There was silence – complete and utter silence.

Tsuna was staring at the two empty seats at his conference table, Gokudera glowering at the same two chairs. Yamamoto was grinning to himself, amused by the absences. Hibari, standing in a corner away from the table, but still close to Tsuna's side, gazed at nothing in particular, visibly very bored. Mukuro's and Chrome's absences were excused, them having left some time ago with Ken and Chigusa for whatever thing they planned to do that the Vongola famiglia would most likely hear about later. But those two seats… their owners were not excused.

Tsuna particularly remembered declining their request, even though it had hurt him to see their crestfallen expressions. Apparently, even his own input hadn't been enough to stop the two. Considering the identity of one of the hooligans, that was actually very surprising. What with that particular hooligan always proclaiming 'I can never say no to you, Vongola'.

Finally, he smiled and shut his eyes. Tapping the table, he drew his guardians' attention back to him. "Let's start the meeting, hm?"

He gave the two missing men a final thought, wishing them the best of luck.

Judging by what he had heard, they were going to need it.

) () () () () () () (

"Goodness, Ryohei! What are you doing?" Lambo howled into the ring, his voice drowned out by the roaring audience; though the group was small, their ruckus easily overcame his yell. "He's playing dirty, man! That's a feint, how couldn't you catch that?" He tugged at his sable locks, trying to calm himself and shove the frustrated tears back. "Tol-…er-…ate…" He repeated the word a few more times before his attention was snapped back to the boxing match. "Oh, come on! That was definitely below the belt! Goodness, what are you doing? Do a counterpunch! A COUNTERPUNCH - !..." He rubbed his forehead. "Goodness…"

At that current moment, both men were in Moscow, Russia, tucked into a small neighborhood boxing club.

And Ryohei was facing off with a seven foot, three hundred pound Russian giant. Not only that, but he was getting his ass fucking whooped. Then again, that seven foot giant was also the first World Boxing Association heavyweight champion to come from Russia. His name was widely known, a source of pride for his country: Nikolay Valuev.

"No! Jab! Jab! JAB, TURF-TOP! … Goodness, I'm starting to sound like Octopus-head…"

In the ring, Ryohei was having the time of his life. The stench of sweat and blood was coating his lungs, a familiar scent that excited him. His fists were throbbing painfully, a discomfort he hadn't gotten to experience for quite awhile. There was nothing like a good old-fashioned fisticuffs every once in a blue moon – especially against such an extreme fighter! He was almost humbled to be boxing with the Nikolay Valuev, a man he had admired ever since the giant had beaten the American boxer John Ruiz.

However, it wasn't the time to be humbled. If he became too humbled, he might just start crowing about how extreme the match was; and if he did that, he was going down. Yeah, he was strong… and fast. Really strong and fast. But he wasn't facing off with some mafia villain or rampaging box weapon. This was a good, clean boxing match with a legend!

So what if there was bloody cut above his right eye, partially blinding him? So what about a few bruised ribs, the dislocated shoulder, and the numerous bruises? Heh, it was all part of the sport!

He shot forward with a left hook, was blocked, and then received a power punch to his skull. For a moment, he heard ringing in his ears.

He stumbled to the side. He caught himself just in time to block a cross. Oh fuck… another feint.

He went flying over the ropes, landing with a solid 'thump' just outside the ring. The designated referee began counting to twenty, his Russian words bleary in the boxer's mind.

"Come on, Ryohei!" Lambo's voice pierced his foggy thoughts. "Move, move, move! You have to get back in the ring! Go, go, go!" The teenager was cheering him on from his corner. The teen had followed him… all the way to Moscow… to be his second (assistant). He was staring at Ryohei with teary eyes, face red from the adrenaline of watching the intense match. "Get back in the ring!" He was bouncing where he stood, Ryohei realized with some humor. That was how excited he was.

Lambo was right. He had to get back up and in the ring. Not because of the match, not because of Nikolay Valuev, and not because of 'never giving up'. He had to get back up because Lambo was depending on him to. The teenager didn't even like sports – but he had learned the terms, taken the courses to being a second, and had supported Ryohei every step of the way when he had asked the kid to back him up for the private little session. Even against Tsuna's wishes! Now that was something.

Lambo was waiting for him to win, so damn happy and confident. Considering how depressed he had been the past few months, who was he to let him down?

He got back to his feet, his vision swimming, and shoved himself back into the ring. Distantly, he was aware of the referee stopping his count at eighteen seconds.

