Disclaimer: KHR is owned by Amano Akira, the genius that drew a manga about kick-ass hot mafia guys!

So yeah, enjoy and whatnot.

Chapter 1

Farewell, Halcyon Days

Ever wondered how strange it is that, no matter how much of an uproar and ruckus Tsuna and company cause in Namimori, not even a single soul suspects them of being mafia? Nobody finds it disturbing that a fourteen-year-old half-Italian with the appearance of a typical delinquent carries around explosives and actually uses them on whoever irks his short-fused temper. Neither is it weird when the local school baseball star runs around waving a katana which a mere minute ago was a wooden kendo training sword. And who cares that some good-for-nothing kid reveals inhuman strength and starts getting called by random suspicious people the tenth generation future boss of some fancy Italian-sounding family. And what about the little infant, dressed as a mafioso, claiming to be the tenth's home tutor, pointing a green gun, formerly a chameleon, at random people?

Nothing to worry about! Just as the aforementioned baseball player, everyone ignorantly assumes it's just a role-playing game, a fun recreational pastime that sometimes happens to cause harm to innocent people and wreak havoc with presumably harmless toys that just look a tad bit too realistic. The numerous suspicious men in fancy suits, who randomly appear around the Mafia Game players, are also a normal occurrence. Everyone in town is completely disinterested in the matter. They mind the ruckus, the insanity and the abnormality of it all and carry on with their mundane everyday lives like nothing ever happened. It's all on a daily basis in Namimori, so why bother? They're just a bunch of kids, playing an innocent kids' game. No need to think too much about it!

"Oh, give me a break already! Can't you see they're in the real Mafia!" a dark-haired girl yelled inside a third floor classroom of Namimori Middle. The unnecessarily loud tone of voice startled several of her classmates, making heads turn.

The girl she was speaking to looked around apologetically to all the faces surprised by the obnoxious outburst. She shook her head, patting her rather excitable friend's shoulder. "Calm down, Hatsuka! You're making people stare at us, jeez..." she said, throwing meaningful looks at their classmates to make sure they took the hint and left them be.

"But Kitamura-san! I need you to believe me! It's not like that time I tried to convince you death gods with killer notebooks exist, I swear! Even though they probably could exist, just so you know, not that we would actually be able to see them..."

"Quit it with the shinigami business already! You've been at it for a month! That note thingy isn't real!" Hatsukaichi Mikami gaped dejectedly at the preposterous idea, but decided against further discussing that particular subject in favor of more impending matters.

"I keep telling you, this time it's got absolutely nothing to do with some random anime I watched!" She furrowed childish eyebrows, slumping back down into her window seat with crossed arms and decided to pout at the glass.

The girl with hazelnut hair and blue eyes, Kitamura Rin, simply sat in the desk next to Mikami and faced her with a sympathetic smile. "Sorry, Hatsuka. But I still think you're just having an early case of eight-grade delusion sickness."

"Don't just sign me off with premature chuunibyou! At least try to consider this a little bit more seriously!"

"Please. Dame Tsuna a mafia boss? Who'd come up with that stupid idea? Classic eight-grade-itis. The chance of that happening is less than you giving up on being a hopeless otaku and finally getting a life." Rin laughed at her own self-serving hilariousness, winning herself a shallow attempt of a glare from her classmate. "Though I do get why you'd fantasize about the transfer student, Gokudera-kun, secretly being in the Mafia. He probably looks soo hot in a suit, pointing a gun at us, making us do his bidding~" Eyes sparkled with a wistful gleam as her giddy face gazed up into what seemed to be a newly formed fantasy. "He's so dreamy~! I want him to tie me up and take me hostage~!" While picturing that very same person, Mikami also seemed to space out with a blush creeping onto her face but shook herself out of it in time to set things straight.

"I would never see him like that! Not in a million years! And stop imagining Gokudera as a sadistic kichiku seme, Kitamura-san. You're such an obsessive fangirl, it creeps me out," she chided her classmate's knack for mentally jumping into far-fetched romance scenarios involving randomly rotated popular boys from school.

"It's called love. There's nothing creepy or obsessive about it!" rudely interrupted in the middle of her juicy daydram, the blue-eyed girl took full pride in her romantic inclination. "And what's kichiku seme supposed to be? Geekspeech again? If you pulled yourself out of your 2D delusions for once and looked around the actual real world, I'm sure you'd find someone you'd totally crush over and realize how exciting love is! Right Mizuchin~?" Rin looked over to the boy sitting at the desk in front, skimming trough his notebook with a seemingly perpetual impassive expression. With short black hair and steel gray eyes hidden behind ill-suited nerdy glasses, he was Morisaka Mizuki, Rin's childhood friend.

"Hm? Ah. Mm. Whatever you say, Ricchan," he replied with his almost disturbingly emotionless face, not even bothering to turn around nor interrupt his reading.

"That doesn't count! Of course Morisaka-kun would take your side! He always agrees with you about everything just to get you off of his case, since he knows how persistent you can get. It's just like Shikamaru is with Ino," Mikami made a point, but Rin just frowned at her with the face of a person having no idea what she was talking about. "Anyway, stop changing the subject! What about Yamamoto? He's definitely mafia material what with that fake good guy façade of his! He puts on airs, acting all nice and friendly, but I know that he's actually a stuck up dangerous insensitive jerk! Like all popular guys are!"

"Ah, you're just saying that because he rejected some close friend of yours in elementary school. A talented hot guy like him can't be that bad. The way he swings that bat~! It makes me wish I was small, round and white so he'd catch me, and hold me, and hit on me~!" Rin went back to stargazing and Mikami sent her a deadpan look.

"What? You mean like a baseball? Who'd want to be a baseball? Confusing fangirl logic..." Mikami muttered to herself, not at all fazed by the sudden change of her friend's target of affection.

"Who's Rin swooning over this time?" asked a voice behind Mikami. It belonged to a tall girl with sleek black hair and gray bespectacled deadpan eyes, looking eerily similar to the boy seated in front of Kitamura. She sat down on the desk next to her lookalike and impassively observed Rin as the latter giggled like a pervert, wobbling in her chair with hands on her cheeks.

"Oh, Yamamoto-kun, you're squeezing me so hard~" Rin whined in her daydream. The tall girl and Mikami exchanged knowing looks.

"Forget I asked," the aloof black-haired Morisaka Sakura casually withdrew, turning forward to take out a textbook from her bag.

"Morisaka-san! You believe me, don't you?" Mikami bent over her desk to give the girl a pair of pleading puppy dog eyes.

Sakura had to turn back again, directing her unnervingly unblinking gaze towards her. "Believe what, Hatsukaichi?"

"You know, about the..." Mikami eyed the room carefully before she leaned in, cupping a hand next to her mouth. "...Mafia," she whispered like it was some heavy big secret.

Sakura stood there for a brief moment, just examining Mikami with her sharp eyes, as she deliberated whether to indulge her. "You'll have to excuse me, Hatsukaichi, but I don't recognize any reason to be alarmed. All facts point that this situation can only be interpreted as a mere friendly play-along," she monotoned as she faced forward, opening her textbook to join her twin in the silent reading session.

"Gah! Morisaka-san~! You too?! You know, with each passing day you remind me more and more of a kuudere. I can't believe how casually you can keep denying something that's so glaringly obvious!"

Sakura lifted her gaze from her book to briefly glance back at the snickering otaku. "I am not familiar with the aspects of what you're referring to as kuudere, nor do I have any desire to be so. Now if you please, class is about to start and I do not intend to give this matter any more of my consideration." She continued reading, cutting the conversation to a close.

With her theory rejected for the third time in under two minutes, Mikami leaned back in her seat, deflated. There's no way so many shady people are taking part of some mere kids' game, she thought to herself while tilting her head backwards to frown at the ceiling. And for such a long time... Not even cosplay skits and conventions last this long. You'd get dead tired. Even D&D players need to catch a break and get finally end it at some point. And these guys are at it 24/7, staying in character...

A moment later shouting was heard from the corridor and three boys entered the classroom, one yelling at the second, while the third, the shortest, was desperately trying to calm that first one down. Mikami sharpened her hearing and followed them tentatively with her eyes as they made their way to the short boy's seat.

"Tenth! Please allow me to break this imbecile baseball freak's neck! He went too far this time, daring to attack you from behind!" The one with silvery-gray chin-length hair glared at the tall one as he wriggled angry fingers in the air, itching for a fight.

