10 Year Mishap

21

Lambo wanted a damn nap. In the past four nights, he'd gotten almost no sleep because of the stupid Parallel Bazooka. He'd been in the labs with Giannini, Shoichi and Spanner every waking minute with the exception of Wednesday - when he'd played games with Tsuna in his room - and meal times. He was even trying to fix the whole problem when he wasn't in the lab! He really needed a break.

The four had been working almost none stop for five days now, meaning that their boss Tsuna and Parallel Tsuna had been in the wrong worlds for almost a week. Reborn had told them on day two that they had a week to figure out how to get their Tsuna back before he really did shoot one of them in the leg. They all knew he was going to shoot Giannini, though, because he was the one to start this whole thing. Lambo was the next on the list because he was the one who redrew the blueprints for the Ten Year Bazooka, but they were going to ignore that fact.

Shoichi and Spanner took it upon themselves to take apart the Parallel Bazooka to figure out how it worked and to see if they could reverse it. They were also given the blueprints for the Ten Year and Parallel Bazookas for the same reason. Though the two papers weren't the original blueprints and omitted a few things just in case something went wrong.

Lambo was the only one to have the complete blueprints because he was stuck trying to figure out what exactly had gone wrong in the first place! He knew what Giannini had changed, but he didn't know if changing it back would work. He'd run a few simulations but nothing was working so far and the normally patient teen was near the end of his rope.

And Giannini. Poor, Giannini was helping where he could. For the most part, though, he was in charge of making sure the other three remembered to eat and sleep. When he could, though, he would help Lambo with the simulations or he'd help Shoichi and Spanner by walking them through exactly what he did. All in all, though, progress was slow and everyone was frustrated.

Reborn's bi-hourly visits weren't helping them. In fact, he was starting to get on their nerves. None of the four were really brave enough to tell the hitman off, but Lambo was reaching the point where he would either blow up at Reborn, blow up and one of the ther three in the lab, blow up at everyone in the castle, or lock himself away until he either calmed down or figured out a solution. The Lightning couldn't say for sure what would happen, but he had a feeling it was going to be all of the above.

'Speak of the devil.' Lambo growled under his breath when the door opened and Reborn entered the room. No one had said a word about the hitman, but they had all been thinking about how to get him to stop coming in every other hour on the hour.

"Have you figured it out yet?" Reborn asked. He'd asked variations of that exact question nearly fifty times in the past five days. Suffice to say, it was the final straw.

Lambo slammed his palms on the table as he stood, the blueprints and papers he'd been slaving over since Monday afternoon doing nothing to stifle the sound. He stood there for a moment, knowing fully that the other four people were now watching im warily, and tried to calm himself down. It wasn't working. "You've asked the same fucking question everyday for nearly a week now." he growled, "We haven't made any progress since you last asked us two damn hours ago. We will tell you when we've gotten a breakthrough."

"Calm-calm down, Lambo-" Shoichi tried to placate the young adult, but he knew it wouldn't work. It actually did the opposite.

"Don't you dare tell me to calm down! I haven't slept in days, and this-" he held up the papers and blueprints before throwing them back onto the table, "-this is the only thing I've been allowed to do! Sure, I spend some time with tiny Tsuna, but I was chewed out that same night because I wasn't working on getting our Tsuna back! I want him back just as much - if not more - as all of you do! So leave me the fuck alone!" With his peace now said, he picked up the papers, blueprints, and his laptop before stomping out of the room. He was stopped just outside the door when he heard a sniffle. He looked to his left and head chef Layla holding Tsuna's hand. The boy had a bag of cookies and was now crying.

'Damn it!' Lambo cursed in his head. He didn't mean for the kid to hear anything his said. He actually hadn't meant to say any of that! He was just at his breaking point. "Kid-" he tried to step towards the young Sky, but the child stepped away, dropping the bag of cookies.

Tsuna knew this whole thing was too good to be true. These people - strangers, he reminded himself for the first time - didn't really want him here. They wanted their Tsunayoshi back. He was just a placeholder. As he ran away from Layla and Lambo, both people calling for him and probably chasing him, he didn't let his tears fall. He didn't know where he was going. He just knew that outside the castle was unsafe and inside the castle was unsafe. He wasn't safe anywhere. He wasn't wanted anywhere.

He let his legs take him wherever. He knew that he wasn't in any place familiar to him, but he wasn't going to stop just because of that. No, Tsuna was going to keep running because that's all he was good for. He ran from the Estrano, he ran from his fratello and sorellina, and now he was running from these strangers! It was all he knew how to do; all he knew to survive.