full of wine, judging by the smell that reached their noses. Raising high against her lips, she chugged it all down in an alarming rate.

"EXTREME!"

They sweat dropped. When Rhan had finished drinking the barrel to the last drop, she put it down and gave them a long hard stare. Tsuna shifted uncomfortably under her gaze and felt his skin tingle. Tsuna wasn't completely sure that Rhan would believe them, only Mare had believed it but he was an extremely odd case. He didn't count. They watched as Rhan dug into her pockets to pull out a diluted red pacifier.

"Do you… believe us?" Tsuna asked.

"You know about the pacifiers. You know who I am." She suddenly grabbed him and roughly pulled him towards her, ignoring Gokudera's exclamations on her thing of grabbing people's shirts and spewing out threats to let him go. Tsuna stared at the unblinking eyes before him. He noticed that there was sadness in her eyes. "And you have something brimming with power in your very own pocket." Her eyes flickered to his pocket on his shirt before meeting back to his. "Do I believe you? Yes, I do." She let go of him and he staggered backwards.

Hesitantly, Tsuna took out his ring. "How did you know it was there?"

"I could sense it. They're obviously Vongola but other from yours, they're not in ring form." She tapped her fingers on the table.

"How…?"

"I'm a blacksmith," she explained roughly. "There's something different about them. I can tell that the Vongola Rings have adapted a better form to suite your signature flames, I don't know what the rest looks like but I know they're not rings anymore."

Gokudera's eyes narrowed. "Jyuddaime, can she really be trusted? I mean no disrespect, but how do we know she isn't under Carmine's control?"

Rhan snorted. Gokudera shot her a glare. "Because I'm not brat." She rolled her eyes at him. "Do I look like I want to kill you?"

"Five minutes ago you looked like it."

"That was five minutes ago and if you haven't noticed, you stumbled into my home first. Which by the way, I want to know how."

"SAWADA EXTREMELY KNEW THE WAY!" Ryohei grabbed Tsuna and shoved back in front when he tried to sneak away. Tsuna cringed when all of them turned at him – his friends we're like 'Tsuna's amazing!' while Rhan was like 'You again.'

Rhan rubbed the bridge of her nose and sighed. "You know what? Forget it. If you are Vongola Primo's descendant, I'm sure you have the famous Hyper Intuition. It's impossible to have found this place by chance… in this case, you're not normal."

Tsuna didn't know if he should be offended or not. She practically called him a freak. So not fair. Tsuna could feel a pout on his face.

"Hahaha! That's right! Tsuna doesn't count as normal – he's too awesome for that!" Yamamoto said.

"Fucking baseball freak! I'm supposed to tell Jyuddaime he's awesome!"

"Sawada is extremely amazing!"

"Meh, he's alright now. In the future he'll be more than 'amazing' or 'awesome', he'll be badass."

Now he was blushing. Even after three years he still wasn't used to the compliments being given to him by his friends, not when they hold him in such high regards.

"This is bad though," Rhan said thoughtfully. "Kishim is dead and Carmine is on the hunt to kill us all." She said it all like it was usual to her, like having some psychotic kid out to get them wasn't the worse that could happen. "Carmine would be looking for me soon."

"Why would Carmine extremely look for you?"

"If he's hell bent on giving Vongola payback, he would go after the Arcobaleno first to remove any distractions and I would be on the top of that list.'" she muttered loudly. "I'm the only thing standing in his way from my brother."

"Brother? What's your brother got to do with all this?" Gokudera frowned.

"The better question is Octopus-head - she has an extreme brother?"

"Damn it Lawn-head!" Rhan ignored the two.

"You'll see. " She stood up, took a deep breath and let out a guttural wail that instantly made them clap their hands over their ears. The sound bounced off the walls and Tsuna clenched his teeth as sharp pains attacked his head.

Birds and animals fled the moment their ears picked up on the sound. Hibari noticed the sudden change in the forest and watched as the Lightning Arcobaleno's ears and head cock to the side. He was listening intently to something that they couldn't hear and blinked. He turned around and stalked off. Hibari immediately went to follow him. Curiously, Mukuro came along as well.

Chrome marveled the fact that the two most deadly guardians were tolerating each other's company. They were in an open place where they were free to act like they do without nobody stopping them (Tsuna) and holy crap, they are not trying to kill each other. Tsuna would have been proud. They followed the teen around till they came pass a cluster of dead trees. Chrome watched as the teen gave them a glance, before jumping down a huge and dark crack in the ground.

