Disclaimer: If Katekyo Hitman Reborn were mine, I wouldn't need to write fanfics. If any of these songs were mine, I wouldn't be writing fanfics.

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Minimal fluff 09!

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Claddagh

Life was starting to crawl back to normal. Gokudera and Yamamoto were (in their own way) happy, Hibari was being affectionate (?), and Mukuro was standing at the gate, waiting for him.

Some of these days, he would just rather see a pissed off Hibari at the gate then Mukuro. Where was Hibari anyway? He was usually there to walk him to school.

Mukuro wasn't seeking Tsuna, though. "Where's Basil-chan?" he demanded as Tsuna walked up to him. There was a scalding intensity that Tsuna almost shrank back from.

"Basil-kun? Um…he went back to Italy…"

"Italy?" Mukuro almost snarled and turned to the horizon. "Why?"

"My dad wanted him to go back. He left a few days ago."

"A few days ago?" Mukuro's aura suddenly became dark. "Why didn't he tell me?"

"Why would he tell you for?" Tsuna asked, suddenly gripping his school bag in his display of defense. "Weren't you just using him?" At least, that's what he got from Basil and Reborn's conversation. He wasn't sure of the details, but Mukuro had made Basil all flustered and confused and he knew something like this was going to happen.

Mukuro had other ideas, though. Grabbing Tsuna on the collar, he narrowed his eyes. "Where in Italy is he?"

Tsuna's confidence fell. Mukuro had always scared a bit and now at such a close proximity, he almost cringed. "I don't know, I don't know!"

"What are you doing?" All at once, Mukuro was knocked away by Hibari, who suddenly stood in front of Tsuna. "Get outta here, Mukuro. Aren't you done having your fun? Keep your hands off this boy."

"Hibari…"

"Where's Basil?" Mukuro shouted. He pulled out his blade and looked ready to beat the information out of Tsuna, who unfortunately had no idea.

"Vongola headquarters." All three looked up and saw Reborn standing at the gate. "The location is secret but I think you know where it is? Or at least, you can find it when you get there."

Mukuro looked skeptical at this information but put the knife away. Reborn continued to stare at him. "But why do you want to know, Mukuro? This is unlike you to target someone so far from the Vongola blood line."

"Shut it, baby. I have my reasons." Mukuro cocked his head and met Tsuna's eyes. With a strange smile, he waved. "Sorry to scare you like that, Tsuna. I'll come back for you, I promise, when I return from Italy!" As appropriate for the Mist Guardian, Mukuro disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

What a morning this was turning out to be.

--

Failure. Utter failure. Ken sighed as he curled up on the bed. People should take pity on such depressed creatures. Instead, Chikusa was kicking at him to wake up because Chrome and Mukuro were leaving to go somewhere undisclosed and they had to do the chores for the day.

"Kaki-pii, I'm depressed."

"I can see that. Now get your lazy ass out of bed."

"I lost Basil-chan to Mukuro-sama."

"You know Mukuro-sama gets first dibs. I don't know what you saw in that little runt to begin with." Chikusa gave up on rousing Ken and started to find money to buy food.

"You wouldn't understand. This isn't fair! Mukuro gets everything!" Now that said person wasn't here, Ken could complain as loud as he wanted. "Mukuro gets all the good stuff! Now who am I left with?!"

"You still have me," Chikusa said, still rummaging around the cabinets. Even though M-M was gone, he thought she had left a stash of cash somewhere. That bitch probably had taken it back when she fled.

"Yeah, maybe, but you're so boring."

"…that's not nice at all."

--

Gokudera had heard his alarm and was sleeping in a state of paused animation when he felt something akin to murderous intent and opened his eyes to see Yamamoto's face swimming dangerously close to his own. And this was his house.

"What the hell are you doing in my house?" Gokudera yelled, sitting up and headbutting Yamamoto shamelessly. Waiting for an answer as Yamamoto gripped at his forehead in pain, he saw that the door was still closed, the windows were unbroken, and Yamamoto's crap was near the door.

"Sorry! You were late so I decided to check up on you and I found your spare key in the crack above the door."

