"EHHH! What is this!?" Tsuna exclaimed as his brain tried to process what was it seeing.
He held the Leon mirror with shaking hands as his reflection looked back in disbelief. Closing his eyes for a minute, in hopes that he was just hallucinating, he opened them again expecting it to be different. But it still didn't change. Ignoring the blood smeared on his left cheek, he drew his attention to the two supposedly brown orbs. The color of his right eye was its usual caramel brown, but the partnered pair held a sparkling sapphire blue.
"Tsuna?" Iemitsu spoke up. "Do you remember what happened in your dream?"
"Eh? My... dream?" Tsuna parroted not sure where his father was getting at.
"Is there any relevance in the importance of this dream, baka-Iemitsu?" Reborn asked as he plucked Leon out of the loose grip of his student.
"You said, 'Giotto' in your sleep before the fit started," the brunette's eyes widened in surprise.
"I-I....I don't..." the young boss tried to push through the barriers that were blocking his path to the dream... the memory. However, with every push, it slams back at him twice over, tiring him out. The voiceless consciousness of his intuition was screaming back at him to remember... to get to the memory and remember why he suddenly felt the sands of the hourglass emptying quickly.
"Tsuna, do you remember anything?"
But that feeling quickly transformed to dread. Heart clenched and his vision blurred as he tried to recall the dream. Despite his efforts, he couldn't remember even an image, and it was causing more pain for him as he continued to push. He was sure, for some reasoning in his heart; the dream was a sign... A dreadful sign of something that is going to pass, dragging him, and everyone around him, along with it... and he can't even recall its importance!
Nausea overcame him after his fifth attempt at pushing through the barrier, vision blurring to a vortex of colors.
Reborn, about to add another lump on his student for falling asleep, stopped mid-track in noticing the pale complexion. Not liking the connection his mind was making, gazing at the blaring red on the white shirt, he gently touched the supposedly grip-wounded area. Never, did he expect for the teen to topple over revealing what the boy was hiding underneath him. Cursing, Reborn tore the fabric of the shirt exposing the so-called clenching wound... and cursed another mouthful at his amateurish mistake.
Iemitsu jumped into action upon seeing the damage, pulled the passed out teen into his arms, and rushed out of the door without any hesitation or explanation. The others, not being able to see due to the father and Reborn being in the way, ran after feeling the urgency.
Reborn and Rena stayed behind, quite to their thoughts. They didn't need to guess where the Outside Advisor was heading. There was no point in them rushing to that place when they knew it would take a long time for them even to see the brunette conscious again if what they saw was any indication.
"Reborn-sama... that was-"
"Yeah... that was a sword wound," the hitman replied looking down at the large crimson patch his student was sitting on. He was still in shock at not being able to detect the metallic scent earlier. Then again, it has been almost six months since he last took up a mission as a hitman, so he hasn't been exposed to such large amounts of blood in a long time. "Tch...I must be losing my touch..."
"Did you say something?" Rena asked when he heard his voiced comment.
"No, let's head on up to where everyone is," he replied, jumping onto her shoulder as they walked out.
....
"Dammit! How long are they going to take to heal the wound closed!?" Iemitsu yelled furiously as he and the others waited in a private lobby.
"It's been ten minutes, Iemitsu," Bianchi snapped, irritated that the blond has been saying the same thing multiple times since their arrival. "And he lost a lot of blood if he passed out on us like that. He needs a transfusion, so that's going to take time."
"But, it takes-" Iemitsu began only for his face forced into a full food poisoned platter. Bianchi dusted her hands off and huffed at her excellent work.
Gokudera winced at the twitching form of the father. "A-aniki... that was a little overboard."
"It shut him up, didn't it," she commented back darkly reaching for another platter, where she got it god knows where.
"Y-yeah..." he answered backing up feeling the twisting protest of his stomach upon seeing his sister's food. He did not want to get anymore traumatized than he already is.
"I'd say it's a good job, Bianchi..." Reborn said sipping his espresso, brightening her spirits immediately.
"Did Tsuna's dad go to sleep already?" Takeshi asked, entering the room with a bag full of drinks and junk food, looking down at the floored father not even noting the purple goop around him.
"Just leave that idiot there, Takeshi. He'll recover in a few minutes," the hitman answered. "What is more important is to figure out: where that wound came from?"
Everyone went silent, depression seeping around them. Bianchi stopped her love-gushing to look worriedly to the side where the girls. Both Kyoko and Haru cried themselves to sleep upon hearing the severe blood loss. Lambo, I-Pin, and Fuuta were equally as tired as they sat in between the girls resting on either side.
The Poison Scorpion smiled at the scene. She was used to this now. Ever since she lived in the Sawada household the family bonding that Tsuna shared with everyone, even to her, something had changed her perspective of the boy. Her objective to kill him and retrieve Reborn back into the darkness forgotten as days go by. Now, she respects the kid as a future boss and an irreplaceable adoptive little brother. She cared for the boy just like she did to Hayato; though the latter would have disagreed with her not understanding the fact, he has a phobia of being near her. Every damn moment his stomach churned and he faints she would just assume it as his fragility. Whoever did this will pay with an order of her poison cooking.
"This is a strange occurrence since Iemitsu was in the room the whole time; there was also me, Rena, and Nono before that," Reborn added when nobody spoke up.
"It could have been an illusionist's doing," Rena suggested as she unconsciously fiddled with the golden threaded locket. "However since the room was never left vacant, and we didn't sense any foreign flames, this might have been an indirect attack."
"Is there an illusionist that can do that, though?" Takeshi said out loud in an unusual manner, but edging tenseness as memories of his future encounter with Genkishi reeled to the surface.