Normally, a normal person wouldn't follow some teenager into a crack on the freaking ground. Hibari jumped in without a second thought and Chrome hung back, feeling weary.

"Chrome?" Mukuro touched her shoulder.

She let out a sigh. "I'm fine Mukuro-sama."

"Kufufufu, I know you are." He then jumped down. Chrome stared at the dark hole and followed in. It wasn't that she was scared of the darkness. But being under the ground reminded her of the dark tunnels where her boss was trapped. She couldn't imagine the horror that Tsuna went through, but looking into his eyes after that spoke volumes of what happened. He hadn't spoken much about his own experience and Mare had done most of the talking so they never really knew how Tsuna felt about it and that scares them.

Their boss and friend always had this bad habit of keeping things to himself. Traumatic things even. They could tell he was afraid and that he was too stubborn to tell them about it. They worried for him. Chrome worried for him. The grip on her trident tightened. She wondered how he was doing right now.

Tsuna was doing fine despite feeling like the walls were sandwiching him. His breathing hitched and he found himself standing in a very familiar tunnel, filled with screams that his mind desperately tried to push back. He shook his head and his vision cleared.

"Jyuddaime?" Gokudera's face appeared in front of him, looking very worried.

Tsuna blinked. Right. He wasn't in the mines anymore. No one was getting their life sucked out of their bodies and there was no screaming.

"I'm fine," Tsuna said. No, he wasn't fine. How could he be affected now? Not when his life was on the line then? Maybe because he was too preoccupied with dying? That wasn't a happy thought either.

Gokudera clasped his shoulders tightly. "You're not fine at all Jyuddaime."

"We should get you out of here Tsuna, it's not good for your health." Yamamoto frowned at Tsuna's pale complexion.

"Tsuna-nii, let's just go." Lambo urged him. Tsuna could tell that Lambo was really worried for he reverted to calling him 'Tsuna-nii' instead of 'Young Vongola'. He nodded and gripped Gokudera's wrists.

Ryohei turned to the Storm Arcobaleno who was watching over them with an unreadable expression. "What's wrong with him?" She pointed at Tsuna.

"THAT EXTREMELY DOESN'T MATTER RIGHT NOW! HELP US GET SAWADA OUT OF HERE!"

Rhan cringed at the sound but didn't say anything about it. "Fine, fine, but you'll need to wait for a little bit. He'll be here soon and when he does, we can go on our merry little way."

"All right then," Tsuna said, his voice slightly strained. "Before then, can I ask you some questions?"

"Need to know basis Tsunayoshi." Tsuna nodded.

"My first question," Tsuna took a deep breath. "Who is Carmine?"

There was a pause. "I have no idea," Rhan said.

"How can you extremely not know?!" Ryohei said.

"He's the fucking Sky Arcobelno! How can you not know anything about him?" Gokudera got to his feet, his fists into balls.

Rhan sniffed. "I know the basics or am I supposed to be great chums with him? Anyway, the original holder had to be replaced."

"Original… Arcobaleno? Did the first one die?" Lambo asked.

"I don't know the details, only that she was ill." Rhan admitted to them. "Sepira disappeared eight months ago and after a month of her disappearance, he showed up claiming that he was her replacement."

"Did he… kill her?" Yamamoto asked after a moment of silence.

Rhan shook her head. "Impossible, he never would have inherited the curse unless both of them consented to it. Sepira was already dying out of an illness. I know not of Carmine's relationship or Sepira's decisions but I could tell that she believed she made the right choice. " She crossed her arms. "I would have been sympathetic if her so-called replacement wasn't trying to kill us."

Tsuna and Gokudera glanced at each other, one in apprehension while the other in worry. There was still too little information.

"So when did he become an evil bastard?" Lambo asked.

"Lambo! Don't curse!" Tsuna instantly scolded.

"Sorry."

"I don't know." Rhan instantly answered. "Carmine…" She tapped the table with her calloused fingers, a frown on her face. She shook her head. "He wasn't all that bad. He was a strange man but I never pegged him for a raving lunatic. We only realized it when this happened. " She gestured at her body.

