Chapter Eight

Chop Sooky Saki

The next Monday, the foursome of teens that had invaded Namimori Junior High were all half-asleep as they trudged into class. The entire Sunday after they were chased around by Osamu had been filled with nervously awaiting the moment when the elder Hibari would burst into the door and demand an explanation as to why his son was so off emotionally. Kyoya did not arrive, however, making their bouts of fright in vain; the man was one of the few things that the teens could agree on to be equally terrifying when angered.

This pronounced lack of sleep was so noticeable that their classmates thought something was up. No one questioned it though, as when Masaru’s head collided with his desk the teen jumped out of his seat and tried to punch an imaginary opponent. Said imaginary opponent ended up being right where a very cranky Haruhi’s shoulder was and ended with both of them being sent down to the headmaster’s office. The two were down there so long that their scolding lasted into lunch.

“I wonder how long they’re going to keep Masaru-nii and Haruhi-san,” Kiyohiko wondered as he shoved a clump of rice into his mouth. He was sitting on the roof with Damiano and Saki, almost enjoying the unnatural peace that accompanied them.

“I hear that the headmaster we have is in his second year here at Namimori and that he’s ultra-strict compared to the previous man!” Saki said, waving around her chopsticks. “Something tells me those two will be lucky to get away with just a detention.”

“…but Signorina Haruhi and Signore Masaru did nothing out of the ordinary for them,” Damiano said. The teen had even brought an extra lunch for Haruhi to boot and it was simply sitting there going to waste.

“‘…out of the ordinary for them,’ are the key words here, Damiano-san,” Kiyohiko frowned. “The man has to treat them like they were any other set of students that started a fist fight in the middle of math class.”

“…but I doubt that normally means that they have to stay through lunch,” Saki said. The raven-haired girl grinned in Damiano’s direction. “If those two aren’t back by lab science how about if we partner up, since Yoko-chan’s out sick for the day.”

“Duck,” Damiano said.

“Yeah… we’re going to be dissecting ducks in a few weeks…” Saki went on.

“No, DUCK!” Damiano shouted, diving to the ground and taking Saki and Kiyohiko with him. A small rocket whizzed overhead and missed the teens by barely a meter, finally exploding on the wire fencing surrounding the roof’s edge.

“Kahahaha!” laughed a voice from above. The teens looked up to see that there was a man standing on an elevated part of the roof, holding another rocket in hand whilst another dozen or so were strung around his chest like machine gun munitions.

“Don Yohi, get Signorina Saki out of here…” Damiano whispered, fumbling through his jacket pockets for his bombs, boomerang and lighter. “I can take care of him.”

“Who is that?!” Saki gasped.

“Don’t know; long story—let’s go,” Kiyohiko muttered, trying to lead Saki towards the door. The girl was frozen stiff in terror though.

“I have found you at last Vongola brat!” the assassin said haughtily. “You have no idea what I had to go through to find you…”

“L-L-Leave him a-a-a-alone!” Damiano stuttered. He tried to hook together his boomerang with a few explosives, yet his fingers were trembling so bad that he nearly cut himself on the boomerang’s blade instead.

“He’s not much of a henchman, I can tell you that right now,” the stranger scoffed, sizing up Damiano. The man tossed a smoke screen towards the trio, blinding them all. The boys were horrified to find that the assassin had taken Saki hostage once the smoke had cleared, keeping a knife against her throat and on high ground once again.

“Now, come quietly Vongola or this pretty little thing is going to get it!” he chortled.

“Keep Saki-san out of this!” Kiyohiko shouted, subconsciously reaching for the handgun in his jacket’s inner pocket.

“You know that everyone’s fair game just as well as I do,” the assassin said, pressing the blade a little closer. Saki let out a soft squeaking sound. Kiyohiko grit his teeth as his grip around the gun handle grew tighter.

“Then I guess that this means that it’s safe to take out you as well,” came a voice from the shadows. “GYOZA KEN!”

The man instantly was knocked off of his feet by an invisible force, allowing Saki to hop down and run behind Damiano. A woman, clad in red Chinese martial arts garb, appeared out of seemingly nowhere and threw down the assassin at once, knocking him unconscious in one hit.

“…and that takes care of that,” she said.

“Wow… you’re amazing…” Saki marveled from behind Damiano’s elbow. “Who are you, lady?”

“Hmm…?” The woman glanced up and frowned. “You’re not Haruhi.”

