34. Captured

"Sae and Sui?" Tsuyoshi was more than surprised to see the girls show up at his door, panting heavily and looking as if they'd just sprinted a marathon.

Takeshi emerged from the back curiously, "Huh?" he wondered, "Sae and Sui? What are you two doing here?"

Their last customer had just left, and they were just cleaning up.

"Uncle Tsuyoshi!" they charged into him frantically, grabbing at his apron, panicked and looking terrified, "Rei-chan, Rei-chan is-!!"

The two Yamamotos met eyes. Something was terribly, terribly amiss. No matter the situation, Rei wasn't someone that would leave his sisters like this.

It wasn't hard to know that something horrible happened.

"Lead the way!" Takeshi said, taking off his apron and setting it aside.

-

-

"He's gone?!" Tsuna accidentally yelled into the phone.

Heads turned in alarm. The other occupants of the household peeked over from the living and dining rooms, interested in the sudden outburst.

"But-" Tsuna seemed like he wanted to say something, but he changed his question. "What about Sae-chan and Sui-chan?" he asked.

There was another paused as Yamamoto Takeshi replied to his question.

"I see..."

When Tsuna hung up the phone, his face was downcast and his heart felt heavy. He sighed in worry, turning around-- then he spotted everyone staring at him.

"What was that?" Bianchi spoke up first, "it seemed like a matter of great concern."

"Did something happen to Sae and Sui?" Lambo spoke up. I-pin nodded, right beside him.

"That's not right," Reborn interrupted. It seemed he understood the situation better than the others, even if it was only one sentence of clues. "Did something happen to Rei?"

And Reborn seemed the faintest bit concerned, Tsuna noticed. The brunet gulped, and he nodded in response.

"Rei... he's missing."

-

-

Sae and Sui were crying.

Sae was hugging Lambo, and Sui was hugging I-pin, but they were both wailing like babies, and they didn't seem like they were going to stop anytime soon.

"I'm sorry I had to bring them over." Takeshi sighed, scratching the back of his head, "It was much worse back at my place."

The girls seemed to cry louder.

"Sae, you're gonna bust my eardrums!!" Lambo whined.

"Sui, crying, no!" I-pin reprimanded as well.

And they paused at the same time, tears still dripping and their noses stuffed. They sniffled, hugging the two younger children like plush toys in their arms.

"But," Sae started, her crying cracking in her voice.

"Rei-chan is..." Sui continued, then sniffled, "Rei-chan is..."

Then they started bawling again.

Takeshi and Tsuna had to cover their ears.

"You're noisy." Reborn walked up to them. Leon turned into a gun in his hands, and he decided to point it at them. "I'll shoot you if you don't shut up."

Tsuna's eyes popped out of their sockets in absolute horrification. "Reborn, NO!" he screamed.

Because he was noisy, Reborn shot him instead.

"AHh!" Tsuna freaked out when he felt something hit his forehead, but it took him a moment to realize he's not dead or in Dying Will Mode. "Huh? Wait--" he spotted the bullet on the ground, "This is a rubber cork! You have fake bullets? You HAD FAKE BULLETS??"

"Of course I do," Reborn said, matter-of-factly, "Do I look like I'd actually shoot the girls?"

"Yes! Yes, you do!" Tsuna retorted.

They were interrupted as Sae burst out into laughter.

Heads turned towards the girl who thought the scene was absolutely comical. She laughed and laughed, her sorrow forgotten, and she couldn't stop.

Seeing that, Sui eyed her in awe, brushing her tears away. However, her expressions were unable to lift, staying in a frown.

Sui let go of I-pin and hugged her sister instead. Sae, seeing that, returned the hug, keeping a small smile on her face.

They had both stopped crying.

Later on, Kyoko and Ryohei came over to bring the girls to their house. That night, Sae and Sui cuddled up with Kyoko to sleep.

-

-

"Just Last Weekend, eight prefects from Nami Jr High have been attacked," Reborn explained to Mama and Tsuna, "And the victims, for some reason, had their teeth extracted."

At that, Tsuna cringed. "Ehhh?? For real?" Just thinking about it made him wince. That's gotta reeeally hurt. "Wh-Why would anyone do something like that?" he whined. Poor prefects.

"Hey, Tsu-kun, maybe you should take up some self-defense classes?" Nana suggested, concern in her tone.

"Ehh??" Tsuna freaked out, "Why do I have to?"

"Because I'm worried! You should learn to protect yourself, at least." Nana argued, "besides, a man needs too be strong, no?"

"She's right." Reborn agreed.