That hot-headed overdone loyalty – just like Asahina Yusuke from that BroCon otome game I played last week...

"Hiiie! Go-gokudera-kun, please don't! Not here! No violence!" the short one shrieked, shooting up from his seat to stand between the two, frantically waving his hands as spiky soft caramel hair danced with his movements.

What an anxious wimpy pushover... Reminds me of Niwa Daisuke from DN Angel.

"Ahahah! You're so funny, Gokudera! I just gave Tsuna a pat on the back to say hi, that's all. No harm meant." The tall "baseball freak" easily laughed it off with genuine myrth in his warm brown eyes.

A happy-go-lucky oblivious baseball nut – the male version of Toradora's Minorin.

"That was supposed to be just a pat on the back?" Tsuna stopped his freak out session to sweatdrop. "I nearly got knocked over!" he cried out.

"Guess I don't know my own strength, huh. Sorry, Tsuna!" The tall black-haired boy beamed once again his ever-earnest toothy grin.

"A-ah... It's alright, Yamamoto..." Tsuna meekly nodded at the admittedly hard not to forgive baseball star level killer smile, which he could almost sure was a power Yamamoto must have been completely unaware of, as with most of his virtues.

"Cheh! You managed to get out of this one, lucky bastard! I'll let it slide, only because the tenth accepted your sorry-ass excuse of an apology! You better be grateful that the tenth is so generous, even to undeserving losers like you!" Huffing in displeasure of the outcome, Hayato demonstratively turned on his heel and made his way to where he sat at the front-most of the classroom. Takeshi was glad to drop the issue with an oblivious shrug at Hayato's as-per-usual unnecessarily dramatic behavior and sat at the back of Mikami's window-side row. Tsuna exhaled a heavy sigh and lay face down on the desk, silently complaining about how these excessive things only happened to him.

Mikami only tore her gaze away from them when the bell rang, distracting her. She hurriedly glanced out the window in attempt to occupy her mind with anything else beside mafia weirdos, just for an equally odd encounter down by the school gates to catch her attention. There, a malicious-looking tonfa-wielding guy with the Disciplinary Committee's uniform thrown over his shoulders and the trademark red armband pinned to the sleeve was mercilessly beating up some poor kid who just happened to be a couple of seconds late for class. Up inside the safety of the classroom, Mikami nervously looked away in shock from the daily Hibari gore scene, and instead decided it would be far safer to pointedly stare at her desk. With sweaty hands clenching the sides of her head, she tried to ignore the shiver that ran up her spine.

"This is the most insane school ever!" she muttered wide-eyed to herself before the teacher came in, silencing the chattering students to start the lesson.

- xxx -

The Morisaka twins – Sakura and Mizuki, being rather quiet children, usually kept to themselves as they generally liked to just sit around reading books, which was the norm in their humble household. The only other kid their own age they played with was their childhood friend Kitamura Rin, who lived right next door. Their families were old-time friends, so they were always together, whether at school or on holidays. Even though they still didn't completely avoid interacting with their peers, they never felt the need to make an effort for any other additional friendships. Rin was enough. She was like another sibling at that point.

Kitamura Rin on the other hand, being an energetic bundle of sunshine, was particularly sociable. So each new school year whenever they had a change of classmates, she made the habit of befriending each of them, even down to the most timidly shy ones, which she somehow always managed to single out as a favorite and try to covertly coax into joining them. It was never really entirely clear whether this was her little charity case project or maybe some kind of roundabout attempt at getting the stoic twins to warm up to other people that she believed to be similar in behavior. But it always blew over by the end of the year. Either because of Mizuki's unforgivingly emotionless indifference, Sakura's straightforward and acutely honest stern attitude or Rin's overbearing energetic character, the new addition to their little circle was always quickly intimidated by the already well-developed dynamic of the trio and either switched to a new clique or made a gradual retreat to their old lonesome lifestyle.

It went like that even when they eventually entered middle school. During their very first days in Namimori Middle, Rin somehow managed to fish out the most awkward-looking oddball from the shadowy corners of the class and kept pestering her, incessantly trying to hold a conversation. It was another plain-looking pale girl with typically Japanese dark hair and same-colored dull dark eyes, almost identical to Rin's former victims, if not for the flat chest and the perpetually bored look. And the poor soul had no way of escaping Rin's motor-mouth, since the class seating arrangement somehow managed to glue her directly beside Rin and her stone-faced childhood friends at all times.

Usually, they would talk about TV dramas, then Rin would jump to boy talk, only to have the girl's enthusiasm quickly dissipate, since she didn't seem to have any interest in men and romance beyond fictional characters and situations. And she more than obviously didn't seem to be developing any kind of desire to ever become as outgoing as Rin herself. Then a strange thing happened. Whenever this girl lost interest in Rin's love-obsessed and gossip-centric blabbering, she would seek out the twins' more level-headed company all on her own, odd for someone who seemed too awkward to actively pursue friendships. It was then that they started noticing small quirks that made them understand why Rin would feel compelled to stretch her hand out to this particular girl.

Her name—Hatsukaichi Mikami—was weird, but not for the expected reasons. It bore the town near the famous Miyajima island for a surname and the characters for what they knew as "taste" and "protect" as a first name, instead of "beautiful" and "god" or something similarly grandeur that conceited people named their children in hopes that they'd live up to the title. Rin insisted on calling her Hatsuka, as if just plainly calling out the "twentieth" day of the month, and it caught on, spreading like wildfire among the rest of the class, since it matched so well with the girl's painfully bored expression because of her perpetually exhausted eyes. But despite the uninspiring appearance, Mikami was actually really talkative when you got her going. What made her open up the most were conversations about the games she played or her favorite anime characters. Rin and the twins could hardly ignore that Mikami was a hopeless otaku, since it was etched in everything from her speaking pattern and her hobbies to her entire everyday way of life. It was probably why she initially seemed so socially impaired to them. To make it worse, she had a terrible tomboyish streak and was awfully stubborn about things only she found important, holding lengthy debates with a fed up Mizuki over the legacy of shounen manga and how it helped develop greater values no matter the age group just because he dared to let it slip that it was for kids and people who refused to grow up. Not to mention that she always let curiosity get the better of her, like when she kept pestering an annoyed Sakura, asking about the reason behind her almost constant sour mood, only to get a ruthless tongue-lashing in return. And while it all sounded like Mikami was an ill fit for a friend of Rin and the twins, somehow she clicked better than all the rest of Rin's human guinea pigs before her.

One day however, she began acting stranger then usual. And the main reason for that came down to her random encounter with another class oddball – an unfortunately talentless scrawny boy whom everyone his whole life liked to call No-Good Tsuna because of his horrifically bad luck.

- xxx -

Back during Namimori Middle School's opening ceremony was when Mikami met Sawada Tsunayoshi, still innocent and unaware of his foreboding future. She was standing in front of the notice board with the class assignments, trying to figure out where she was placed, in order to know where to sit during the ceremony at the hall assembly. Trailing a path with her eyes over the characters of various names, she side-stepped left without being even the slightest bit mindful of her surroundings and, naturally, bumped into someone.

"Hiiie!" That someone made a strange cry between a yelp and a squeak from a rubber duckling and, even though the impact from Mikami's shoulder was a mere accidental light push, he tripped over his own two feet in his hurried attempt to place back some appropriate distance between them. He was just that easy to startle.

"Ah! Sorry! Didn't see you," Mikami immediately apologized, noticing a short boy with spiky caramel hair and large warm brown eyes. Heh, this little shota fell down just from that, how moe! Definitely uke material! Unaware that she was letting her perverse autoanimefying thoughts show, a large grin spread on her giddily amused face.

"A-ah! No, no, I'm the one who should be apologizing! I wasn't paying attention!" picking himself up, the boy managed to stammer out as he felt the girl eyeing him strangely. Looking straight at her made him feel a bit uneasy so he hurried to turn back his attention to the notice board, only for this time to smash the side of his face right into the hard painted wood. "Ow!" He clenched a hand over his nose and retreated a few steps back to get away from the violent construction.

"Bwahaha!" hugging her sides, Mikami burst into unrestrained laughter. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry— Haha! But— Ha! It's so funny— Hahaha! Moe~!"

"Ahaha, right..." Awkwardly, the boy tried to join in the myrth while rubbing his pulsating nose. Moe? Is she an otaku? Am I supposed to resemble an anime character?