"Something's called privacy, and you need to respect mine!" Gokudera threw the comforter over Yamamoto as he rushed to get dressed. "And what were you trying to do, suffocate me?!"

"I was trying to kiss you good morning," Yamamoto's voice, muffled, said from under the comforter.

"You hentai! Get outta my house!"

"Don't be mean, Gokudera," Yamamoto sulked, pulling the comforter off his head and catching Gokudera in a moment of undress. "Sorry," he said sheepishly as he pulled the comforter over his head again.

"Idiot! Get out of here!"

Whipping the comforter over his head and turning as not to invade any more privacy, Yamamoto grabbed his stuff and was out of the apartment before Gokudera could even add anything to his sentence. Letting out a sigh of relief, the Italian bomber grabbed a quick breakfast and jammed on a few rings before rushing out the door. He really was late. Glancing down as he descended the stairs, he noticed he had put the Claddagh on with the heart facing his hand.

He was 'married'. Swell.

Leaping off the last step, Gokudera almost barreled into Yamamoto, who was still standing in the street. Catching his balance, Gokudera glared at him.

"Why are you still here? We're late, aren't we?"

"Yeah, five minutes, but I always wait for you, don't I?"

Blinking at the baseball freak's utter stupidity, Gokudera almost sighed exasperatedly. The nerve of humanity, setting him up with someone so dense as Yamamoto. Leaning over to peck him on the cheek as a brief thanks, Gokudera sprinted off before Yamamoto could say anything about the unusual public display of affection. "We're going to be late, you starry eyed idiot, so step on it!"

"Oh, right!"

--

Nothing like the calm air of Italy…although he admitted he liked being with Sawada-dono and everyone else, Basil's heart really belonged at home, in Italy. The huge Vongola villa was still like he remembered it (well, after all, he'd only been in Japan for a few months, really) and after a refreshing shower, he was ready to go to bed and was currently pulling out clothing from his still unpacked luggage when there was a knock at the door.

"Come in."

The door swung open and Iemitsu stood in the doorway. "Basil-kun, it's glad to have you back."

"Oh, hello Master." Smiling welcomingly, Basil turned back to his luggage. "How is thou?"

"I'm well, thanks." Iemitsu lingered in the doorway. "How was Japan?"

"It was great. Sawada-dono's doing fine. He's really making friends with Hibari-dono." Smiling to himself, Basil tried to straighten the wrinkles in a shirt.

"Did you meet anyone…special?"

"No, no one in particular."

"Is that so." Iemitsu crossed the room. Basil was used to his teacher randomly barging in his room so he was at peace with the Master entering. Although the whole night meeting took a strange turn when he felt an arm snake around his waist.

"Master?" Basil wasn't sure what was going on and he sure as hell didn't like where it was going. The Master had never invaded personal space before and he was married for crike's sake! Trying to turn, Basil realized the grip was vice-like and he couldn't move at all.

"You didn't meet anyone special at all?"

"I told thou, it was all the same people. What are thou doing?"

"I'm disappointed in you then, Basil." Whipping him around, Iemitsu started to bend down but Basil beat him to the punch and slapped a hand against the Master's mouth. This was very unlike the Master and only when he saw the Claddagh on his finger and the strange glint of one of Iemitsu's eyes that Basil suddenly caught on. "Mukuro-dono?"

Chuckling, Mukuro appeared in a puff of smoke and gripped Basil closer. "I was wondering when it would take you to realize it was me. I would have hated to molest you in that old man's body."

"What are thou doing here?"

"To see you, bella. I'm disappointed in you. You didn't meet anyone special." Mukuro tapped his forehead against Basil's.

"I didn't meet thou. I already met thou before."

"Why didn't you tell me you were coming here?"

Basil looked away for a second before his eyes trailed back to Mukuro's mismatched ones. "Why would thou have cared?" He stared up at Mukuro in the same challenging way he had a few weeks before that had almost won him over. Mukuro sighed, keeping his hands around Basil protectively as if the boy could be snatched away if he didn't hold on tight enough. "Because bella…I—"

Basil's blue eyes were looking at him so hopefully that Mukuro didn't feel the need to finish the sentence/confession(?) and kissed him hard. He felt Basil chuckle under him, as if the Italian had known the words he left out. A slow smirk growing on his face, Mukuro reached out for the door without breaking contact with the young Vongola apprentice and closed it, hiding them behind closed doors.