“No… Haruhi-san would have already killed the man,” Kiyohiko sighed, reluctantly giving in. “Saki, this is I-Pin-san. She’s a friend of my dad’s and kind of like an aunt. I-Pin-san, this is my classmate Takizawa Saki.”

“You’re lucky that Tsuna sent me to take care of this hit,” I-Pin said. “From the looks of things, this guy would have gotten a lot farther with you guys than he did now. Have you seen Reborn?”

“Not since first period,” Kiyohiko said. “Frankly, I don’t want to see him for the rest of the day; I have a test to study for.”

“You Japanese people and all your tests and studying…” I-Pin said. “I understand the importance of an education just like most people, but the constant testing and workload is enough to drive anyone mad!”

“I-Pin-san went to school in Japan,” Kiyohiko explained to Saki.

“Hey, can you teach me some of that…?” Saki asked, stepping out from behind Damiano and staring hopefully at I-Pin. “You took out that guy with just one hit! You didn’t even touch him the one time!”

“It takes tons of proper training and a lifetime of commitment to that training,” I-Pin explained. “I will not teach you Gyoza-ken, if that was what you wanted.”

“…but you’re so cool!”

“Signorina Saki, she is serious,” Damiano explained. “Signora I-Pin doesn’t have the time to train anyone right now with all the work she does.”

“What kind of work do you do?” Saki asked. Panicking, Kiyohiko jumped between the two women and began to laugh uncomfortably.

“She’s just a performer and that was part of her latest set of stunts!” the boy said.

“No I’m not…” I-Pin said bluntly. “I’m an assassin working for your father. I had been under the impression you knew of the whole Mafia thing years ago already.”

“Mafia…?” Saki asked. “…like the Godfather and Baccano and in my dad’s collection of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure manga?!” She shot Kiyohiko a look that seemed like it could bore holes through steel.

“Saki-san… I can explain…”

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?!” the girl asked, her mood whiplashing back to excitement. “Yama-chan was telling me about some sort of game you guys like to play after school, but I guess that’s what the cover is.”

“Something tells me that if Haruhi mentioned it as just a game, then she’s more like Takeshi than I feared,” I-Pin frowned, slinging the still-unconscious man over her shoulder. “Just as dense as her father, I assume.”

“Denser,” Kiyohiko and Saki said simultaneously. I-Pin laughed and began to head towards the roof’s edge.

“If you want to be able to fight people like me, Saki-chan, then you have to find what you’re good at first,” she said. “Hard work and dedication are the only ways about it and I’ll tell you—I’ve been at this since I was three years old—so you have a lot of catching up to do.”

“So you won’t train me then?”

“I doubt Bo-tan would be able to stand for it,” I-Pin laughed. Kiyohiko and Damiano’s stomachs churned just a little at the reminder of the Chinese woman’s relationship with the Vongola’s current Thunder Guardian, which was well-known throughout the Mafia as being one of the most dangerous love affairs to have existed within its echelons in generations.

“Take care Yohi! A Vongola needs to take decent care of himself!” I-Pin smiled. With that, she hopped off the roof and vanished into the hustle and bustle of Namimori.

“Let’s go see if Masaru-nii and Haruhi-san are out of the headmaster’s office yet,” Kiyohiko sighed after a while.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

It turned out that the headmaster kept Haruhi and Masaru in his office for the rest of the day, only allowing them to fetch some coursework to do during lunch. By the time school was over, he allowed them fifteen minutes to go and eat before needing to return for a two-hour long detention.

“It totally sucks,” Haruhi managed to say between large portions of the bento Damiano had brought to their classroom that was now empty save for the four teens. “The man wouldn’t even let us so much as sneeze without being glared at.”

“Sounds like he really is a strict man,” Kiyohiko said, mostly to humor her. Frankly, he was just surprised that the two of them had not been punished more often in middle school.

“I can’t even ask Haruhi to explain anything to me!” Masaru whined. “Then when I sit there doing nothing, ‘cause I extremely don’t know how to get it, the man yells at me! The man’s an extreme loony.”

“Well, this never would have happened had you not fallen asleep and punched Signorina Haruhi,” Damiano said.

“It was a reflex…” Masaru hissed through his melon roll. Haruhi rolled her eyes and groaned in disapproval.

“There you guys are!” sighed Michiko, a classmate of theirs, as she came into the classroom. “Dokuro-kun, Sawada-kun, you were with Takizawa-chan during lunch, right?”

“Yeah,” Kiyohiko said. “Why? Is there something wrong?”

“She hasn’t shown up to the weekly literature club meeting yet and she’s never late… ever. She’s always the first one there. I was wondering if she told you where she was going instead.”