"It was a dark day," she sighed. "We gathered on the Cursed Grounds and discovered that the curse of the Arcobaleno had taken a malicious form. Obviously we're not in the form of babes but we don't appear in our proper forms either. " Rhan tapped her pacifier thoughtfully. "Whatever that has been done wrong has upset the balance. I know not what it is; only that someone had forced their wish upon the tri-ni-sette and it had taken upon itself to restore whatever balance that has been lost."

Gokudera frowned. "You make it sound like the tri-ni-sette is alive or something."

"It is an entity with a force of its own," Rhan said, looking forlorn as she explained. "It possesses a will that not all can hear, but can be understood. Arcobaleno, Vongola, Mare… are instruments of its will, given to those who are worthy of it." Solemn green eyes pierced Tsuna's soul. Suddenly, Tsuna could feel his Vongola ring become heavy and he gripped his other hand to calm the shaking.

Did Reborn know about this? Tsuna doubted it. From what he gathered from the Arcobaleno of his time, they knew jack-shit nothing of the tri-ni-sette other than without it, the world would have gone to hell. Did such knowledge fade over time?

She leaned back on her chair, absentmindedly staring at the rocky ceiling. "We were ambushed." A scowled formed on her face. "Carmine and Kashim… I can't really say I've liked them but the sheer audacity…" she sighed. "We fled – we were not prepared for a fight against each other. Ever since then my brother and I hid here at Dinas Emrys."

Suddenly, they all started asking questions at the same time.

"Did anyone die?" Lambo.

"What does audacity mean?" Ryohei.

"How old is Carmine?" Yamamoto.

"Wait! I change my question! How extremely old are you?"

Tsuna remained quiet. Heavy foreboding washed over him like ice. He could literally sense that something was greater at work and if he were to go into it, he had a feeling that the truth would terrify him. He pushed that aside for now though and focused on the problem at hand – Carmine. What did he do to have royally screwed the universe and time itself? The better question though was why. He glanced at his Guardians and caught Gokudera's eye. His friend's expression mirrored his own as he frowned. Tsuna could feel the oncoming headache that he was going to have. His head hurt from thinking too much.

Their answers weren't answered though when a new character stepped into the dimly lit cave. They instantly jumped to their feet with their weapons out. He was a teen around fourteen with familiar bright green eyes and curly brown hair.

"Who are you?" Gokudera demanded.

The teen merely looked towards the sound of his voice and stared.

"Aidan, you're finally here." Rhan got up from her seat and placed her hands on her hips.

"Do you know him?" Yamamoto asked.

"Yeah. Meet my brother brats."

~ Vongola Famiglia ~

Giotto's Hyper Intuition was on overdrive. Right now he was forcing himself to locate the children with the help of his trusty intuition but that plan didn't exactly work out. Instead, he got himself a headache that hurt like the time he fell into an empty well when he was thirteen. He fell in head first by the way and the well was more than a hundred feet deep. Imagine the pain of that experience. It would be the equivalent of two Reborns hitting your head with a hundred-ton Leon mallet over and over in a tennis game.

That wasn't exactly the best comparison but it really was like that.

Anyway, Giotto was suffering from the self-induced headache and was now clutching his head under foliage of trees. His Guardians watched him and G was shaking his head at him.

"Stupid blonde, haven't you learned last time that you suck at tracking people down? Your intuition may do a lot of things but tracking isn't one of them. Leave that to Alaude," G said as he watched his friend get up with comical tears in his eyes.

"Why are you so cruel G?" Giotto looked up at his right-hand man.

"Nufufufu, I love moments like these."

"When baka G insults Primo?" Lampo asked. Daemon laughed again.

"Exactly," the illusionist replied.

G continued to treat his best friend like a fool, admonishing him for several things. Giotto looked like he was about to cry but they all knew that this nothing more than friendly banter. The two were inseparable, acting more like brothers than friends. For them, their bonds were thicker than blood.

"This is ultimately distracting don't you think?" Knuckled wondered loudly as they watched Giotto jump on G, the other screaming profanities.

"Giotto is stressed in ways that I think we'd rather not deal with and G knows how to handle that," Asari said as they now watched as the two roll on the ground.

"This is ridiculous though!" Elena said.

Asari took out his watch and glanced at the time. "Give them a minute or two."

Like he predicted, both men were up again. G craned his neck till it popped and Giotto was rubbing his bruised arm. The blonde was actually calmer than he was fifteen minutes ago, when he had been desperate to burn the entire area, now he was back to his normal self and by meaning normal, I meant that he was in his Boss mode. Elena marveled how bipolar Giotto's emotions were.