And for good measure, he decided to lock it.

--

The real Sawada Iemitsu sighed as he sat on the roof of the villa. He really probably should have told someone that he saw a clone of himself sneaking around. But he didn't sense anything wrong, no murderous intent or anything. And the clone was sneaking to the part of the villa where only Basil resided. Iemitsu had kept enough contact with Reborn to know that Basil was getting involved with Rokudo Mukuro, the Mist Guardian that he had appointed only months before.

Puppy love. And if nothing bad was going to happen, why should he stop it? After all…he had left his beloved Nana back in Japan…ah, Nana…

Staring up at the stars, Iemitsu let a lazy nostalgic smile spread on his face, but it turned into a grimace eventually. He still had that bad feeling and his bad feelings usually turned into bad things.

Something life-changing was going to happen soon. Basil had hinted about his bad feeling, but he didn't want to burden the boy with something he wasn't quite sure about yet. He had to wait a bit, see how things ran out before he sent Basil back with news to Reborn. He wouldn't get Tsuna involved if he didn't need to.

Or did it involve Tsuna? His vague intuition was throbbing at the mention of his son's name.

Well, it would be fine. Reborn was with Tsuna, after all. And when was his son not able to raise above misfortunes? He was marked to be the next Vongola boss, mind you.

First things first: he should probably have a 'talk' with Basil. He was sitting above his apprentice's room and he wasn't quite liking what he was hearing.

--

Ah, such is life. Reborn and Lambo fighting again. He trying to make peace. Lambo pulling out the Ten-Year-Bazooka. Trying to shoot himself again…

But out of all the days to miss, it had to be today. Tsuna's eyes widened when he saw Reborn vanish before his eyes…and the dust settled to reveal no one. No Reborn, not even ten years later Reborn.

"Reborn?"

Lambo had run off, as usual, when he sensed he was in risk of getting in trouble. Well, Reborn would come back after ten minutes…he could just go home and wait. And besides, he wasn't a fan of Reborn's 'training' strategies anyway.

Although it was rather troubling when a baby doesn't show face after a few days. Then it starts to smell sketch.

"Reborn!"

He had everyone looking for the suit-wearing baby, but no one had seen him for days. Kyoko and Haru were beyond themselves in anxiety. They had always had affection for all the babies. Maternal instinct, Tsuna suspected. Call it fatherly instinct, but it was a bad thing that Reborn hadn't appeared after so long.

"Lambo! The Ten-Year Bazooka!" And then, of course, Lambo chooses the most inconvenient time to deny the existence of such a thing. That bazooka was the cause of so many troubles! Not even Gokudera or Yamamoto or even Hibari could turn back time or go forth and so on. Now that weird gun was the only hope he had and…

Tsuna had never been sent back in time before. Although the bazooka had not been pulled out, he had to believe the flash and tug into a wormhole had to mean one thing: he was going somewhere in time.

And talk about ominous: when he came too, he was lying in a coffin. As he blinked in the light, Tsuna thought back to when Reborn was talking about his father's intuition and Iemitsu sensing something bad in the makings.

Was this it?

Going forward or backward in time?

He was going to have to believe it. Just when he thought everything had calmed back down.

Things were going to be getting interesting.

End

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Note: ADMIT IT! I had you guys sweating! I usually update after nineish days and now this. And I've been contributing and obsessing over the Hetalia fandom…It was fun while it lasted. And admit it; you thought Iemitsu was a pedo. Not. He and Nana are canon, I wouldn't break that up. But Basil makes everyone a pedo (laughs). Well, here we have it. The last Claddagh chapter. Thanks for sticking with me and reviewing when I threatened you all too. It would only be courtesy for leaving a tip after staying so long. I have nothing to hold against you so it is your own conscience that will force you to review. I hope it brought some sort of joy in your lives.

I think it would be appropriate to say that I am now a proud owner of a claddagh ring.

Hold your applauses.

Thanks for reading!