"Yes! That's it, Ryohei! Kick his ginormous ass!" He hadn't heard Lambo sound so excited in years. It raised his spirit enough that he could set his fists in front of himself, slipping into position as the fight resumed.

There was a hint of respect in Nikolay's eyes, he couldn't help but notice. He plastered a shit eating grin on his bloody face, letting all his energy kick in as he started moving faster, started hitting a little harder. Yeah, there was no way he was holding back any longer!

This was gonna get extreme!

He committed a combination attack, first with a feint jab and then a straight left aimed for the man's ribs followed by – and he had waited for that precise moment where the other man was bent down low, arms held protectively to his belly – an uppercut.

Nikolay jerked backwards, arms moving out to catch his balance. He stopped his fall and then sent forth a left jab, other arm held close to his body as he prepared a surprise power punch. Ryohei slipped past the fist, playing the inside fighter as he delivered his final blow – a haymaker. The wide-swinging southpaw had all of his weight behind it as it smashed into his opponent's jaw, an auditory 'crack' following. Nikolay's punch failed to be thrown, body collapsing to one side.

He was KTFO'd – knocked the fuck out. By a broken jaw. Well, that was why the haymaker was a last resort.

The referee began his count to eight. "A'deen… dva… tri…" It took all his strength to keep standing while the man counted. "chetyre… pyat… shest… sem… vosem!" To say that the Russian audience was displeased would be an understatement. For them, it was a knockoff – a heavily favored fighter defeated.

For Ryohei and Lambo, it was one hell of an event. In which they were chased out by angry fans. But, yeah, it was still pretty fucking extreme!

"Goodness, that was… something." They had been lucky enough to grab a taxi just out sight of the rampaging locals, now hightailing it away from their victory. The bloodied and bruised Ryohei had his head in Lambo's lap, a silly smirk on his lips. He held his hands over the front of his trunks.

"That was extreme… I got to fight with Nikolay Valuev!" He weakly pumped a fist into the air. "And I won!" His self-confidence took a thousand-mile boost.

Their driver either wasn't a boxing maniac or he didn't understand Japanese (the language both men were currently speaking), because he kept his silence and kept driving them to their hotel (Lambo remembered enough Russian to point them in the right direction, which was pretty damn good because the only Russian Ryohei had been able to utter in his scrambled-mind-state meant something along the lines of "I eat mothers").

"I know, I was there." Lambo smiled. "That was one hell of a fight. See that?" He held up a hand for Ryohei to blurrily focus on. "I'm still shaking. I thought you were done for a few times back there but then you just kept getting up!" He petted back his sweaty white locks. "Now that was extreme. Your 'never give up' attitude really is something." He laughed softly.

Ryohei stared up at him, his mind fuzzily certain that this was the moment where he was supposed to do… something. "I fought to the extreme 'cause you needed me to." He wasn't quite sure if that was that something, but it got a nice reaction from the teenager.

Lambo gaped at him. "Pardon?"

"When I get defeated, I get back up, train harder, and then fight again! That's just how I am! I didn't want to give up, but I knew I was getting my ass handed to me. When I fell out of the ring, I looked at you and knew that I couldn't let you down. SO I FOUGHT TO THE LIMIT!" His roar made the driver skid the taxi to the left for a moment before righting the car, cursing in Russian. His ears rung from his own bellow.

Lambo stared down at him, touched. "… Thank you, Ryohei… Seeing you win the fight against that giant was… it was wow. It was just… I don't even know how to explain it." He rubbed the back of his head sheepishly.

"'Don't need to explain it." Ryohei grunted. "You just need to feel it!"

Lambo blinked and then smiled. "I felt it… to the 'extreme'."

"TO THE LIMIT!"

"Hah hah hah…"

"Chto za huy!" Their driver cursed, nearly rear-ending the truck in front of them.

Author's Note: Nikolay Valuev and John Ruiz are real boxers. Nikolay is from Moscow, Russia, and John Ruiz is American. With them, I stuck as close to the facts as I could, but~ I don't actually know what Nikolay is like, so I just kind of guessed with what little of his personality I showed in the chapter.

Chto za huy means something very, very bad. Don't repeat it near anyone who knows Russian.

I just want to apologize ahead of time in case someone who follows boxing reads this and realizes that I know just about next to nothing about the sport. I looked it up on a few different websites – the terminology and fighting moves.

Thank you for reading! I will update soon~