"Alright," Giotto said, going commando. "Let's find them."

They followed Giotto with Daemon bringing up the rear. They walked for more than ten minutes when the illusionist picked up a column of smoke in the sky.

"Stop." They turned around to face him and he pointed to the sky.

"Think it's the brats?" Lampo asked. All of them were about to rush towards where the smoke came from when Daemon stuck out his arm.

"Wait." Daemon pulled out his lenses from his coat.

"Hold on a minute!" Giotto said. "You had those the whole time?" he demanded.

"I did."

"Why didn't you use them sooner?"

"I don't think those are the children." Daemon ignored his Boss, feeling a stab of stupidity. He had thought of it before but he didn't think a little trek through a hill would be necessary to use them. Holding the lenses against his right eye, his vision went past the trees. His lenses were unique from the other Guardian's weapons, it wasn't meant to attack or to defend. It was simply needed to see. His lenses could expand his vision, giving him the sight to see great length, through inanimate objects, illusions and to detect Dying Will Flames.

Ahead of them, he could see several flame signatures, Cloud, Rain, Storm, Lightning and Mist. He stiffened and suddenly brought out his scythe. Those flames didn't belong to the children. What he was looking at wasn't even human.

"Daemon?" Elena held on to his arm.

"What do you see melon-head?" G's fingers instinctively reached for his gun.

"Remember those animals back in the Academy?"

"Yeah?" Lampo gulped.

"They're here now."

They froze for a fraction of a second before readying themselves for battle. Giotto had already entered Hyper Dying Will Mode. The flame on his forehead burned bright.

"The children?" He asked.

"I don't see them," Daemon replied. His boss bristled and the flames on his hands grew in size.

"Could they be…?" Asari didn't finish the sentence as he stared wide-eyed at Daemon. The illusionist shook his head and they all sighed in relief, except for Elena. She looked at them, confused before rounding on her lover.

"Animals?" She grabbed Daemon's shoulder and roughly pulled him down to her level. "Daemon Spade, what has been really going on?" she demanded. Daemon gently pried her fingers away from his jacket but never looking away from the threat before them.

"Elena my dear, now is not the time to talk about this. Later perhaps?"

"Later? I want to know right now!" she said, stubbornly raising her chin.

Asari gingerly placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. "Elena, Daemon is right. If those things are here then it would be dangerous to pursue this topic any longer."

"We'll take care of things here. You, Lampo and Knuckle should find the children," Giotto said, glancing at them over his shoulder. Meeting the eyes of the Vongola Boss, Elena couldn't dare bring herself to not follow the order. Knuckle and Lampo flanked her sides.

"Come Elena, we need to find the children," Knuckle said.

Elena locked eyes with her lover, who was looking at her through the corner of his eyes. His stoic expression melted into a softer one, and Elena suddenly had the urge to run up and hug him. She resisted it. With one last look at her friends, she turned around and left. Knuckle and Lampo followed her.

Stay safe.

~ Vongola Famiglia ~

Tsuna felt like giving in and just faint on the spot. He was glad for the presence of his friends otherwise he would have lost his cool long ago. Their presence couldn't appease the curdling terror he was having now. It pounded on his head like it was a drum but he hid it, because he was interested in the newcomer.

Rhan walked up to the boy, looking over her shoulder she told them, "Give us a moment. I need to speak with my brother."

"Alright," Tsuna said. The two siblings went to the other end of the cave-dining room, Rhan was speaking in hush tones in a language that Tsuna couldn't understand. Aidan did not speak but kept nodding and shaking his head.

"Kufufufufu."

"Jyuddaime, I think this place is haunted."

"What makes you think that Gokudera-kun?"

"Kufufufufu!"

"Oh God, if you love me, please let it not be him." Tsuna groaned as he prayed to the heavens.

Yamamoto laughed. "It's only Mukuro Tsuna, what's there to worry about?"

"A lot of things," Tsuna grumbled.

"Look on the extreme bright side Sawada! At least Hibari isn't here!"

Tsuna brightened at that. "I guess you're right onii-san."

"I'll bite you to death." Tsuna groaned.

"I was extremely wrong."

