xXx

Tsuna woke up to the morning sun shining on his face and the ringing of an alarm he hadn't needed since a baby hitman named Reborn came into his life and made it his personal duty to get Tsuna to school one way or another (aka a body bag). No guns, no threats, not even another 'dead' body featuring Tsuna as the prime suspect which was a sure indicator that something was very, very wrong. Couple that with the fact that last he remembered it was supposed to be sometime in the middle of the school week and his alarm clock always went off several hours after it was supposed to...

Or maybe he was just getting ahead of himself? No reason to panic yet.

Sure, he felt more rested than he had in months - meaning that 'morning' sun might be a bit closer to 'noon' sun - but maybe he didn't even have school today? A special holiday that's all. And while holidays were bad in their own way because they always led to some obscure 'Vongola Tradition', at least it meant Reborn wasn't going to kill him outright for being late. Not that losing a 'traditional' game didn't amount to about the same thing, but at least Tsuna stood a chance to avoid certain death. Sort of. Maybe.

Okay, so Tsuna stood a snowball's chance in hell of winning any Vongola traditional game but that didn't necessarily mean 'no chance', right?

But no. One look at the calendar tossed that idea straight out: middle of the week Wednesday with no holiday.

Getting desperate now, Tsuna scrambled for reasons to assure himself that everything was going to be fine; that the niggling feeling in the back of his head that usually told him the right time to fight, dodge, and run was absolutely wrong this time, and no, his hobby wasn't going to be swimming with the fishes anytime soon.

Tsuna just woke up late, all right. But not that late. All he had to do was hurry and dress then head straight to school and everything would be a-okay. Sure, he'd be starving until lunch rolled over since he'd be skipping out on breakfast, but it would be a small price to pay to not wind up on tomorrow's obituary.

And it sounded like a great plan if it weren't for one little hitch. It looked like eating lunch and possibly even dinner was a rapidly diminishing possibility because if Tsuna was reading the red digits of his clock right, it was 18:27 military time which meant 6:27PM regular time. And if he did his math right: 'school day' plus 'waking up in the evening' equalled 'Tsuna could forget about eating any meals altogether because Reborn would make sure he'd have to drink the rest of them through straws for sleeping the whole day away'.

Then another thought struck him. It wasn't summer anymore, so the thing Tsuna originally thought was the sun shining in his face the whole time was actually...

...a lightbulb that had been strung up to hang over his bed.

"Do you know what time it is, Tsuna" asked Reborn, voice cutting across the room like a death knell.

Tsuna couldn't help let out a nervous laugh, finally noticing the baby hitman looming over him from the other side of the room. "Ehehheh..."

"Whether it's for school or for business, a mafia boss should always keep up with his appointments. I thought I taught you this already." Tsuna tensed as he heard the 'tsk' of disappointment, half-expecting Reborn to whip out a pistol on him. "But luckily for you, that useless, no-good behavior of yours is exactly what we need from you right now to throw them off our tracks."

Phew. So Tsuna was in the clear for now. Then he actually processed what Reborn had just said. "Huh?" Tsuna replied intelligently as he sat up on his bed, pushing off the sheets and rubbing the sleeping off his eyes.

"Namimori will be having visitors soon. Vigilantes who've made something of a name for themselves in Italy. Even the Ninth is hesitant when it comes to dealing with them."

"And what does that have to do with me?" Tsuna couldn't help but ask.

"Everything." And before he knew it, Reborn hopped over to his prone form on the bed and reach a hand out towards Tsuna's neck, causing him to reevaluate his earlier assessment. Not so in the clear after all. He was so dead!

"Hiiieee! Wait! I'm sorry, Re-!" Before Tsuna could finish what he was saying however, a smack that left his head spinning and a glare promising a slow death via Bianchi's cooking silenced him. "Owww! What was that for, Reb-?!" Another smack with a look that said the cooking plus a date with Enzio at the beach.

"Get in the habit of not saying my name. Even now, they might have their agents' eyes on us."

"Whose agents? And why would they be watching us?" asked Tsuna as he rubbed at his sore cheeks.