"Sorry, but you have to admit it's hilarious. You managed to fall on your ass for no reason and then right after that, you smacked your nose right onto the board like some klutzy dojikko! Ahahah! Seriously, who does that IRL?" She wiped the stray tear from the corner of her eye, stomach hurting from all the laughter.

Dojikko? IRL?! Why does she feel the need to use so much internet slang?! It's hard to understand and just makes her sound lame!

"A-ah... It's okay, I guess..." he stammered, still not sure if he hadn't met someone troublesome to be around and if he wasn't better off not talking to her in the first place.

As the excitement died down, the two continued their search through the name list from where they left off, their eyes landing on one single class – 1-A. Surprised, they turned to each other and Tsuna offered an uncomfortable polite smile, cursing yet another bout of his astoundingly horrendous luck.

"Looks like we'll be in the same class, Sawada," Mikami said cheerfully, completely unaware of his depressive thoughts, "I'll be counting on you."

"Y-yeah, me too, Hatsukaichi-san." Tsuna nodded nervously, thinking how he won't be able to handle it if his other classmates also started calling him a klutzy stock anime character all because of this loud otaku girl who liked to link everything to her made-up 2D escapism.

"Well then, we better get going. The assembly should be starting soon. Hurry up, Sawada!" As she rushed him with a beckoning wave of her hand, Tsuna could practically envision his dreadful future middle school life so he resolved to stray far away from her in fear that she might bring him an even lousier school reputation than he already previously had.

Thanks to that well-made judgement, their acquaintance made no further progress from there and Tsuna could sigh in relief that Mikami didn't bother to seek out his company again after a rather chatty classmate named Kitamura Rin got a quick hold of her.

Some time after that, came the day a mysterious little hitman turned No-Good Tsuna's life upside down.

- xxx -

Mikami was calmly walking to school that morning, dressed in the school-issued summer uniform. Strolling down the road by the river with a schoolbag lazily thrown over a shoulder, she was just about to yawn sleepily when she saw a short spiky brown-haired boy dashing over the near river bridge like his life depended on it. Mikami froze mid-yawn as she watched him turn down the road towards Namimori Middle, clad only in his boxers while shouting about "confessing" with his "dying will".

"What the?!" Mikami could only gape wide-eyed at the cloud-trails of dust that followed the boy. "Is that... Sawada?! It can't be! He's never been able to run this fast, last time I checked! What does he think he's doing, going through town half-naked in broad daylight?! And is it just me, or was his forehead on fire?!" she muttered under her nose as she narrowed her eyes to see better.

Instead, her disbelieving squint was drawn up to the sky above where a strange freakish yellow eyed green parachute was carrying some small child with exaggeratedly curled sideburns, strapped in a classy suit and fedora hat, making him look like a tiny rich businessman. Making eye contact, the kid deigned to smirk at her and casually gave her some kind of cool-guy two-finger wave as if the entire situation was perfectly normal.

Dumbstruck, Mikami lowered her eyes blankly towards where her now presumably borderline insane classmate had disappeared off to and slowly placed a hand over her forehead. "Am I sick or something? I feel fine though. Maybe I'm still a bit sleepy." Choking it up to her staying up a little too late the previous night, she made an effort to ignore the absurd scene she just witnessed and continued on her way to class.

- xxx -

Mikami received her second doze of shock this morning when Rin, her neighboring deskmate, informed her that the class loser, No-Good Tsuna, had confessed in his underwear to the school idol, Sasagawa Kyoko, and in the process managed to piss off one of their seniors who had an eye for her – Mochida, who happened to be the Kendo Club captain, of all people.

"So I wasn't seeing things after all!" Mikami exclaimed, her usually bored expression perking up and taking life to light up at the prospect. "Please tell me you also saw that weird flame on his forehead! It was almost like his fringe, or rather, his forehead was on fire, but it was smaller and looked kinda like it was made out of reiatsu or chakra of some sort. Actually, wait, I think it was more like furyoku." She frowned, thinking way too deeply into the matter than needed.

"Flame? What are you talking about? Have you been overdosing on anime again?" Rin gave her classmate a pointed look.

"No!" The otaku unintentionally raised her voice, obviously in denial. "Well, not much more than usual... Look, last night I was only up until two, okay! I just had to finish reading the arc I'd started or I wouldn't have been able to sleep and would've ended up tossing and turning in bed, thinking about what happens with Allen's broken arm next! But that's unimportant and D. Gray-man has nothing to do with this, unless... Sawada has somehow acquired a parasitic type innocence!"

Judging by the lost scrunched up face of "having no idea what the hell that meant" that Rin was giving her, that was definitely not the case.

"As I was saying..." Mikami deliberately cleared her throat. "You didn't see it? I only saw it for a brief moment but it was big and orange and blazed in one concentrated spot right here." Mikami put a hand pointing up on her forehead and moved her spread fingers like a flickering flame. "I can draw you a picture if you want?"

"No need. I can imagine." Rin sweatdropped and turned to the black-haired girl in front of Mikami's desk. "Sasa-chan, this morning did you notice Dame Tsuna's forehead bursting into fire or anything?" Rin's stoic childhood friend Sakura just threw them a deadpan look without making the effort to entertain their stupidity with any semblance of an answer and promptly returned to her book reading. "Mizuchin?" Sakura's twin brother Mizuki grumbled a low energy "don't know, don't care" from the front, not even bothering to raise his head since he was too busy napping the break away sprawled over his desk.

Mikami grew even more confused. Maybe she really was seeing things. Was all that staying up late staring at a glowing screen in the dark making her eyes go bad thia quick? Was her mom right to berate her for it every time she caught her in the act?

"See, Hatsuka, no one knows anything about any forehead fires." Rin shrugged it off. "Anyway, listen to this. Now the Kendo Club captain, Mochida-sempai, is gonna fight Dame Tsuna, lunch break, in the gym! He wants to take revenge on the insult Kyoko received, being confessed to in such an indecent way by a guy in his underwear. Isn't that super romantic? Mochida-sempai is so manly~" Rin's eyes took on heart shapes as she wobbled in her seat.

Still bothered by the incident she witnessed on the way to school, Mikami paid no mind to her classmate's usual gushing over some boy and instead turned her gaze to Tsuna's desk where the boy understandably lay face down in what was presumably embarrassment. For some inexplicable reason, his uniform looked like it had been stitched along the arch of his back and Mikami added it to the growing list of mysteries that made absolutely no sense to her. It crossed her mind right then, as she studied him like some peculiar specimen, that this was supposed to be her class' unfortunate dunce and, from what she gathered from Rin's gossip, he had somehow gotten himself into a seriously unfavourable situation this time around. If she was in his shoes, Mikami thought to herself, she'd run as far away as she could to avoid this needless confrontation.

- xxx -

Lessons passed and the moment of truth for No-Good Tsuna was upon them. Half the school, presumably everyone actually, was gathered in the gymnasium, since Mikami even spotted the fear-inducing figure of Hibari Kyoya lurking the shadow of an ominous dark corner. Mochida stood in the middle of the crowd, ready with his kendo gear and a cocky smirk on his face, boasting about his superiority over deadbeat Tsuna and how easy it would be to prevail over such a weak opponent.

"Well, isn't he full of himself, the stuck up jerk, trashing small fries to show off. How noble of the Kendo Club captain," Mikami was immersed in judging the senior as she stood next to Rin, who completely ignored her to ogle said noble Kendo Club captain.

"Where's Sawada? He's late!" Mochida demanded an answer from two poor souls out of his Kendo Club underlings, who figured Dame Tsuna must have escaped to evade being ridiculed by a most certain effortless beating. The mere implication made the black-haired sempai explode into self-satisfied laughter, ego visibly inflating and threatening to burst. "This means I win by default! Ahahaha!"

"So the shota is actually smarter than he looks," Mikami praised her scrawny classmate for his wise decision of ditching this ridiculous farce of a fight for the school idol's dignity. Athough, she still couldn't shake off some weird annoying nagging feeling she seemed to have at the back of her mind.

"It's Tsuna!"

"Dame Tsuna came!"

"Whoa, he really came!"

"It would've been better if he ran..."

The strange feeling disappeared as the crowd's utter disbelief made Mikami turn to see the short brown-haired boy standing at the entrance. After getting over her surprise, she found herself silently cheering for the boy, if only because he had the guts to actually make himself present, despite knowing he'd most probably get his ass handed to himself.

