SkyGem: Hey guys! Surprised? Lol~ Well, I was convinced to end my hiatus early, and you've got my FB fans to thank for that XD Anyways, from now on, I'll be updating my multi-chaps again, although I'm sorry to say the updates may not be as frequent as they've been in the past, because I'm in my senior year of high school this year. So, enough of that, and I hope you guys enjoy this chapter!

Mukuro, more than a little irritated at being interrupted from his thoughts, was about to start terrorizing the group of teens who had been so unfortunate as to come across him, when he saw, with a shock, that those very teens were people he recognized quite well.

Pushing his worry for his Nagi to the back of his mind for the moment, Mukuro let out a very unmanly squeal, and threw himself at Tsuna, who was just getting up from the ground.

"Tuna fish! You're my little tuna, aren't you? Kufufu, I missed you so much! Have you missed me? How've you been doing?"

Tsuna stared at the older male in shock before stuttering out, "M-Mukuro-kun? Is that you?"

"Hai!" replied his friend cheerfully, eliciting startled looks from his two companions.

"Mukuro-sama?" asked Kakimoto questioningly, and the pineapple-haired man spun around to face him.

"Hai?" he asked with a Cheshire grin on his face.

"Care to introduce us-byon?" asked Ken, seeming slightly annoyed.

"Ken, Chikusa, this is a childhood friend, Sawada Tsunayoshi! Tsu-kun, these guys-"

"Oi!" shouted an annoyed Hayato. "What are we? Chopped liver?"

Looking genuinely surprised, Mukuro looked over at the two that had been accompanying his sweet Tsu-kun and noticed that they were also faces he recognized quite well.

"Ah! Haya-chan and Takeshi!" he shouted in surprise, "I didn't even see you there! Kufufu, you two have grown up quite well! Still following Tsu-kun around, are you, Hayato?"

"Oi!" interrupted Ken, but was ignored.

"Shut up, you stupid illusionist. And get your hands off Juudaime!"

"Mukuro!" called Ken, still trying to get his attention.

"What if I don't want to get my hands off him?" demanded Mukuro, squeezing Tsuna tighter.

"Then I'll make you get-"

"Oi! Listen to me, you stupid PINEAPPLE HEAD!" shouted Ken in a fiery explosion of annoyance.

There was complete and utter silence for about a minute after he said this before Hayato and Takeshi both burst out laughing, and Tsuna tried valiantly to smother his own amusement.

"S-stop laughing, guys," said Tsuna, doing rather well in keeping a rather straight voice and face. "It's n-not nice to laugh at Mukuro-kun!"

Upon receiving the order, Hayato immediately tried his best to smother his laughter, the occasional chuckle escaping every few seconds, and Takeshi did the same.

Meanwhile, Mukuro's smile had morphed into something so terrifying, it had no right to be called a smile anymore.

Turning to his blond friend, Mukuro asked, "What did you just call me?"

Ken, after years of knowing Mukuro, was not in the least bit scared, and smirked back confidently at him. "I called you a pineapple head. Got a problem with that?"

"Why, as a matter of fact, I do-"

"Mukuro!" exclaimed Tsuna, grabbing onto the older male's arm. "Please don't fight…I don't like it when you fight…Just finish introducing us, ne?"

For just a second, the illusionist looked torn between revenge, and his adoration for the boy that he still considered a little brother, even after all these years.

Finally, he let out a sigh and continued with the introductions, saying, "The grey-haired puppy over there is Gokudera Hayato, and the smiling idiot is Yamamoto Takeshi. They're also childhood friends and-"

"I'm not a puppy!" shouted Hayato at the same time as Ken asked, "We've known you your entire life! How come we've never met these childhood friends?"

Ignoring Hayato's indignant exclamation, Mukuro looked seriously at his friends, saying, "They're from that time."

Both Chikusa and Ken perked up a little upon hearing this; of course they knew what 'that time' was, but Mukuro had never really told them what exactly had happened then. Maybe they would finally get an answer?

Turning back to Tsuna and the others, Mukuro said, "The blond is Joshima Ken, and the one with the beanie is Kakimoto Chikusa. I've known them since before I could even remember."

Bowing slightly, Tsuna smiled at the two boys, saying, "It's a pleasure to meet you, Joshima-kun and Kakimoto-kun! Thank you for always looking after Mukuro-kun!"

"Aww," Mukuro cooed, "Tsunayoshi-kun does care!"

Ken rolled his eyes at this, seeming exasperated, and Tsuna flashed him an understanding smile before turning back to his friend, asking, "So, Mukuro-kun, what brings you to Namimori? You don't live here, do you?"

Mukuro shook his head, and was about to answer his question before he realized just how everyone here would react to his news and suggested, "Why don't we go somewhere more private first, ne Tsunayoshi-kun? It's a bit of a long story."

"Sure!" was Tsuna's immediate reply. "My house isn't too far from here, so we can all hang out there! Joshima-kun and Kakimoto-kun are welcome as well!"

The journey to the Sawada residence was by no means a quiet one, what with Mukuro gushing over Tsuna, Hayato arguing with him, Ken looking awkward, and Chikusa having a conversation with Takeshi.

It was during a lull in Mukuro and Hayato's arguments that the illusionist remembered something that Hayato had said.

Turning to the silveret, he asked, "Why did you call Tsunayoshi "juudaime" earlier?"

Looking slightly startled, as if he'd forgotten that Mukuro still didn't know, Hayato replied (without his usual sarcasm), "Tsuna's going to be the juudaime of the Vongola."

Mukuro turned to stare at Tsuna when he heard this, and the boy was just smiling back sheepishly.

