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The group stared at the door that was now obscured by blue smoke with various different reactions. Takeshi, Hayato, Lambo and Ryohei were openly showing the shock and slight fear; Kyoya, Mukuro and Chrome were less obvious about it, but the minute changes in their expressions told of the same emotions; Giannini was terrified of the situation now at hand and was shrinking in on himself, though his eyes never left the smoke. The only one to show no change from his resting face was Reborn who turned his body to face the now fading blue smoke.

"First off," Lambo was the first to speak up, "Why the hell is the smoke blue?"

"Second," Hayato was the next to speak as he turned to Giannini, "What the hell did you do?"

Reborn didn't wait for answer from the cowering man as he aimed a gun - not Leon - at him, "You have less than thirty seconds to explain."

Giannini put a table between himself and the others very quickly. "I-I-I don't know! My calculations were all matching up the the blueprints Lambo drewfor me!"

"Don't drag me into this!" the teen shouted, though he was ignored.

Reborn took the safety off his gun in the second Giannini paused. The engineer continued quickly, "Everything was correct! I don't know why the smoke is blue, but it shouldn't work any different that the original Ten Year Bazooka! Tsuna will be back in five minutes." Reborn didn't much like the answer, but he put the safety back on and put his gun away.

As they waited in tense silence for the smoke to fade, two things became abundantly clear. The first was that there was no sound or movement coming from the smoke. The second was that Tsuna's head and torso should be visible by now.

Impatient and worried, Kyoya walked into the smoke to start waving it away.

"Well?" Hayato asked from where he stood, "Is he there?"

Kyoya didn't answer verbally. Instead, he stood up and turned around, showing everyone who he currently held in his arms.

Takeshi, this time, was the first to break the stunned silence. "He's...small."

"A child?" Mukuro quirked an eyebrow in question.

"But, shouldn't he be thirty four?" Chrome asked.

Ryohei went up to Kyoya, "Either way, we should make sure he's okay." The lack of 'extreme' caused everyone to start moving. While the Sun, Cloud, and female Mist were checking on the Sky, the rest turned their attention to Giannini.

"Did you follow the blueprints exactly?" Lambo asked.

Giannini, now held at gunpoint again thanks to Reborn, looked away sheepishly, "I may have changed a thing or two?"

Hayato slapped a hand to his forehead while Takeshi let his Flames spread across the room. It would do no good if everyone started to fight. Mukuro and Reborn were not happy about the calm effect the Rain Flames were having on them, but they let the man do his job.

"There are three minutes left on the timer," Mukuro said, putting his pocket watch away.

"Good," Reborn said, "If this doesn't fix itself at the end of these next two and a half minutes, then you better pray you have a solution."

The engineer was quick to gulp and nod. "How...how old is he?" The question was aimed at no one in particular.

"Based solely off his build and stature?" Chrome guessed, "I'd say about five."

Reborn said nothing more. This entire situation was not what anyone needed today and he was ready to kill a few people. Ignoring his slightly twitchy trigger finger, the hitman moved to pick up the young Sky. "I'm taking him to his room." he said, "Go ahead to the dining room, neither of us will be down for dinner." Then he left.

Everyone knew the implications of that last sentence. Tsuna had made it a rule for everyone in the castle to eat dinner together every night. For someone to miss it, they had to be either contagious, dead, or watching any hostages down in the dungeons. Seeing as neither Reborn nor Tsuna were going to show meant that something had happened and questions were going to be asked. The Guardians mentally prepared themselves to answer questions and Hayato was quietly elected to make an announcement before dinner. He would tell nothing but the truth, seeing as everyone in the castle where hired directly by Tsuna and could therefore be trusted.

Giannini brought his work to the dining room with him, fully prepared to work through dinner. After all, it had been seven minutes.

***

Reborn moved the quilt on the bed before putting Tsuna down and covering him up. It had been fifteen minutes since he was hit by the bazooka and he had yet to return. By now, Reborn was going to bet that the time limit was going to be a lot longer than they originally hoped. Standing, he made to leave but was stopped when he felt a weak grip on his sleeve. Turning, he locked eyes with a very tired looking child.

"Pwease don' go." the child's words were slurred by sleep, "Tsu-kun don' wan' nigh'mares."

Reborn knew full well that he could pull away and this barely awake five year old could do nothing about it, but the - for some reason - bigger part of him made him stay. With a sigh, he sat on the floor and leaned his back against the side of the bed. Tsuna had let go of his sleeve, but his arm was still hanging off the mattress, so the hitman moved so the young child was touching his shoulder. The slight smile on the sleeping brunet's face was worth it.

"Go get me a book to read." the Sun requested from his chameleon partner. Leon nodded and made his way over to the bookshelf in the room and managed to pull a book for Reborn before dragging it across the floor to his human. Reborn thanked him, opened the book and began to read. It was going to be a long night.

***

Tsuna didn't know when in time he was. He knew he was somewhere in Italy, but he knew nothing other than that. With a long, drawn out sigh, he glanced around the area to make sure no one had witnessed him take the place of himself. Thinking about it, he was never going to talk about that action out loud. There were no witnesses, so he mentally celebrated the fact that he was not going to be taken by the Vindance. However, a new problem had now presented itself. He had no idea where in the timeline he was.

Resigned to his fate and mentally cussing out everyone his Hyper Intuition told him was involved, he pulled the elastic out of his hair in an attempt to hide his face while he did a bit of recon. Knowing his hair hiding his face wasn't going to be good enough, he went in search of a dress shop. The one good thing about his build was that passing as a female was very easy.

Some of his staff had mentioned the gender envy they sometimes got when looking at him, so he had long since stopped complaining about being able to pass as nearly every gender. Those same staff members also helped him with makeup and how to take care of his now long hair. The group - Vongola famiglia members only - was full of some of his favorite people, outside of his Guardians and Reborn.

"Time to gather some information."

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