When he had finally gathered what semblance of confidence he possessed to move from his spot at the gym entrance, Tsuna walked up to Mochida, who was still busying himself with long-winded self centered babbling about his assured victory to the biased audience of his devout Kendo Club yes-men. The price set by the senior became the school idol, Sasagawa Kyoko, earning murmurs from the crowd and another sarcastic remark about his integrity as a man from Mikami. As the fight began, Tsuna was surprised when he was randomly passed a shikai, a bamboo kendo training sword, from Yamamoto, of all people. No matter how Yamamoto got a hold of this, Tsuna was certainly glad to not remain empty-handed in the face of his far more experienced "oponent". However, that false sense of relative safety didn't last long before Mochida easily disarmed him with his own bamboo training sword, which forced the brown-haired boy to spend two good minutes running around in circles, trying to dodge the sempai's frighteningly precise attacks. It was admittedly silly, the way Tsuna was screaming his head off while barely avoiding being hit with a concussion or two, and it was making the crowd burst in hysterics. It certainly didn't seem as amusing to Tsuna himself, as he was acutely aware just how sheer his luck was that Mochida's well-calculated swings missed him by a hair, considering the upperclassmen was wielding a weapon he knew like the back of his hand. Just as the thought crossed his mind, Tsuna's bout of luck suddenly ran out as he somehow tripped and fell over, awarding Mochida the wonderfully splendid opportunity to finally land a most satisfying solid hit. That moment of blissful perfection was completely ruined by the angellic sound of Kyoko's encouraging voice yelling "Sawada-kun, do your best!" all to everyone's surprise and one particular sempai's tragic dissapointment.

Then, amid all that noise, Mikami barely managed to pick up a strange faint sound, unnervingly similar to a muted gunshot, just before she caught sight of something almost unnoticeably fast piercing through Tsuna, the sheer force of which making him fall back on the floor.

A-are those red drops actually ...blood?!

For a second there, Mikami almost thought the boy was dead and was struggling to come to terms with what happened, that somebody, her classmate, was murdered in the broad daylight, in the presumable safety of the school building, right in front of her and the entire student body. A school shooting in Namimori?! How could some deranged armed nutcase have possibly gone past Hibari and his goons?! She couldn't believe it! A moment later however, Tsuna jumped up alive and well, ripping his clothes apart in the process, and a familiar orange flame burst into life on his forehead.

"Reborn!" Tsuna bellowed. "I'll get a point with my dying will!"

"There it is, Kitamura-san! The flame! Do you see it?!" Mikami incessantly tugged on Rin's sleeve, her eyes not leaving the suddenly changed atmosphere around the boxers clad boy.

Everyone stared in shock as Tsuna suddenly jumped Mochida and started wrestling entire strands off his black hair right out of his skull. He was taking so much that spots were starting to bald and the ridiculous view somehow managed to erupt laugher from the crowd again. The situation had gotten out of hand and the referee, who was also a Kendo Club member, planted at the position with the pure intention of cheating if it were necessary, had no choice but to hurriedly raise Sawada's flag, signaling his victory, for fear that his captain would otherwise lose more than just his charisma. The crowd went wild, amazed by none other than Sawada Tsunayoshi, the boy who'd somehow managed to knock the self-centered Kendo Club captain down a peg. Who would've thought No-Good Tsuna could put up such a grand spectacle? People found themselves gaining a new-found respect for the kid.

"Stop it with that flame thing of yours, Hatsuka! You're starting to give me the creeps! There was nothing there! All I saw was Dame Tsuna tripping over like he always does. Anyway, it was so sweet of Yamamoto to help him out, don't you think~?" Rin gushed as she and Mikami followed the large crowd of students exiting the gym like sheep along with the rest of the herd. All around them voices could be heard talking about how crazy in an amazing way Tsuna kicked ass.

As they moved through the throngs of people, Mikami found herself drowning out Rin's voice when she spotted someone off to the side from the sea of students – an unfamiliar guy, who stood out with his unusually silver or rather just plain gray hair. Despite not looking much older than her middle school classmates, he had a cigarette in his mouth, which somehow complimented the disgruntled scowl on his face. Mikami also immediately noticed the assortment of rings, wristbands, bracelets and other apparently fashionable trinkets decorating his crossed arms, which most definitely also violated some sort of unknown to her school handbook rule. Even though he was smoking, he was definitely underage, since he was wearing the school uniform, although forgoing proper school etiquette again by having a red t-shirt underneath, a pair of slender chains around his neck and another hanging loosely over the side of his left pant leg. He just stood there by himself in his obnoxiously rebellious getup, mumbling who-knows-what under his nose as he stared at something back inside the gym hall.

While this strange guy really was one of a kind, the remnant of a dying breed even, considering people usually got beat up at Namimori by the rule-obsessed prefects for ignoring the dress code so blatantly and daring to smoke on school grounds, what really made Mikami wonder in disbelief after she'd caught notice of his weird hair, were his stunning pale olive-green eyes, a rare shade hardly found in Japan. She wondered if he was half-something in nationality to have eyes such as those, along smore familiar distinctly asian facial features, but she didn't dwell on it, since she didn't know him, had no reason to care and was forced to remind herself to stop staring like he was some exotic alien, so she eventually forgot. A nagging feeling at the back of her mind still remained until the end of the day however, bothering her. Like there was something important that she was supposed to be concerned about.

- xxx -

Mikami certainly didn't expect to see the very same guy first thing in the morning the next day at school, standing in front of the class with all his fancy accessories and a spiteful look on his almost barely foreigner face.

"A transfer student at this time of the year?" she muttered under her nose, immediately recognising the typical signs of what would usually constitude as a flag event inside anime or games. Half a second later her brain finally managed to match this guy's rebellious appearance to her memory of the unusual green-eyed "alien" standing aside from the crowd. "Wait...! That's...! From yesterday...!"

"I'll introduce the transfer student. He was studying abroad in Italy until now. His name is Gokudera Hayato-kun." Following the teacher's announcement, chatter spread throughout the class.

"Hey, hey, Hatsuka~! Isn't he hot~!" Heart-eyed Rin turned to whisper giddily to Mikami.

Mikami swore she could hear similar statements from the other girls in class. She couldn't blame them. The day before, for a moment there, even she had spaced out in his direction, mushy thoughts overcoming her about how if the mysterious transfer student was an anime character, he would be a combination of two of her favorite types – "good-looking troubled delinquent" and "young yet silver-haired bad boy". She even thought he resembled a longer-haired middle school version of Dante from Devil May Cry, only with pretty green eyes. Not that she'd allow herself to consider this guy good looking because of these features. So she naturally excused that stray thought with the fact that no one was used to such an eye color in Japan. It was probably one of the main reasons his appearance excited the girls in class, aside from the Italy bonus points. This guy was like a limited-edition item to these variety starved Asian girls.

Too bad he looks like he's probably another lousy grunt, judging by his sour expression. Real life boys are often just plain boring.

Maybe the only one who wasn't affected and wasn't into two-dimensional anime boys was Sakura, the classmate seated in the desk in front of Mikami's. The stoic girl never tore her steel gray eyes away from the book she was reading, not even to throw just a single glance at the newcomer. She probably liked more mature men anyway, Mikami figured, just like Kurokawa Hana, another classmate of theirs, who scowled and grumbled "another ugly monkey" in displeasure as soon as Hayato had entered the room. The school idol next to her, Sasagawa Kyoko also paid no special attention, but she had yet to take an interest in those kinds of relationships, being the flowery bundle of kind-hearted innocence that she was.

Having the audacity to pointedly ignore the teacher's desperate urging of him to sit at the empty seat at the front of the class, Gokudera Hayato decidedly made for a casual stride between the rows, acting as if he owned the place. For some inexplicable reason, he took a halt right upon reaching non other than the class' loser Tsuna. Then, to everyone's astonishment, he unceremoniously raised his leg and kicked the smaller boy's desk with such an unnecessary force that it effortlessly toppled over along with its inhabitant.

"Gokudera-kun! Your seat is... Gokudera-kun!" The teacher struggled to steal back the transfer student's attention to no avail as the silver head completely disregarded the annoying repetitiveness of his voice and made his way to a free back seat.

"What was that all about...? Do they know each other or—?"

"His scary-ness makes me so numb~!" Mikami's monologuing was cut short by Rin's fangirlish outburst which earned a well-deserved eye roll from a slightly irritable Mizuki who almost looked permanently annoyed by how quick his childhood friend was to jump onto newer and newer male objects of obsession.