"We really need to do some serious catching up," said the older male, his mind racing as he realized that this was probably the answer to his dilemma of how to pay for Nagi's operation.

Tsuna only had a moment to nod before they suddenly found themselves in front of his house, and the brunet groaned, realizing that he still had to give Reborn an explanation about this morning's events.

"Let's get this over with," he mumbled to himself, leading his suddenly quiet entourage into his home.

Reborn sat in Tsuna's room, staring at the two other occupants.

The two of them had arrived not long ago, and when he had asked, the two of them had introduced themselves with their names, refusing to give up their relationship to his student until he had given them his name.

The two had adopted noticeably colder attitudes towards him the moment he told them his name, leaving the man shocked.

Afterwards, neither had made a peep, no matter how much he threatened them, and now they were all sitting wrapped in a deathly silence, waiting for a certain brunet to arrive.

When the aforementioned brunet finally did arrive, though, he brought with him five others, making the room rather cramped.

Kyoya, who had been one of the two in the room already, noticeably tensed when Tsuna entered with his following, obviously disliking the crowding that was going on, but he held back for two reasons.

For one: he had promised Tsuna to be on his best behaviour, and for another: he was rather taken aback by the appearance of one man he really hadn't been expecting to see at today's meeting.

Mukuro smiled when he saw his somewhat rival, and made a beeline for the bed, plopping down right beside the skylark, just to irritate him.

Before Kyoya could say anything, though, Reborn interrupted the silence by asking Tsuna, "Who are these people, Tsunayoshi?"

Tsuna took a cursory glance at all his friends, who had by now made themselves comfortable, before turning back to Reborn and saying simply, "They're my Famiglia."

Slightly taken aback, Reborn asked in an incredulous voice, "What?"

Drawing Reborn's attention to himself, Hayato answered the question, saying, "I'm Gokudera Hayato, his right-hand man and storm guardian."

Reborn stared at him with barely concealed shock for a moment, before Takeshi took over seamlessly, as if this conversation had been rehearsed.

"I'm Yamamoto Takeshi, his rain guardian."

"I, Sasagawa Ryohei, am the sun guardian," replied the boxer from where he sat, leaning against the wall.

"Cloud guardian," grunted Kyoya, not feeling the need to introduce himself again.

"And I'm one of them mist guardians, Rokudo Mukuro," said Mukuro in a chipper voice, as if he hadn't just claimed that without any prior discussion on the topic.

"Joshima Ken," Ken introduced himself simply, and Chikusa replied in kind.

Reborn's gaze raked over them all, as if not knowing how to respond to this situation, before he finally focused on Mukuro, asking, "What do you mean that you're one of the mist guardians?"

"I mean there's another one. She's in the hospital right now."

Tsuna and the other guardians' heads snapped around to look at Mukuro at this, but they didn't say anything; now was not the time.

"You can't have two mist guardians," said Reborn, this time looking at Tsuna. "For that matter, how do you even know about guardians? I need my answers now, Tsunayoshi!"

"I can have as many mist guardians as I want!" retorted Tsuna; this was something he absolutely would not back down on; both Mukuro and Nagi were his mist guardians, and no one could tell him otherwise. "And I know everything I do about the Vongola because of the two weeks my guardians and I spent with the Vongola Primo and his guardians when we were younger."

Whatever Reborn had been expecting, it definitely hadn't been that.

"You honestly expect me to believe that?" asked the sun arcobaleno, arching one elegant eyebrow.

Tsuna shrugged. "I don't expect you to believe anything I say. But I know that it's true, and that's all that really matters to me."

And with that matter addressed, Tsuna turned to Mukuro, asking the older male, "Now what was that about Nagi-chan being in the hospital?"

Reborn, surprised at how Tsuna had just brushed him off like that, decided it would be in his best interest to observe the ongoing conversation.

The man listened to Mukuro explain to everyone about Nagi's accident and Mukuro's idea to use the Vongola fortune to pay for it, and as he saw everyone's evident concern for the girl, he decided that he would observe his new student and his 'guardians' for a while before deciding if they were capable instead of just dismissing them right away.

It was obvious that they all really cared for each other, and as long as they had the potential, it wouldn't be too much trouble to train them into respectable mafiosi.

Not to mention that Tsuna's sudden hostility was really beginning to disconcert him, and he really needed a way to gain the boy's trust back. Now was as good a time as any to start.

And so, without a word to any of them, he whipped out his cell phone, had a rapid-fire conversation with the person on the other side in Italian, and then finally turned to look at the brats, who were all staring at him in confusion by now.

"That was Vongola Kyuudaime. He agreed to pay for her operation."

A certain five-year-old stood outside the Sawada residence, looking up at the somewhat intimidating yet cozy-looking house.

His father – no…his boss had told him that, in order for people to accept him as the heir, he had to convince the greatest hitman in the world, Reborn, to become his tutor.

If Lambo wasn't able to convince him, his father would be very disappointed, and there was no way that Lambo was going to let his father be disappointed in him.

So, taking a deep breath, and drawing himself up to his full (still rather short) height, the little cow rang the doorbell.

Stepping back, he waited for the door to be answered…and he waited, and he waited.

After nearly two minutes had passed, and the door still hadn't been answered, Lambo was about to ring the doorbell again, when he heard the sound of clumsy footsteps making their way towards the door, and the next moment, it was opened by a brown-haired teen with kind eyes.

Looking down, the boy caught sight of Lambo, and his eyes widened in complete shock.

"L-Lampo?"

SkyGem: So, what did you think? Like it? Hate it? Please I hope this chapter wasn't too boring or anything…it's a pretty important transition chapter, 'cause after this, things are gonna be picking up pretty fast~ Well, that's all for today! Please leave a review and let me know what you thought! Ciao!