Plant a Seed (watch it grow)

Summary: in Kokuyo Land, after Mukuro's defeat, Tsuna's potential begins to grow. In canon, Reborn cultivates it secretly, away from public eyes. In this world, however, Reborn will make sure that the whole world acknowledges Tsuna – Vongola Decimo.

()()()()()()()()()()

His palms are gross.

They're clammy, sweaty and shaky from nervousness. Tsuna rubs them on his uniform trousers and shifts in his seat, eyes nervously flicking from his hands to the teacher up at the blackboard. She's glancing around the room now, and Tsuna can feel the butterflies transforming into a large heavy stone at the bottom of his stomach before her eyes even land on him.

"Sawada." Dread, dread, cold, freezing dread. "Try to do this one."

This one. Tsuna's shaky legs are just barely supporting him when he stands up. Wide eyes stare at the board, zeroing on the equation that his teacher is pointing to. It's one of the easier ones, one that they had been taught to solve at the beginning of the unit.

It makes absolutely no sense to him.

'One. Just one. You can do that, can't you?'

Just one, he repeats Reborn's words to himself. Just one. I only have to do one.

This one.

He's standing in front of it now, gripping a piece of chalk so hard that he's just short of breaking it. Looking up, he struggles to keep the various numbers and variables from swimming in front of his eyes. But he's still aware of his surrounding, though the board and its white writings are enclosing him more and more by the second. He can hear his classmates' snickering and feel the teacher's exasperation as she stands behind him, tapping an impatient finger against her bicep.

They're all waiting for him to fail, like always.

'But you didn't fail last time, did you? Your friends are all safe, and you're alive.'

Slowly, ever so slowly, the board shrinks until Tsuna can see the words at normal size again. They're a jumble of white strokes, but he keeps staring until they begin rearranging themselves. He starts to see them, the little things that Reborn has been beating into his head for the past couple of weeks.

Order of Operations. Important, he recalls.

The hand holding the chalk lifts by a few centimeters.

Variable on one side. Also important.

The white stick almost touches the board.

Fractions. Get rid of numerators – no, got blasted out of the window – get rid of the denominators, multiply...

And then, and then...

The chalk clacks softly against the board before his trembling hand guides it across the hard surface. The first stroke is barely visible, and Tsuna has to write over it twice before the white comes off properly, but the rest is smooth. Gradually, the numbers and variables narrow down until there are only one on each side of the equal sign. A circle is drawn around the last line before Tsuna nervously sets the chalk down and takes a step back.

Silence.

It doesn't last for long, though. Their teacher moves after a few stunned seconds and picks up the piece of chalk he'd just returned to the holder.

"Close," she says, marking the negative sign he'd forgotten to take out of his answer. She's still looking at him with a strange sense of wonder in her eyes, as are the rest of his classmates, but Tsuna doesn't notice.

It's the nicest thing a teacher has said to him in years.

()()()()()()()()()

It's an incredible feeling, coursing through his adrenaline-hyped nerves. Mind strangely clear, Tsuna raises his fists up to eye level.

They're warm, still a little hot from the flames that had lit them minutes ago, and Tsuna can't quite believe that they're truly his.

But he clenches them tightly and remembers what they have done. Yes, he thinks, they are his. He'd done it, done it himself, with his own two hands.

He hadn't failed this time.