"That's not a real word, Rin. Stop making stupid things up," Sakura chided her while flipping a page from the book she was reading.

"We're definitely making a fan club!" Some other girl said from the back.

"Oh~! Let me in~!" Completely disregarding the twins' behavior, Rin waved her hand enthusiastically.

Mikami tried her best to restrain herself from placing a palm over her forehead. The guy hasn't been here for five minutes and he already has a fan club. Looks like Yamamoto has a rival on his turf... She looked back at the transfer student to see him glaring daggers at Tsuna. And what the hell is his problem with Sawada? Are they fighting or something? Dame Shota sure is getting some attention lately... She moved her eyes to the shaken from shock Tsuna who was doing his best to act like no one seemed to hold some kind of vendetta against him as the more-than-intimidating transfer student persisted in sending him evil looks.

"Hmm..."

"Hatsukaichi-kun! Pay attention!"

"A-ack! Yes, sensei!"

- xxx -

Lunch break, Mikami, Rin, Sakura and Mizuki were eating with their desks joined together while talking about various topics, a usual sight.

"Ah! And there's our class' match in the Volleyball Tournament this afternoon! Too bad you got a doctor's note Mizuchin. It's gonna be so cool! Yamamoto is so good at sports~!" Rin blabbered giddily with over-exaggerated hand gestures as Mizuki sent Mikami a subtle eyeroll. "And he looks so hot in baseball uniform~!"

"Yes, we know, Kitamura-san..." Mikami sweatdropped. "We all went to the same elementary school as him and got to watch him play on several occasions, yet you never fail to remind us."

"Also, Sawada's going to be participating as a substitute. It may prove to be particularly interesting," Sakura pointed out, putting some rice into her mouth.

"He is? Wasn't Dame Tsuna supposed to act as the substitute of the substitute of the substitute of Nakamura?" Mizuki lifted his usually empty gaze up from his boxed lunch, showing interest in something for once, with which he surprised Mikami greatly, making her drop her chopsticks onto her lap. Being childhood friends, Rin and the twins rarely considered anything either of them did as novel, but their more recent friend Mikami had never witnessed Mizuki express any kind of emotion other than boredom, annoyance and indifference before that very moment.

"That is correct, Brother. The three of them are sick. Stomach disorder," Sakura supplied a seemingly logical explanation.

"Haa?" The birth of a conspiracy hatching in her overstimulated teenage mind, Mikami picked up her chopsticks, excitement driving hrr to clench them together in a fist.

"What is it, Hatsuka?" Rin was understandably bewildered by Mikami's unnecessarily dramatic mannerisms.

"There's no way all three of them got the same disease at the same time! This has got to be a set up! Sawada probably did something! He poisoned them!"

A collective groan filled the room.

"Please, Hatsuka," Rin was absolutely done with her, "In grade school the three of us caught influenza at the same time. It's perfectly normal, especially since the team gets together for practice a lot more often right before the tournament. They probably got sick at the same time when they ate something funny on a get-together after practice or something like that."

"It's not the same! A flu is contagious! This is food poisoning, I tell you! Sawada is definitely up to something! First that orange flame, then the inhuman strength, after that it turns out he and the mysterious transfer student from Italy know each other and now he's poisoning people! There's something fishy around here and it's got something to do with inhuman superhero powers, furyoku fire, flying green parachute babies, blood splatters and mysterious transfer students from Italy and I'm gonna find out what right now!" Mikami quickly gobbled down the rest of her boxed lunch and practically flew out of the classroom.

"Furyoku fire? Flying green parachute babies?" Rin and the twins exchanged dull looks. "Hatsuka should stop watching so much anime... It's wrecking her brain..."

- xxx -

After a while of walking around the corridors, Mikami's excitement had finally simmered down a little, allowing her to realise how she actually had no clue where she would manage to find Tsuna. She felt silly, the thought of going back making her regret her embarrassing obnoxious outburst. Just when she was starting to entertain the idea that she might actually have contracted some semblance of teenage delusion sickness, she heard someone yelling from the nearby corridor, "Reborn! Reborn! Where are you?"

Is that Sawada? Mikami poked her head from around a corner to see the short boy looking around for someone as well. She then immediately picked up some strange smell in the air. Huh? Coffee? Where's that coming from...?

Apparently, having noticed it as well, Tsuna sniffed around, knelt and pressed his ear on a random fire hydrant box, just to get his head hit when the small door opened by itself to reveal the somehow fully furnished inside of a tiny coffee room.

What the–?! Why is there a small secret room inside?! And that kid! He was the one with the weird green parachute yesterday morning! He's... Is he drinking coffee?! Isn't he just a kid?!

"Ciaossu! I'm having my coffee break now," the infant spoke casually, as if the presence of the tiny coffee room wasn't mind-boggling enough.

It spoke! Like an adult! And it's wearing a suit! And a fedora! And is that a lizard?! Why is there a lizard on some fancy-dressed little kid's hat?!

"What are you doing in a place like this?!" Tsuna freaked out too, though he seemed like he knew the little kid, judging by his lack of concern for the fact that the child was consuming such a strong stimulant.

"I have secret hiding places all over school," came the disturbingly natural answer.

A-all o-over?! Mikami looked around with her mouth agape. She could just imagine the maze of tiny child-sized tunnels crawling all around behind the walls.

"When did you have time to do that?"

Sawada has a good point. And that's a freaking kid! Screw time! How did he even manage to build those hiding places without anyone noticing?! And with whose resources?!

"Anyway, never mind that! Shoot me with the Dying Will Bullet. The volleyball tournament is next. I have to look good in front of Kyoko-chan!"

Sh-shoot?! B-b-b-bullet?! So yesterday...! The sound of a gunshot...! And what hit him...! It was all starting to dawn on Mikami.

"I can shoot you but you will die." The kid had said it in such a matter of fact that it seemed wrong.

D-d-d-die?! Mikami was frozen in place behind the corner with a horrified expression, millions of questions that she was too afraid to speak aloud rushing through her mind. She slid down to the base of the wall and didn't dare move a single muscle. I'm not supposed to be hearing this! What did I get myself into?!

"Yeah, sure, I'll die." Tsuna nodded to himself, but then quickly backpedaled, "...wait. What?!"

"If you don't have any regrets when you are hit by the Dying Will Bullet, you won't revive."

Dying Will? Revive? Aren't you normally supposed to be killed by a gunshot, no matter what funny little title name you choose to call it?!

"Do you think that someone like you who's gotten so overconfident after all the flattery will have any regrets?"

"Oh, right. Which means..." Tsuna could now panic. "The Dying Will bullet is useless!"

Mikami wasn't entirely clear on what he meant but when he kid in the suit took the green creature off the rim of his hat and it turned into a... Green gun! which was pointed straight at Tsuna's head, the image clearly sent all sorts of alarms off in Mikami's mind and she screamed inwardly.

"Hiiie!" Tsuna made no effort to restrain his own yelp.

"Do you still want to give it a try? If you're lucky, you'll die a painless death," the kid teasingly tried to tempt him.

"N-no way!"

Is he seriously going to shoot him with that?! Is that even a real gun?! How in the world did the lizard—?!

"Well then, good luck, hero!" And with that, the secret little coffee room's apparently fake fire hydrant door slammed shut without anybody ending up getting shot at.

Tsuna stood kneeling on the floor in despair, unsure what to do with his upcoming new challenge. Mikami was in a similar position around the corner, though far more shocked by the interaction. She was completely shaken, so busy replaying everything in her mind, pitting together the pieces of a puzzle, that she didn't even notice when Tsuna had gotten up and left.

Italy... Fedoras... Suits... Guns... Bullets... Shooting... Blood... Death... Don't tell me!

- xxx -

Eventually, Mikami recovered from her stupor enough to be able to stand on her trembling feet, but remained greatly disturbed by the matter. Feeling the need to reaffirm that she wasn't going insane by relaying what she'd just witnessed to her three friends from class, she hurried over to the gym for the volleyball match where Rin and the twins were waiting for her in the crowd. Once there, she was surprised to notice a number of posters with slogans in support of Tsuna of all people, who seemed to have won himself a slither of popularity ever since his rather amusing fight with Mochida. Reminding herself of the more important task at hand, Mikami managed to quickly zero in on a bigger poster, the one with "Go, go, Yamamoto~!" and a painted heart, which she was certain it was surely carried by Rin and some other girls from the unofficial Yamamoto Fan Club.