"Don't agree with her!" Tsuna retorted. Seriously, Reborn always takes advantage of the situation! "Besides, this has nothing to do with me! This is a gangster fight! The victims have all been prefects only, right?" he argued.

He sighed. Seriously, martial arts was not his thing.

"You might be wrong, Tsuna." Reborn spoke up.

"Huh?" Tsuna noticed Reborn was using his rare, serious tone.

"Rei," that one word from Reborn alerted the whole household, "May have been attacked by the same people, after all." he suggested.

"Wha-" Tsuna was surprised at the hypothesis, "But- Rei didn't even come back! We filed a missing persons' report because it was probably a kidnapping, wasn't it?"

"That's where you're wrong, Tsuna." Reborn fired a few bullets at Tsuna for interrupting his speech. Tsuna shrieked as he dodged them, but managed to escaped unscathed.

"Wh-what do you mean?" he hesitantly tried asking again.

"Sae and Sui told me the ones that attacked Rei were junior high students." Reborn quoted, "and the ones that attacked the prefects were also junior high students."

"Then-!" Tsuna realized something, "why did they only capture Rei-san?" he asked.

He was worried now. The cause of this fight wasn't even clear yet, but if someone's been captured... A hostage situation?

Why? Why Rei-san, of all people?

"Well, don't worry." Reborn put that mischievous, planning smirk back onto his face, "We'll figure out soon enough."

We'll figure out soon enough?

We?

-

-

Kusakabe has met the brunet known as 'Rei' many times, as the child made many attempts of hanging out at the Reception Room. (Those attempts were, of course, promptly refused if there was no valid reason.)

Otherwise, Rei would sometimes use Kusakabe as a wall to hide away from a murderous Hibari Kyouya.

And frankly, Kusakabe has grown on the boy.

(But sadly, Kusakabe was one that prioritized his work. He had, in fact, not yet formed a solid bond with the brown-haired male.)

"Ninomiya Rei?" Hibari Kyouya repeated the word like it was a trick question. But no. In fact, the name was a familiar one. He's never called the male by name, but he knows exactly whose name this is. "What happened to that herbivore?"

"Huh-- Yes," Kusakabe stuttered for a moment, surprised at the note of concern from his President, "Yamamoto Takeshi has told me that he was assaulted as well, and possibly by the same culprits. However, his whereabouts are unknown at the moment."

He was missing, and the culprits were probably the same ones. Although there is still the light possibility that his matter was a different one altogether, it was very unnerving.

The boy with the weak lung. The boy that needs to be sheltered and protected.

He was probably not unharmed. The worse case scenario was that he had received injuries of the same level as the other prefects had gotten.

And that was not alright. Not in the least.

Because Ninomiya Rei was not the kind that would survive such injuries.

-

-

-

He stomps on my ankle.

I let out a sharp grunt, knowing well my left leg was badly bruised now. However, that bruise was barely anything compared to everything else.

I couldn't move my right hand, and my left shoulder was giving me a lot of pain. My right hand was probably broken. A fracture somewhere-- or a very bad sprain, I don't know. My left shoulder-- was probably dislocated.

My right leg had received a horrible knee scrape that burned through my pants, and the wound was really making me cringe so I stopped looking.

I had broken broken a rib or two as well. Breathing was difficult, but it was harder to hope that none of them punctures my lung.

All of that were accompanied by the little cuts, scrapes, and countless bruises I didn't bother to survey for. I had a split lip, too.

There was a cut on my right brow. Thankfully, Ken had been merciful enough to treat that in case I bled out and died, but cruelly left everything else as they were.

By pure dumb luck, my lungs themselves were still able to function.

"Be grateful you didn't lose any teeth, dammit!" Ken groaned, marching away, "Why the freak did I have to capture you alive when you're more not even-"

I was captured alive. For what reason-- I could only think that I was a hostage. But why? They don't need a hostage other than Fuuta. Much more-- where on earth was Fuuta?

My head ached and throbbed, my wounds stung like needles... my lungs burned and I struggled to take in breath. My ears rang and my sight blurred.

I was tired. Was it due to the blood lost, or was it due to the beating?

Ow. Ow. Ow.

I sighed.

My eyelids dropped, increasingly growing heavier-- and heavier-- and... If I fall unconscious here, I wonder if I'll die?

My body's all numb, but the pain was ever-present. Why can't the pain just stop?  Breathing was getting a little harder. My eyes closed, unable to part itself.

Dying like this seems fine. It's not as scary as drowning.

It was cold. Was I shivering? I'm not sure. My body felt cold, but it was slightly different form the usual cold. How could I explain this--? It was a cold that whispered into my ears, and told me to just give in to exhaustion.

My consciousness waned.

The cold always made me feel sleepy, after all.