"Not when a person is asleep," Chrome replied quietly, slightly pale, but loud enough for everyone to hear. "Though the mind seems vulnerable during the time, it is actually the opposite. The only way around that defense is to get the flames to enter the body directly. For example, using our tritons made out of our mist flames; we make a wound and allow it to enter their system."
"What!" Hayato exclaimed getting up, painfully ignoring the stomach ache from being in the same room as his sister, and growled towards the female Mist Guardian. "Doesn't that mean that Pineapple bastard could enter our minds since he attacked us a year ago!?"
Chrome shrunk into her seat at the angry glare she was receiving. She heard about the first encounter of Boss and Mukuro. Almost all the Guardians, Fuuta and the Poison Scorpion were controlled by Mukuro before. Apologizing to them would have to wait for later as she continued to explain the mist flames properties, though much more conservative. "T-the amount of flames... that... enters t-the body...li... limits the time that w-we can do that."
"Really?" Hayato growled narrowly at her making her nod frantically.
"Now, now, calm down Gokudera. You're scaring her," Takeshi intervened pulling back his unease and stopped the Storm Guardian from interrogating the frightened girl any further. Though it was a success, the anger was then, directed towards him.
"Maybe it was just an EXTREME ghost attack!?" Ryohei yelled loudly for the first time. He was silent the whole time so everyone jumped at his sudden accusation then simply sweat-dropped and waved it off, but the comment was enough for the boxer to be dragged into an argument with the two... err... one Guardian (Takeshi still was swinging the cheerful aura around him).
"Ignoring the three over their; Chrome," Reborn started taking her startled attention towards him. "Mist flames can also be invisible, so it is possible for the flames to enter the body through the air as well right?"
She nodded meekly. "I-Its possible... However, because air is infinite, t-the Mist flames must be continuously in control o-otherwise the illusion fails. D-direct contact is most common p-practice with Mist users. B-But even still it takes a lot of c-control and mental power. E-Even the most skilled of fl-flame users would have problems..."
"What if it was from the attacker?!" Hayato exclaimed pulling away from the pointless argument. "That guy must have done something to Jyuudaime before me, and this idiot arrived!"
"Sawada-sama underwent a thorough health check after my intervention of the abduction," Rena answered back. "There was no other wound beside the scrapes that suggested Mist flames introduced into his system."
"And if that were the case, he would have bled to death already," the hitman added.
"What if it was the dream itself?" Iemitsu questioned. He had bypassed the poison earlier being immune to it, shudder at the memory of his training after his first encounter with Bianchi, and listened to the conversation in silence still lying on the floor.
"You said something about that," Rena commented. "Are you sure he said, 'Giotto'?"
"Yeah," he answered getting up and settling onto one of the available couch. "But before that, he was mumbling about your training," the advisor directed to the hitman. "What did you do to my son to make him dream about your torture!?"
"Humph, if he has nightmares about that, it means I'm doing a good job in getting him to become a boss... unlike you."
"Oi, what's that supposed to mean!?"
"He has more of a brain than your brawn."
"Ne, Reborn-san," Hayato intervened in the hitman to advisor banter; "If the dream was real enough wouldn't the brain concept it as a serious wound and make it appear outwardly?"
"Can that happen?" Takeshi asked catching onto the conversation after calming down Ryohei.
"If there was enough stress placed on the person, probably. However I have only heard cases of those that were conscious and died without a wound but mentally told that it was a wound," Reborn replied getting several curious glances. He sipped his coffee before shifting through his mental resources. "There was an experiment in Germany, with several prisoners that was interrogated blindfolded. They told the prisoners what they were going to do if they didn't answer. One example was telling them that they were going to cut their wrist, but they only had a feather with them. The prisoners didn't know about it and only perceived it as a real knife. Most of them died due to the mental stress of 'feeling' the 'knife' cut across their wrist. They didn't bleed only died because they mentally believed it was true."
Chrome shuddered at the thought and moved herself to the seat next to the girls to rest.
"I don't get it..." Takeshi scratched his head in total confusion.
"EXTREMELY CONFUSED!" Ryohei exclaimed pumping his fists in the air.
"You idiots! That wasn't even a hard explanation!" the bomber yelled once again starting the one-sided argument as well as trying to get them to understand while the adults plus Arcobaleno were left with the heavy thoughts on their minds.
...(Omake Short)...
Though Ryohei wasn't all that bright, he still understood that his little brother was teetering at the edge of death due to blood loss. After all the times that he had spent with the brunette, he could see the extremeness of his spirit and determination. He still thinks that the dying will mode was the showing of man pride. He had never seen Tsuna so pale before. It killed his heart to see the active (he was denying the invitation to join the boxing club most of the time as well as running away) teen suddenly so still and barely alive.
He shuddered at the thought of Kyoko being in the same position. Speaking of his little sister, he looked across the room. She was fast asleep, but the trails of tears were still on hers, the other girl, and the kids' faces. It reminded him of the day he was hurt badly, and she cried over him when he was kicked around by those high-schoolers'. Now that he thought about it, he vaguely remembered someone rescuing them by knocking those guys out within a second, saving his sister, and taking them to the hospital from what he heard.
Ever since then, his urge to become stronger results in his interest in boxing. He practiced and trained to reach towards his goal of becoming a professional since he thought it was the profession of his rescuer.
Ryohei also found a new skill which he thought awesomely extreme since he can heal the wounds with his Sun Flames. Unfortunately, his control of healing something as deep and thru as Tsuna's wound wasn't within his healing range. It felt like he had disappointed his little brother when he needed to help in times of need.
Clenching his fists he mentally pounded himself mentally putting up a new goal... 'TRAIN TO CONTROL MY SUN FLAMES WITH MY DYING WILL!'