Kyoya, Shoichi and Tsuna spent the next days of their summer vacation brainstorming about ways to protect the brunet from his twin on the long term. For now, he would remain in the Hibari household and only leave when escorted by both his friends -Kyoya could fight any threat and Shoichi would remain right next to Tsuna and check for any other danger. But that arrangement wouldn't hold once school started again.
Hibari had suggested that Tsunayoshi could stay and be home-schooled, but the idea was quickly abandoned. The school and Ienobu would alert the Sawada parents and things would degenerate from there. And while Tsuna didn't mind lowering his head in front of bullies and teachers, he categorically refused to spend the rest of his life in hiding, cowering from Ienobu.
There really was only one solution. Tsuna had to leave Namimori. But there were many issues with that as well. Sawada Iemitsu genuinely cared for Tsuna in his own way and would use whatever means at his disposition to bring him back -the brunet's will hardly mattered since no-one would believe his side of the story. Unfortunately for the three children, Iemitsu had access to too many resources to escape him easily. Not to forget that if the Mafia caught them, Tsuna would be stuck with his abusive family under heavy surveillance, and who knows what would befall Kyoya and Shoichi for helping in his escape...
So Tsuna had to disappear with no lead to track him, even for the most powerful and influent crime syndicate. Piece of cake...
At this point in the conversation, both of Tsunayoshi's friends felt the need to make something clear : they would not leave the brunet on his own. Whether it was in planning his escape or him leaving the country.
"But you can't!" countered Tsuna. "You have family or duties in Namimori! You can't just let everything go to help me. It's your lives that we're talking about!"
"Tsunayoshi" calmly retorted Kyoya. He had expected the reaction, but wouldn't yield. "It is our decision to follow you and make sure you are safe. And the Discipline Committee is now competent enough that I can leave Kusakabe to lead for me and keep the peace of Namimori."
"And" added Shoichi just as serenely. "Even if you were to go on your own, that 'Vongola' would definitely hear of our friendship and guess we know something. We would be in danger anyway. I can just tell my family I am leaving for my studies and they won't question me. Might as well stay with you and keep having fun together." he smiled. Anything Tsuna could have said was stuck in his throat : they were right, and he was honestly overjoyed that they were willing to stay with him. He could only direct them a tearful and grateful smile and keep on working on their plan.
Now that it was decided that they would all run away together, they had to settle the detail. First of all : where to escape to?
Japan was quickly dismissed. It was too obvious and the first place Iemitsu would look at, especially since no-one had any idea that Tsuna and his friends could speak other tongues. The brunet was actually fluent in Japanese, English, Italian, Chinese and French by now, and knew basic German and Russian as well as bits of many other languages. Kyoya had mastered Japanese, English and Italian, and had a good understanding of Chinese thanks to his family (his mother was of Chinese descent). Shoichi had started learning languages with Tsunayoshi much later than Hibari, but was by far the smartest of the group (though he didn't pick up languages as easily as Tsuna) and was proficient with Japanese, English, Italian and Chinese. He had just started learning French with the brunet.
It would be easier to fit in a country whose language they knew, at least a little. That left all the English-speaking countries, Italy and China. All the teachers knew of Shoichi and Kyoya's perfect scores in English, and if they disappeared at the same time as Tsuna, it will easily be deduced that they left together. So English-speaking countries were out as well.
