10 Year Mishap

26

The progress on the new Bazooka was progress. While Shoichi and Spanner built it, Lambo and Giannini tested the other two Bazookas on objects and rats, just as they had planned.

The rest of the Guardians, Reborn, and the castle staff had stopped worrying about where Tsuna could possibly be. Kyoya had send a message to the Guardian group chat - something he had no choice to be a part of - saying that the child was with him. He wouldn't tell them where, though. Mukuro and Chrome had passed the message onto everyone in the castle and that was that.

Tsuna and Kyoya had stayed in their spot between the walls, listening in on everything happening in the lab. At some point, Tsuna had found himself leaning on Kyoya's shoulder, against his better judgment. Kyoya didn't seem to mind, so he didn't move away. Actually, Kyoya had given the boy his phone in order to keep him occupied while he took a short nap. He knew he'd wake up if the kid moved, so all was good.

While Kyoya slept and Tsuna played on the man's phone, he couldn't help but get severely distracted. Yes, the game he was playing was a nice way to get away from his thoughts about how these guys don't want him here, it wasn't able to hold is attention for long. Besides, it didn't seem like the kind of game this guy would just have, so that means he'd gotten it for him. Or maybe Tsuna was thinking too much into it.

With the game unable to keep his focus, Tsuna turned the phone off and let himself fall deeper into his mind. He was going home soon. But did he really have a home in the first place? He'd been on the streets for the better part of a year now, and he was in a lab somewhere in Italy before that! Even before the lab, he didn't know if he had a home or a family. If he did, did they not want him? Had he done something wrong? Did he leave on his own? If so, why?

Tsuna knew this was a dark and very dangerous path to let himself walk along, but he couldn't help it! He'd normally be able to distract himself from thoughts like these, but that was when he needed to be attentive to survive. And that was another thing these people had made him forget. He'd let his guard down around them and now he was struggling to put it back up. Even now, as he sat in forgotten passageways between walls with Kyoya, he was finding himself comfortable and relaxed. Every moment he spent here was making forget. It was dangerous to forget. He lived on the streets in Mafia Territory. These lessons had kept him alive in the lab and on the streets, forgetting them will get him killed.

'Kyoya and Mukuro', Tsuna found himself thinking, 'don't need to know that, though.'

***

Three hours later - two hours longer than the anticipated time - found the four engineers quietly celebrating a finished third Bazooka and finished tests on the first two. Now all that was left to do was do tests on their newly finished project and accumulate the data. Once that was done, they'd present their findings and - hopefully - get Tsuna back.

"Diagnostics complete?" Shoichi asked, not looking away from the simulation he was rewatching.

"Yep!" came Spanner's answer from the other side of the lab.

Lambo was the next to speak up, "We ready to test this?"

Giannini answered him, "Yeah!"

The four stood near the back of the room in their temporary testing area. Lambo was voted to do the actual test because Giannini wasn't allowed t and the other two just didn't want to. So, the fifteen year old stood a few steps in front of the others and targeted the pencil. He placed the Bazooka on top of the object and pulled the trigger and a small puff of baby blue smoke covered the ground. With bated breath, the three observers watched as Lambo removed the Bazooka. The pencil was gone. They waited for five minutes to see if it would return. In another puffy of blue smoke, the pencil reappeared and the four erupted into shouts of joy.

"We did it!" Giannini called.

"Did what?" Reborn's voice asked from the door and all four froze in their spots.

***

Tsuna couldn't decided whether or not listening in was a good idea. At the beginning, he figured it would be the best way to know they'd figured out how to get him home - for lack of a better term because he didn't have one - without having to interact with anyone aside from Kyoya who just wouldn't leave him alone. But now he wished he had gone back to the room he'd been staying in.

Turns out that these assholes have known how to get him back the entire fucking time! He knew they were making it more complicated than it needed to be, but he didn't say anything because he trusted them! A foolish mistake he would die before ever making again.

When he had heard Lambo tell Reborn exactly what they'd been doing the whole week and that they had been working on a project under the guise of it being a problem that didn't exist. Suffice to say, Reborn snapped whatever spine the four had grown because their project had put their boss in danger.

He'll be the last to admit that him being an afterthought hurt a bit.

Turns out that Tsuna's first and unvoiced thought of 'Just shoot me with the Parallel Bazooka to get your boss back' was the solution to the problem. Sure, there was a small chance that it would have sent him to a different world than his own, but playing Musical Worlds would have been better than trusting these people.

A stood up from his seat so fast that Kyoya woke up and started to look for danger. Upon seeing none, he turned his focus to the child. It was a bit of a surprise to find the young Sky standing in a defensive and closed off position. That's when he tuned into the conversation happening on the other side of the wall. 'That explains it,' he thought, 'The mini-omnivor already had trust issues. He'll probably never trust anyone again.'

Fight or flight once again presented themselves to Tsuna. After almost no deliberation, he ran to find an exit. He needed to get away. These bastards were keeping him here! They had put him and his parallel self in danger and tricked him into trusting them! A rookie move that Tsuna berated himself on.

'Emotions, attachment, trust.' he thought, 'All of them useless. They'll only get you killed in the end.'