"Yo, Hatsuka~!" Rin greeted her with sparkly eyes when she approached. "Ready to scream your heart out? Yamamoto is soo going to win!"

"A-ah, no thanks, Kitamura-san. I'll leave that to you. You fangirl enough for the both of us..." Mikami sweatdropped. "I just fail to understand how the noisy fan club and the unnecessarily large tacky poster are really necessary. It's like we've suddenly entered the Haikyuu-verse as background students from Aobajousai where Yamamoto is Seijou's ace setter. Seriously creepy."

Ignoring Mikami's typical geekspeech sidetracking, Sakura chose to address another fault in Rin's words. "Or maybe we need to stress over the fact that volleyball is a team sport and as thus, there is no such thing as a lone individual winning."

"So Yamamoto's team is going to win. Same thing, whatever. He does most of the work anyway." Rin shrugged, ignoring her two sweatdropping childhood friends and Mikami's face palm, which the girl failed to restrain this time.

"Nevermind any volleyball bishies..." Mikami began on a more serious note, "Listen, guys. I need to tell you something real bad—!"

"Look. He's here," Mizuki announced to the small group, unintentionally interrupting Mikami, and they turned to see Tsuna at the entrance.

Everyone in the hall immediately exploded into cheers for the recently popular boy, drowning out all of Mikami's chances of getting back her friends' attention and relay the news. All that unexpected fuss caused Tsuna to sweat nervously as he went over to his team, trying his best to pay no mind to the excited screams. Yamamoto and several of the other boys from their class were also there, including...

"Isn't that Gokudera? What's the transfer student doing there? I know I practically cheated to get out of this brainless sports competition but is it really alright for him to play on his first day of school? Almost makes me feel bad for the guy," Mizuki monotoned, making Mikami turn her attention to the unusual silver head.

Yeah, when did the mysterious transfer student have time to signe up for the team when he just joined our class a few hours ago?! There's definitely some conspiracy here!

After a brief last minute floor polishing and the approval from the Disciplinary Committee President, the game between class 1-A and 1-C began with the referee's whistle and the roar of the crowd. Naturally, Tsuna was terrible at playing, dropping the ball each and every time he had to do a receive, This caused trouble for the rest of his team and especially Yamamoto who had to exert a lot of energy in attempt to either compensate for the lost points or make last second saves, doubling as a libero along with being the main hitter.

"Go Yamamoto~! Fight-oh!" At least Rin was enjoying herself. She was waving the ridiculous poster with the heart, frantically trying to outvoice the other fan club members, disturbingly reminding Mikami of Oikawa Tooru's fangirls from Haikyuu.

There goes another ball towards Tsuna... it's coming... coming... Tsuna jumps... and...! "Woo~! Go Tsuna~!" Ah... he missed... The ball painfully bounced off his head, making him fall over on his back. "Eeeh..." the crowd groaned, disappointed.

"What is he doing? He should get up already! He's getting in Yamamoto's way!" Rin whined beside Mikami.

Tsuna completely failed every chance he got, no matter the position the rotation provided him, in contrast with the other team members, who were jumping through hoops, desperately trying to prevent the ball from touching their side of the field. He even got a self-smacked ball to the face when he attempted a decent serve. It was admittedly hilarious to watch but no one dared to laugh when their team lost the first set with the large gap of 3 to 21 for class C.

"What's Dame Tsuna doing? He sucks so much, it's making the whole team suffer! Takeshi-kun can't possibly win like that~!" Rin almost cried anime tears.

"Since when are you so close with Yamamoto to be calling him by his first name?" Mikami raised an eyebrow.

"Mou~! Hatsuka~! I'm too upset to pay attention to such minor things~!" Rin flailed her arms in exasperation.

"Regardless, Sawada has to get a grip and try a harder for the sake of his teammates, if not for his own," Sakura turned them back to the main issue.

"Or they're gonna beat the snot out of him later, figuratively speaking," Mizuki added grimly as they saw some of the team members giving Tsuna evil looks.

"You've got that right." Mikami sweatdropped.

Would he have done better with that Dying Will Bullet thing the fedora kid mentioned? But he said Sawada would die if he gets shot in the state he's in. ...what am I thinking?! I'm sympathizing with that little wolf in sheep's clothing and his little minion! Mikami shook her head from weird thoughts, looking back at the game, where the teams were already back on the court for the second set. Thinking about that little guy... If he was the one who helped Sawada win against Mochida-sempai yesterday, then where was he hiding? The gunshot I heard came somewhere from above... She scanned the second level of the gymnasium with narrowed dark brown eyes. There! He's here again! W-what the...?! He's... h-h-he's pointing a gun at Sawada!

Mikami freaked out and instinctively reached to tug on Sakura's sleeve. Before she could however, the heavily armed child moved his weapon from Tsuna's direction and changed target, pointing the barrel towards Mikami with a wide unrestrained smirk. The girl stopped her hand, which hovered over Sakura's sleeve, and froze completely still, staring in horror at the infant. The next thing Reborn did sent a message that was quite clear to her under the pressuring circumstances. The kid put a small finger to his mouth in a "keep quiet or else" sort of mafia way, like he trusted her not to tell a soul if she didn't want to lose her head. Then, right in front of her horrified eyes, he confidently loaded his gun with a pair of the weirdest blue bullets and mercilessly shot them into Tsuna's legs, gun turning back into the lizard-like shape-shifting chameleon creature afterwards.

Mikami wanted to scream. But she couldn't. Her throat seemed to suddenly dry up. Like she was so immensely out of it that she had lost the ability to speak. That or her gaping mouth was letting too much air in, which was making all her saliva dry up. Tsuna had fallen to the floor, faint drops of blood visible from where Mikami stood. Those eerie red dots almost made her vision blur as her entire body started shaking. Others seemed to assume Tsuna had just tripped on his feet or something. Naïve, pure, oblivious souls.

Amazingly, Sawada managed to get up. And he was well! The game continued, business as usual. Actually, no, it didn't! Tsuna was kicking ass, in a sense. He managed to receive each of the opponent's spikes, though with the most embarrassing and fragile male body part possible. The crowd went "woo, yeah~!" and "ooh, that hurt~" at the same time, but at least everyone was rooting for Tsuna and he managed to slow the ball enough for Yamamoto and the rest of the team to retaliate with attacks of their own.

Mikami was speechless. His jumps were so high, it was like his legs were made out of rubber, or like he just grew springs for legs. He's just like Hinata from Haikyuu! A flying chibi shrimp! That little fedora kid must have shot Sawada with some kind of bullet buffs, Mikami figured, even though it was hard to wrap her head around the concept of real life bullets which aided you instead of harming you. She wanted to know more about it but she was too afraid to do so. After all, now that she was actually caught in the act of witnessing everything, the little baby might decide to hunt her down and kill her! Like a true hitman.

"That's it!" connecting the dots, Mikami exclaimed, causing Sakura to jerk in place and throw her a mildly offended questioning look.

Italy, suits, guns, blood...! This kid's a hitman! A real live mafia hitman! Just like Agent 47 from the Hitman game! I can't believe this! This is bigger than I thought! I swear, this whole mess has definitely got something to do with the Italian Mafia, I can just feel it. And if I'm right... Oh, god, this is bad. Real bad. It can't go on like this. Someone should do something about this. How am I the only one seeing this clearly?!

Okay. Breathe. I might be just jumping to conclusions. First things first, I have to make sure I'm not seeing things. Ugh, but if it all turns up true, the hitman kid might decide to off me when he sees me snooping around asking questions! M-maybe I should try talking to Sawada in private first to get a feel of what exactly's going on. Yeah, that might work. After school it is then!

At the end of the match, class 1-A won, much to the delight of Rin and the other members of Yamamoto's own Aobajousai-like fan club.

- xxx -

After school, Mikami hurriedly said her goodbyes with Rin and the Morisaka twins to go find Tsuna who had disappeared off to somewhere. She was looking for him around the grounds by the east side when an out of the blue explosion and a barely noticeable tremor came from behind the school, followed by a high pitched "Hiiee!"

"That squirrel-like girlish yelp! Could it be... Sawada?"

Mikami felt it might turn out to be a grave mistake on her part, but she still made her way to the school backyard and halted to peek behind a corner. She seemed to be doing a lot of sneaking around today. In sight stood a whimpering Tsuna and the scowling transfer student, towering over him with a cigarette in his mouth and a number of cylindrical objects labeled "Dunamis" that had something reminiscent of fuses sticking out, making them look oddly similar to—

"D-dynamite?! Are you fucking kidding me?! The mysterious transfer student's a hitman too?!" Mikami freaked out silently, keeping her voice to a whisper.