The interior of the cavern suddenly shook and Tsuna held on to the closest guardian – Yamamoto was surprised when Tsuna suddenly clung to him like a lifeline, the knuckles on the brunette's hand turning white. When it stopped shaking, Yamamoto gently pried his friend's hands off him. Tsuna had his eyes tightly closed.

"You alright Tsuna?" He nodded in reply before letting out a shaky breath.

"I hate being underground," Tsuna muttered, a bitter loathing look on his face. They all heard it of course, but were smart enough not to say anything. Despite knowing that Tsuna was cowardly at times, he was a strong person and strong people hated feeling weak. When their boss opened his eyes again, they looked less bright than before.

Suddenly, from where Aiden came from, Chrome stumbled to the dirt. A figure immediately helped pull her up to her feet. Mukuro had appeared with Hibari following distantly behind. When they saw them, Gokudera immediately started nagging at them.

"Stupid skylark and pineapple! Your fighting might just bury us alive!" Both boys glared at him.

Mukuro sniffed. "I beg your pardon but I didn't do anything."

Chrome dusted her skirt. "Are you ok Chrome?" Tsuna asked her worriedly. She smiled at him and nodded. "I'm ok boss but Mukuro-sama is right. He and the Cloud-man didn't fight."

"Eh? Then what's going on?"

As if on cue, they heard a loud and ferocious roar. The sound traveled down the cavern and Tsuna felt a prickling feeling of dread. The ground shook. They struggled to get their balance when a large snout burst through the ground right in front of them. A mole covered with spitting lightning met their eyes.

"Run!" Rhan shouted, clutching a bag and a long cloth-covered item. Tsuna didn't have time to think about it and broke into a run. The mole let out an ear-splitting shriek that sent tendrils of lighting after them like hazard snakes. It crawled from the ground to the ceiling. It would have reached them but Aidan twisted on his spot and slammed a hand against the wall where he let out a powerful blast of similar Lighting Flames. It met with the opposing wave like forest fire, nullifying it.

Lambo's jaw was hanging as he stared at the Arcobaleno. Aidan turned back around and grabbed him, dragging back towards the others.

~ Vongola Famiglia ~

Elena was so relieved when they found them. Then she was devastated when they separated. They began searching, as Giotto ordered, and were heading downhill when she caught sight of a familiar tuft of brown hair. She was going call out but a flaming squirrel shot out of nowhere. As much as she wanted to go after the children, the squirrel came first.

It was frothing in the mouth, tendrils of green electricity sparked its first and it was twitching. If it wasn't for the flames, Elena would have thought it was rabid. Maybe it was.

It flung itself at her and Lampo stepped in, slamming his flame coated arm against it and batting it away.

"Satan's pet squirrel!" Lampo exclaimed as he rubbed his arm. "I never thought cute and furry critters would be so vicious. Alaude and Kyoya won't accept it."

"Let's just go before it comes back," Elena said.

Knuckle raised his fists; his priest coat was lying on the ground after he threw it off. "It's extremely too late for that."

Elena turned around. Hundreds of beady green eyes stared at them, surrounding them everywhere Elena looked. A pack of rabid-hungry squirrels outnumbered them thirty to one and leading them was the squirrel that Lampo had knocked aside. Its head was twisted in a way that Elena was sure it was broken. It shook its head until it straightened and glared at them, its teeth pulled up in a snarl.

Behind her, Lampo was silently screeching. Elena reached under her skirt and pulled out a revolver. It was a gift that Daemon gave her after he joined the Vongola. He wasn't happy about it but it was something that couldn't be avoided. She wrapped a finger over the trigger and held it up.

"I'll never look at a squirrel the same way again," Lampo said.

"Let us extremely defeat them!"

"That plan was brilliant Father and let's just pray that the heavens will bring judgment to these poor pitiful creatures," Lampo said sarcastically.

Knuckle slapped him upside the head and it took everything in Elena to not whack them both.

How these men ever survived in their fights when they're constantly fighting among each other she'll never know.

~ Vongola Famiglia ~

Daemon didn't know how he got separated with the other Guardians. Probably because a huge baboon launched itself at him and he fell backwards, rolling and wrestling away. When he finally got it off, he sliced it in half with his scythe.

It screeched and turned into a puddle of black goo. Disgusted, he shook his scythe until the black goo came off. When he was done, he looked around. He winced when he tried turning his body. He must have been so focused to keep the monkey from biting his head off that he didn't notice the beating his back got from all that rolling. He pulled out a jagged rock the size of his fist from the inside of his coat.