“Unfortunately, she didn’t tell us anything about her after-school plans,” Damiano shrugged. “I wish we could help.”

“Hmm…” Michiko pondered. “Oh well; I do know that she was pretty out-of-it during Classical Lit, so maybe she just went home instead. Looked like she had a lot on her mind.”

“Maybe so…” Kiyohiko smiled. Michiko left and the young Vongola sighed in relief.

“I hope to the Gods she doesn’t tell anyone,” he said.

“We made her swore to keep it a secret,” Damiano said. “I have no idea why she wouldn’t keep her promise.”

“What now…?” Haruhi asked, her interest piquing.

“Signorina Saki ate lunch with Don Yohi and me on the roof today and we were attacked by some assassin. Signora I-Pin saved us and Signorina Saki found out about the Mafia.”

“Oh, I’ve told her all about the game we’re playing,” Haruhi said nonchalantly. “She said it sounded fun.”

“Well, I’m sure that her disappearance after school had something to do with the assassin and I-Pin-san,” Kiyohiko said.

“I just hope that I-Pin stays in town for a while,” Masaru said. “I’ve wanted to spar with her for a long time.”

“Well, you’re going to have to wait a little while longer for whatever it was you wanted to do, because your time is up,” the headmaster said, barging into the room on only the last part of Masaru’s statement. He was a very stern-looking man with a thin face and narrow eyes. “Now you two better get moving or I am going to turn the two hours into three.”

“Coming sir,” Masaru and Haruhi groaned. The two rose from their seats and sourly followed the headmaster out of the room.

“Want to take a little bit of a break from studying, since we don’t have Haruhi-san and Masaru-nii to snap back into focus?” Kiyohiko asked as he cleaned up his cousin’s empty wrappers.

“Sure,” Damiano replied.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

A short while later, Damiano and Kiyohiko found themselves walking along inside the Namimori Shopping District. They were out of their uniforms and comfortable, for the most part, with the exception of Reborn deciding to tag along. So, really, as long as one did not include Reborn into the equation, it was just a pair of good friends trying to kill a few hours in the shopping district.

Reborn, however, never allowed himself to be taken out of an equation.

“You must be either training or searching for other members for your family, Yohi,” the infant said as he walked along, eating a large lollipop. “This is no way to spend an afternoon while Haruhi and Masaru are being held hostage back at school.”

“For one, it’s just detention,” Kiyohiko grumbled, “and two, I’m allowed to relax a little bit, aren’t I?”

“No,” Reborn said plainly. Kiyohiko buried his face in his hand, not wanting to even dignify that with a retort.

Suddenly, there was the sound of shattering glass up ahead of them and the two teens instantly heightened their attention. A few storefronts up, there was a man in karate gi lying on the sidewalk in obvious pain. Someone with black hair poked their head out and gasped in horror.

“I’m so sorry! I guess I don’t know my own strength!”

“Saki-san…?”

“Signorina Saki…?”

Sure enough, it was Saki coming out of the small dojo to help the man up. She perked up when she saw her classmates running up to her.

“Hi there Sawada-kun! Dokuro-kun!”

“I didn’t know you were taking karate classes...” Kiyohiko said.

“Well, I wasn’t,” Saki said. She led the man to the door and turned back to the boys. “I just couldn’t get I-Pin-san off my mind all during class today, so I decided that once school let out I would come down to my cousin’s dojo and ask him for a couple of pointers on fighting. It looks like I’m really getting the hang of it!”

“This is your cousin’s dojo?” Damiano asked.

“Well, kind of,” Saki said. “The two of us actually come from a long line of karate and martial arts masters, so the real dojo is our home. This is the place where all but the most advanced students come to train.”

“So you are from a family of powerful warriors; fighting is in your blood,” Reborn said.

“You could say that,” Saki said, looking down at the talking baby in amusement.

“How about if you join Yohi’s Mafia Family,” Reborn said. Saki’s eyes lit up in delight just as soon as Kiyohiko and Damiano’s could darken in despair.

“Of course!” she smiled. “That way I can be just as cool as I-Pin-san!” the girl said. “In that case, I have a lot of catching up to do! I’ll see you two in school tomorrow!” Saki ran back into the dojo, leaving Kiyohiko and Damiano alone with Reborn.

“I hate you,” Kiyohiko growled. “Every time you show up, something bad happens.”

“No,” Reborn said, continuing to meander along his merry way. “Merely, important things happen when I am around; even your father could have gotten that right.”