"It's said that Gokudera Hayato can hide explosives in any part of his body. In other words, he's a human bomb," Reborn speculated from a safe distance, observing the two.

A h-human b-bomb?! Isn't that just like a kamikaze?! Is he supposed to be some kind of terrorist?! Does that mean the mysterious transfer student came here to bomb the school?! Mikami felt bad about all those times she and her classmates were happy to evacuate the building in the middle of class because of some unnamed delinquent upperclassmen's fake bomb calls to avoid unwanted tests.

...wait! The kid hitman is there too! The moment she noticed him, Reborn turned towards the general direction of Mikami's hiding spot and touched the rim of his fedora in a form of a greeting, making her jump in surprise and hide her face further behind the corner. Oh, no! H-he spotted me! But oddly enough, he didn't call out her name to alert the others of her presence, making Mikami wonder what game he was playing.

"My other name is Hurricane Bomb Hayato," Gokudera added with dynamite sticks clutched between ring-decorated fingers. That was perhaps the first time Mikami heard him speak since the weird guy appeared. "Prepare yourself." And then the dynamite fuses blazed, somehow lit lightning fast by his cigarette, andwere thrown flying towards a mortified Tsuna. Mikami wasn't the only one in shock there.

Why is he suddenly attacking Sawada?! Is he a target or something?! This is crazy!

Fortunately, Tsuna's legs acted fast and dashed for safety, wherever that was. Dynamite was flying everywhere and Sawada was having a hard time barely managing to avoid the explosions. "Someone save meee!"

Sorry, Sawada, it's not like I don't want to help you, I just value my life. ...but then WHAT AM I STILL STANDING AROUND HERE FOR?! Mikami banged her head softly and silently against the wall. I should leave while no one has taken me hostage yet... Or, gulp, killed me...

"Yo!" Just before she could attempt a quiet retreat, a cheerful Yamamoto walked past her, simply waving, and made his way towards Tsuna.

Mikami had no idea how she was supposed to react to that out-of-the-blue salute, gaping at the oblivious happy-go-lucky guy that was casually walking into a minefield. "I-idiot! Don't go there! It's dangerous!"

"This is the end..." Hayato stated grimly, getting another batch of dynamites lit and ready between his fingers.

"Hey~! Tsuna!" the beaming Takeshi called out.

"Ya-yamamoto?!" The boy gaped at him.

"What are you doing here?" Takeshi asked, though the same could go for him.

"Yamamoto! Get outta there, you numbskull!" Mikami moved on instinct, appearing from behind the corner to run breathlessly towards them, bent on getting the innocent away from harm. Namely, Takeshi.

"Ha-hatsukaichi-san?" Tsuna's eyes widened even more. That was the geeky otaku girl from class who liked to link everything to anime! How many more innocent people were carelessly going to put themselves in harm's way?!

"This is the end of you, Tenth." Hayato threw the bombs toward Tsuna and the others. "Disappear!"

Mikami, once again, had no time to react, to scream, to do something, anything! She just stood there along with Tsuna and Yamamoto, stupefied. Her breath hitched. She couldn't believe this was happening. After only a moment's notice they were about to become smoke and dust!

"Aaah! Gotta extinguish them!" Tsuna jumped onto the ground and grabbed a couple of fuses, but only managed to get first-degree burns. "I-it's not working!" he yelled in despair, pain prickling his fingers.

"The little hitman! Where is he?!" As she desperately tried kicking all the dynamite away from them, Mikami's light bulb went on and she looked around nervously for help. Surely, Reborn would aid Tsuna with one of those weird bullet buffs again, wouldn't he?

"How do you know about Reborn?!" Tsuna snapped his head wide-eyed at the girl the moment he heard her utter the word "hitman", fearing the implications of her mentioning that. But he had no time to worry about it now that they were surrounded by deadly dynamite.

"What kind of game are we playing?" Yamamoto was holding up a dynamite stick in his hand, studying it like it wouldn't explode any second. "It looks like fun! Let me in on it too!"

"No, not that!" Tsuna was going to cry. It couldn't get any worse than this.

"Yamamoto, put that down! It's gonna blow up in your face, stupid! It's dynamite!" Mikami shrieked like a deranged elementary school teacher scolding a child running with scissors, while frantically trying to slap the sizzling explosive out of Takeshi's firm baseball grip. "If your deceptively angelic mug gets mangled, Kitamura-san's gonna strangle me for having the chance to save everybody's Prince Charming and not doing so!"

The boy just blinked stupidly, not understanding a word of the references in that statement other than "angelic" and "Prince Charming", giving him the impression that she was somehow badly complimenting him instead of being sarcastic, so he gave her a confused half-smile and spoke out of courtesy, "Thanks. I think?"

"What the hell are you thanking me for?! Just drop that thing before it's too late, you moron!"

Before any of them could manage to make a run for it, a small voice was heard from not far away, saying "Fight with your dying will!"

Immediately, a gunshot sounded and yet again, just like during the fight with Mochida, Mikami witnessed a flash and Tsuna tumbling to the ground with a bloody hole on his forehead. Now normally, anyone else would be dead, but in his case, Tsuna rose to his feet and in the process, for some inexplicable for Mikami reason, ripped clothes apart, leaving only a pair of star-printed blue boxers. He had that strange orange flame on his forehead again.

"Reborn! Extinguish the fuses with my dying will!" Sawada yelled, effortlessly snatching the dynamite out of Takeshi's hand (a feat the gaping in disbelief Mikami had been struggling with), putting it out along with every single lit explosive tube at their feet. "Extinguish, extinguish, extinguish!"

The successful resistance of his target made the Hurricane bomb madder than ever, so he decided it was time to up the stakes. "Twice the bombs!" Just when Mikami was about to sigh in relief, mistakenly thinking that the crisis had been averted, Hayato took out double the amount of dynamite as before, nimbly flinging the sticks above their heads. Amazingly, Tsuna wasted no time as he jumped up, deft fingers managing to extinguish the bombs in mid-air.

Are my eyes too slow or is he using shunpo like in Bleach? Mikami blinked in disbelief. Sawada looked like he was teleporting in mid-air, putting out fuses. No! He seemed to be in multiple places at the same time! He's moving so fast, he's leaving afterimages!

"Triple the bombs." Now you could barely see Hayato's hands from all that dynamite. Not to mention the factory number of cancer sticks in his mouth and the thick blanket of smoke they produced. "Crap...!" The excessive amount of smoke clouded his vision, stinging his eyes, and he involuntarily made the miatake of losing his grip and letting one of the tubes slip out from between his fingers. This caused an entire cascade as the entire bunch toppled down by his feet, placing him in the middle of his own attack with no chance to get away in time.

"This is the end of me," he admitted lifelessly, realizing he was the maker of his own demise as there was no way for him to stop every single fuse from fizzling towards immanent destruction.

Fortunately, Tsuna was on an "extinguishing high" and didn't plan on stopping soon, not that he could control himself to do so. He moved on to the dynamite about Hayato's feet, much to the bomber's surprise, and ended up accidentally saving his attacker from oblivion. After the final fuse was out and the dynamite sticks were completely disarmed, Tsuna's forehead flame also blew out of existence and he reverted back to his former self.

"Ah, thank goodness." Tsuna could finally blow a well-earned sigh in relief, the manner somehow reminding Mikami of a seasoned farmer after a long day's hard work on the field.

Suddenly, Hayato dropped on all fours in front of Tsuna's feet in what looked like a formal bow. "I did not realize it!" he spoke, sounding like a changed man.

"Huh?" Both Tsuna and Mikami's mouths gaped at the unnecessarily over-the-top gesture and how much it contrasted with the Smokin' Bomb's previous attitude.

"You're truly the only one fit to become the boss." Even his voice was an octave higher, brimming with unbridled praise.

"B-boss?! Sawada?! The boss?!" Mikami's eyes widened and switched looking back and forth from Tsuna to Hayato. "You can't mean—?! A mafia boss?! Is that why he was attacking you, Sawada?! He was trying to kill you! You two were fighting for the top spot! This is bigger than I imagined!"