"Damnit," he growled and threw the rock away.

He could hear the sounds of his comrades fighting in the distance, gunshots, explosions and trees collapsing as the forest shook. Dusting himself as he stood up, he fixed his lenses again. His right eye vision readjusted to get a better look around his surroundings. A small wisp of lightning flames appeared before him, leaving a trail that was almost blind to the naked eye.

He was about to take a closer look on it when a blast sounded nearby. He stumbled and quickly whirled around in a fighting stance. Scythe held ready, there was no one there. The clearing was empty but him and he would have left to rejoin the fight when he suddenly caught sight of a blur of sky flames, followed by the rest of the flames of the sky.

Pure as Giotto's, Daemon instantly knew that it was Tsuna's. Who else would it belong to? Let the others be ignorant - Daemon wasn't that naive. He had suspected that those kids knew more about the Flames than what they let on. Behind the group was a pack of dark-tinted flames. Daemon was swift to move, disappearing in a swirl of mist and reappearing feet away from where he once was.

If Tsuna wasn't running for his life he would have noticed Daemon's presence closing in on them, too bad he was busy running from a pack of storm-coated deranged baboons with a bad case of rabies.

Lambo yelped as one of the baboons tried to bite him. Being on the last of the line, he panicked and summoned Gyuudon and from there, the rest of his Guardians released their box animals one after another. Aidan and Rhan both had wide-eyed expressions on their faces at the sight of animals appearing out of nowhere.

"Hiiiiieeeee!" Tsuna exclaimed suddenly and ducked. Storm infused spit soared over his head and hit the base of the tree. The degradation factor ate away the trunk and in a matter of seconds, it snapped like a twig and fell. They all jumped aside and it managed to crush one of their attackers.

Spiked balls began raining all around them, crushing most of the baboons. Tsuna looked up to see his Cloud Guardian standing on top of Roll, silver tonfas blaring in the afternoon light and a glare that promised a lot of pain.

"Goddamn you Carmine," Rhan said as she backed up beside him. Aidan flanked his other side, a frown on his face. Tsuna looked around to find see his Guardians already in a defensive circular formation with him in the center.

"What are you doing guys?" Tsuna gasped as Ryohei sucker punched a baboon away.

"Protecting you Tsuna!" Yamamoto fended off a wolf that had now joined the baboons in battle. "They just keep popping up!" frustrated, he whistled for Kojiro. The sparrow soared above them, circling just below where Hibari was suspended on air. Yamamoto raised his sword.

"Barriera tranquillo!" he brought down his sword. Kojiro spun furiously in a cirlce and rain flames cascaded all around them in a shape of a dome.

"We will not let those bastards take Jyuddaime away again!" Gokudera snarled and took out his dynamites. Each fuse lit with a different flame and he threw them into the air where each bomb had locked on to a target. They whizzed to meet their mark and exploded in a series of flame combinations.

Stunned, Tsuna could only gape at the surge of over protectiveness that his friends were emitting. Hibari and Mukuro - who he was sure, could only tolerate him - held their stance, ferocity on Hibari's and creepy countenance on Mukuro's. He felt warm in the inside until Hibari said, "I will bite you to death herbivore for getting captured in the first place."

Warm feelings crushed, Tsuna felt crying. It wasn't his fault he got kidnapped in the first place!

A wolf lunged at them. It hit the rain barrier and Tsuna watched as it slowed down right in front of his eyes. Chrome didn't hesitate stabbing it with her trident and throwing it right back at the pack of wolves. Box weapons usually disintegrate when they are destroyed but the wolf - when it came into contact with the ground - melted. From its fur down to its very bones, nothing was left except a puddle of black sludge.

"That is so gross." Lambo cringed.

"Kufufufufu... they're incomplete experiments," Mukuro chuckled. "It seems that Giovanni's work hasn't been perfected."

"Maybe they don't need it to be perfect," Tsuna said suddenly. All eyes turned on him. Tsuna rose and looked at the circle of animals that surrounded them.

The productions of the boxes were different. In the future, their box animals are dormant within their casing until the user would charge them with their Flames. From what Hibari had fought, these animals cannot be continuously charged with Flames upon activation. In a sense, they were like a disposable camera.

"I don't think we can even call them box weapons anymore." The foreboding look on Tsuna's face was so out of place they felt uneasiness settle in their stomachs.

