The return to the Hibari mansion was mercifully less tense than the entire dinner at Takesushi, given that Tsuna opted for total silence from beginning to end. It kept Kurokawa (she had lost her 'san' privilege today after bitching so much) from finding material to complain about, which was always a win in the Sky's book.
Hopefully some of them managed to unwind and gain some sense of peace from the whole experience. Tsuna's usually calm temper was in turmoil after enduring Kurokawa's verbal abuse, and he would have hated for it to have been for nothing.
He didn't even remember wishing anyone a good night before he retreated to his room and went to sleep.
()()()()()()
The next day, Tsuna apologized profusely to everyone but Kurokawa about yesterday's rudeness
He had been pissed by the way the girl had demeaned him all night, but that had been no reason to submit his friends to the same treatment. Thankfully, his 'understanding' (or rather just-as-incensed-by-Kurokawa's-attitude-as-he-was) friends either accepted his apologies easily or brushed them off as unnecessary.
The next day went by in silent tension, like a fuse that had been laid bare, but hadn't been lit yet. Hayato and Tsuna tried their best to instill the basis of Flame control to an over-enthusiastic Ryohei-nii – with little to no success – Kurokawa, Haru and Kyoko-chan perused the piles of documents pilfered from previous raids against the Momokyokai and the rest of them patrolled Namimori in search of more criminal hideouts.
So far, while they had captured scores of Momokyokai henchmen, they had yet to net anyone higher up in the ranks or anyone from the Carcassa Family that had so abused Skull. Except for a brief encounter with Hayato early on, where he had intervened to save Haru, they had not spotted a single Italian mafioso, which prompted Mukuro to suggest that they had gone to ground.
"They're visibly not a very influential family; if they thought the lapdog," he ignored Hayato's scream of outrage, "was someone from a prominent family, they might have decided to wait it out in hiding until he was gone. Seeing the Momokyokai get wiped out afterwards probably only compounded that belief."
Tsuna frowned. Mukuro made a lot of sense, but something still felt wrong. "But why would they think Hayato was from an important family? He might have won against a few of them, but there's no reason to jump to that conclusion."
"The bastard herbivore." Said Kyoya out of nowhere and without an explanation.
"Oh." The Cloud was probably onto something, realized Tsuna, who had literal years of experience in translating Kyoya's short sentences. Then he caught the lack of understanding in his friends' faces and elaborated. "That's the name Kyoya gives to Ienobu, my brother. I think he means that, if the Carcassa knows of the Sawada family here, they might assume that this is Vongola territory and that any strong and mafioso-looking guy here must be part of Vongola."
The Cloud grunted to express his agreement.
"That's nice and all, but it doesn't help us drive them out of Namimori." Cut in Kurokawa, whom Tsuna would have wanted to keep out of the reunion, but she always managed to weasel or intimidate her way in.
"It doesn't." Admitted Mukuro with a vaguely murderous air. "But it's all we have for now; unless you have information that you kept from us?"