"What?! N-no! Hatsukaichi-san, it's not what it looks like!" Tsuna threw himself into hurried explanations upon witnessing his classmate's alarmed state. He felt obligated to set the record straight as he was struggling coming to terms with the fact that she falling was too close to the truth for comfort. What is my calm uneventful school life coming to?! The place where I can be around Kyoko-chan! Everything will be done for if Hatsukaichi-san gets the wrong idea and tells everyone in class about this! "Please, believe me, Hatsukaichi-san! I have no intention of ever becoming anything like that!"

Tsuna's earnest attempt at assuring Mikami of his desire to remain a completely normal middle schooler was thwarted by the subservient admiration evident on the bomber's usually harsh face as he swore, "Tenth! I'll follow you until the end of this Earth! Ask whatever you want of me!"

"Wha?" Tsuna was staring with almost the same stupefied expression as Mikami. Gokudera pledging allegiance to him was not helping his supposed boss dissuade Mikami's suspicions in the slightest.

"The one who loses becomes the winner's subordinate. That is the Family rule." Now that the real danger had passed, Reborn judged the situation safe enough to step into the scene with a bit of mafia piece of wisdom of his own.

"Rule?" Tsuna had never heard of murderous vigilantes having any kind of rules that he knew of, considering respect for the sanctity of life wasn't on the plate.

"Actually, I never had the desire to become the tenth." Hayato bashfully admitted as he straightened up and his expression softened. Watching the change of demeanor, Mikami caught herself noticing something about him she couldn't understand. Maybe it was the uncharacteristic humility which made her pre-pubescent heart flutter, if only for that mere second, she wouldn't know, but there was no doubt in her mind that despite initial impression, Gokudera was turining out to posess some good qualities after all. "I just wanted to see if the tenth really had the strength to become a suitable boss."

"Gokudera-kun..." Seemingly touched by Hayato's honesty as well, Tsuna didn't seem to be that mad at him anymore either.

"But you proved me wrong! You are much more than I'd ever expected!" Now that look of admiration on Gokudera's face from before turned into full-out puppy dog hero-worship. It looked ridiculous, coming from the guy who normally had a permanent scowl on his face.

Talk about bi-polar. Mikami almost laughed inwardly, a grin threatening to spread across her face, which she shifted to hide with the back of her hand – a nice change from the horrifyingly worried expression she couldn't get rid of all this time.

"You even risked your life to save me, even though I was your enemy! As Gokudera Hayato, I will give you my life!"

What? Seriously? They practically just met today for the first time! And he says that right after he tried to kill him! That's going a bit too fast even for a boss and subordinate relationship. Still... If this dangerous brute really values things such as duty, loyalty and self-sacrifice as highly as he seems to, then maybe I've been quick to judge, Mikami thought, smiling behind the back of her hand.

"Wait! That's too troublesome!" Tsuna exclaimed worriedly waving his hands in refusal. "Can't we just be regular classmates?"

"I can't allow that." The intimidating scowl made a comeback, Hayato's grave seriosness causing Tsuna to feel reluctant about talking him out of it.

Nope, he's the same brute I thought he was, Mikami immediately bit back her previous thoughts.

"Good job, Tsuna." Reborn praised the boy in the blue boxers patterned with stars.

"What...?" Tsuna was lost on what exactly he could've gotten right, considering he almost ended up blowing himself and his classmates to bits, among other things like getting innocents involved, having his secret spilt in front of the class geek and ruining yet another batch of a perfectly good school uniform. His mom was gonna kill him if she had to stich up one more shirt.

"Thanks to your strength, you managed to get Gokudera to become your subordinate. You passed for today." Reborn took out a small note book to write something down as if he was marking down a grade for a student and despite everything that hat went down, Tsuna couldn't help but smile at Reborn's antics and the little bit of rare praise he was getting from the supposed tutor. "And you didn't really seem to need the Dying Will Bullet to achieve it."

"Ahahaha! Tsuna, you're actually a pretty interesting guy to be around!" Thoroughly amused by the day's excitement, Takeshi threw an arm around Tsuna's neck, visibly making a certain gray-headed subordinate highly irritated by the blatant disrespect of him daring to touch the honorable boss with his unworthy peasant fingers. Mikami could practically feel the hate radiating from him even before Yamamoto allowed himself to offhandedly suggest, "Let me join in as well."

"What?" The strange warm feeling of being socially validated by someone as popular and well-liked as Yamamoto waned quickly as Tsuna's head filled with confusion over what the other boy could possibly think was there to join.

"You're the boss right?" Takeshi asked innocently and Mikami froze up, realization dawning upon her.

Oh, right! These people are trouble! I should get out of here! And Yamamoto... He doesn't know anything! I should stop him from getting himself into anything dangerous or Kitamura-san might hang me. "Yamamoto, I'm pretty sure you don't want that—"

"Hey you!" Hayato cut Mikami's attempt at warning Yamamoto short as he stood up tall and intimidating, seething through his clenched teeth angrily at Takeshi. "Don't go acting all friendly with the tenth!"

"Is that what got you so worked up that you felt the need to interrupt me, you jealous guyfriend?!" Too busy glowering at Takeshi, Hayato didn't even register Mikami's jabbering.

No one has the time to hear what I have to say even when it concerns their well-being! She hung her head over being ignored by the two.

"Huh, what's up with him?"

"That underwear guy is such a loser!"

"Ahahaha!"

Some mean-looking seniors called out to a particular person out of their group.

"Oblivious idiots... You don't know what you're getting yourself into." Mikami sighed, palming her face. Yes, no one ever listened to her and it would become their downfall, she was sure of it.

"T-the third year delinquents...!" Tsuna panicked, voice cracking with fear for getting beat up by people miles out of their league.

"Looks like it's time to make myself useful." Hayato could probably make a hellhound run for his life when met with the murderous glare he was giving those pesky third years.

"W-w-wha...?" Tsuna and Mikami stuttered in confused unison. Surely, he wasn't planning on taking them up all on his own? They could only stare as Hayato took out his bombs and made slow grim steps towards the delinquents' doom.

"I'll totally annihilate them." It was funny how casually he said that, although no one dared to laugh.

"Do you have to?!" Mikami grumbled, face-palming at the completely unnecessary fight that he was about to provoke over such a minor thing like Tsuna being made fun of.

"Wait! Y-you don't need to!" Tsuna stammered out but it was no use trying to reason with such a chaotic person.

The only fortunate thing that happened during all that ruckus was that Mikami decided on leaving Takeshi to his own devices and managed to escape by herself, unnoticed by anyone with the exception of Reborn of course. He gave her a smirk and the same fedora-tip greeting, as if he knew what she was up to. Strange, why he let her go, even when she planned to try and tell Rin and the twins everything. It was weird, dangerous and... plain insane! Oh, who was she kidding... Insane didn't even cover it. Mikami had the feeling that her boring old halcyon otaku life was over now with these new characters in town.

Farewell, halcyon days...

- Omake -

Takeshi: Hey, Tsuna, where did that girl go? She was just here a second ago.

Tsuna: Girl...? *thinking* *realizing* Hiiee! That's right! Hatsukaichi-san! She saw everything! She knows too much!

Hayato: That cowardly-looking annoyance you mean? Don't worry, Tenth! *sinister smile* I'll take care of her, whoever that was. *takes out dynamite*

Tsuna: G-gokudera-kun! No! Don't do that! I just need to find her and set things straight. She's definitely freaking out by now. And she might tell someone! Rumors are going to spread, I won't be able to go to school and I won't have an excuse to see Kyouko-chan anymore! My life will be ruined!

Reborn: Don't sweat it, Tsuna. I'm sure there's nothing to worry about.

Tsuna: How can you say that?! Wait... don't tell me you're planning something?! Is it something dangerous again?! You're not going to harm her, are you?!

Reborn: *smirk* Who knows...

Tsuna: Reborn!

Takeshi: Ahahaha! You sure are funny, kid!

Tsuna: Ya-yamamoto... *sweatdrop* It's not funny... He's most probably not joking at all, not even a little...

Takeshi: So... who was she anyway?

Tsuna: Uh, Yamamoto... she's in our class, remember? *sweatdrop*

Takeshi: Really? Another transfer student?

Tsuna and Hayato: *stare*

Hayato: You seriously can't be that much of a dumbfuck...

- A/N -

Hope you liked it~ Review please, all comments are appreciated. ^^

Also, this is an OC falls for Gokudera one-sided love story, but only in the beginning. I'm thinking of agonizing my little Mikami by taking it as slow as possible right until the end. That doesn't mean that there won't be any frustratingly embarrassing moments along the way, so look forward to an abundance of that. :3