"Jyuddaime, do you think that Carmine deviated from the original designs?" Being the smartest out of the group, Gokudera understood him.

"He took pure Flames from those children and used them to create these beasts," Mukuro said. He slashed the air and the group of animals that stood a few feet away from him was sliced in half. "I wouldn't put it past him to alter the designs as well."

"Does this mean it's extremely bad!?"

"Senpai, I don't think bad would even begin to describe what all this is." Yamamoto blanched.

"We're doomed!" Lambo wailed dramatically yet he head butted a baboon. He staggered for a moment and shook his head.

"So these are what Carmine was working on," Rhan said. She stared at the animals attacking the Rain Barrier. "It's worse than I thought."

"It gets uglier," Gokudera muttered. He looked behind him. "Oi Yamamoto, how long can this barrier hold? Kojiro can't do it forever."

"Ah," Yamamoto commented worriedly. "I'm not sure how long."

Heavy stomps echoed throughout the land, sending small jolts of earthquakes like ripples in the water. They all stared at the creature that made its way towards them. It was humongous, bigger than the gorilla they encountered at the academy. Masses upon masses of squirrels clustered together to form a huge squirrel Godzilla. It was a furry hell of teeth, acorns and fur.

"Not cute! Not cute at all!" Lambo shrieked.

"Make that five seconds," Yamamoto said in a very small voice.

Squirrel-zilla lifted its tail and all of them bolted.

They didn't get far. The shadow itself had dwarfed them by size. Tsuna was horribly reminded of Enzio during their impromptu camping-slash-survival trip to Death Mountain. Fate decided to play its hand at that very moment in the form of a particular root sticking out of the ground. In Vongola Tenth Generation-style, Lambo tripped on it and in turn, Tsuna tripped on him. Both boys went sprawling on the ground.

This was the most ridiculous way to die; after all they've been through, Tsuna thought as the seconds counted away to his imminent death. Even so, Tsuna reached out to grasp Lambo's hand. Feeling the sweaty palm in his hand, Tsuna pulled the other boy closer. Lambo raised his shield in hopes that he would be able to shield them.

Is this how the tenth boss, Sawada Tsunayoshi leaves this world? Becoming an adorable-brunette pancake?

Wide-eyed and paralyzed, Tsuna watched their impending doom come upon them in slow motion.

What came after would have given him a heart attack. Standing before him, wielding a very familiar scythe was Daemon Spade. The First Generation of Mist sliced Squirrel-zilla into half.

"It's regenerating!" Gokudera exclaimed from somewhere. Tsuna couldn't turn to look, too petrified with what's in front of him. Lambo cowered beside him, shield still held up as if the danger was still after them.

Calmly assessing the mass of fur in front of him, Daemon lifted his right hand and snapped his fingers. Tsuna's mind felt the ripple of a powerful illusion blanket the land like a snowstorm and he gasped at its overwhelming power. Mukuro had his moments but Daemon… his power was more like Tsuna's own Hyper Intuition. It felt like… like destiny. Like Daemon Spade was destined to wield this power. Mukuro couldn't even compare – his was an echo of Daemon Spade's true power and Tsuna had a feeling at the back of his head that Mukuro felt it as well.

Daemon had no need for machinery or box weapons, he made illusions real. The surrounding trees shed their leaves, leaving them bare to the bark and began surrounding the monster like a swirling green cyclone. There was no wind to accompany the swirling leaves. It was as if the action was made out of time.

They all stared, loss of words as the leaves simply froze – like daggers aimed for a target, each leaf became a blade in the light, and all of it pointed at Squirrel-zilla. In a span of a breath, the immobilized leaf blades rained as one, striking the monster to the ground without pause until nothing remained.

Deamon Spade still had his back turned from them, from Tsuna. He tilted his head to peer over his shoulder, his cold gaze freezing Tsuna once again. It was a dreadful feeling that settled over his heart that Tsuna realized that there was no hiding it now.

*le gasp* of all people to pick to reveal, it had to be Daemon.

There you have it, shit has hit the fan and now its time to get into the heart of the story. Plenty of angsty stuff up ahead and plot twists. Care to share some theories about what's to come?

Anyway, I feel like taking a challenge. Will someone tell me a headcanon (that's totally not in any shape or form of yaoi) challenge to write? Promise to kick ass!

REVIEW!

(Because feedback is extremely appreciated)