"The vigilantes of course, No-Good-Tsuna. Although, it would be more accurate to say they're watching out for you, the Vongola Decimo." Reborn made another grab towards Tsuna. Only, now that Tsuna was less scared for his life and more aware of his surroundings, he could tell that rather than going for the throat like he originally assumed, Reborn was aiming for the chain that hung around it - the necklace which held the proof of his unwilling inheritance: the Vongola Ring.

"Me?! But I haven't even done anything!" At least nothing Tsuna thought warranted the vigilantes' direct attention.

"Have you now?" asked Reborn, looking up from whatever he was doing to the Vongola Gear and Lancia's ring alongside it. "Attempting to rig a pole-knocking competition. Destroying a local yakuza gang. Multiple, criminal counts for public indecency. I think the vigilantes have plenty of reasons to worry, especially if this is the man who's next in line to lead the most powerful crime family in the world.

"Those were all your fault!" Tsuna couldn't help but point out.

But Reborn was as unsympathetic to his plight as ever. "Whose fault it is, is besides the point. But really, Tsuna, as a mafia boss you should learn how to take responsibility for your own actions.

That's not necessarily exclusive to mafia bosses, thought Tsuna. Plus, wouldn't a mafia boss do the exact opposite? Then again, Dino always seemed responsible, if a bit clumsy, so maybe it was just the bad ones who didn't. Then Tsuna realized what he was partly agreeing to and argued back, "It's one thing to take responsibility for my actions, but it's another thing entirely to end up in jail for yours!"

"Details," dismissed Reborn. "The how about Xanxus and the battle for succession?" Tsuna opened his mouth to argue that he did that in order to prevent Xanxus from becoming the Tenth, not for Tsuna to become the Tenth himself. But Reborn pressed on. "The Inheritance Ceremony to lure in your enemies. The Vendice."

Tsuna didn't have anything to reply to that. "But I don't even want to be the Vongola Decimo," he settled on saying. He briefly had to close his eyes when whatever Reborn was doing to the rings caused them to emit a blinding light before their glow died down enough just to be tolerable. It was soon followed by another yank on the chain and a strange hissing. Just what was Reborn doing. Tsuna tried to look down his chest but attempting to stare directly into the light was like looking straight at the sun.

Distracted by the rings, Tsuna almost missed the hitman's response which was quick and to the point. "Irrelevant because you're either going to be the Vongola Decimo or you're going to die trying."

"Don't I have a choice that doesn't revolve around becoming a mafia boss?!"

"Well, I suppose you could always die without trying. I could even be the one to put you out of your misery free of charge," offered Reborn, eyes sparkling contemplatively.

"Hieeeeee!"

"Done," declared Reborn, backing up and letting go of Tsuna's rings - each of which now sported some variation of the Mammon cover over the gems. The initial scouts they sent out here might not have the technology to track down the Ring Flames at the moment, but from what I hear about their dealings with the non-allied famiglias, it's only a matter of time. The covers should throw them off our trail when that happens."

"Unfortunately, even with Giannini, Shouichi, and Spanner working together the Mammon cover over the Vongola Gear is one time use. The ring emits too energy in its activated state for the cover to last and as you can see it takes some time to apply the new cover adjusted for the Gear. So I advise you to use the ring sparingly."

So all Tsuna had to do was lay low and not use the rings? He could do that. It wasn't like he liked going out of his way to use them in the first place. Then again, there were a lot of things Tsuna didn't like to do but was forced to do regardless - like participating in Vongola-Style birthday parties and becoming a mafia boss in the first place.

...But wait. Something wasn't right here. "I thought you said they could already be watching us."

"I did," said Reborn.

Correct him if he was wrong but- "Doesn't that meant they already know I'm the Vongola Decimo or that you're Re-" Tsuna barely stopped himself in time from saying Reborn's name much to Reborn's seeming disappointment before the hitman remembered he didn't need an excuse to beat up Tsuna and hit him anyways. "Ow! Quit that!"

"Are you ordering me around, dame-Tsuna?" Crap.

"N-No! Of course not, Rebo-" Three aborted attempts to say and then not-say Reborn's name later, Reborn got bored with slapping around his student and decided to bring out the big guns. Literally. It was two more attempts after that before Tsuna got it right.

"Okay, okay! I get it!"

"Are you sure about that, Tsuna? What's my name?"

"It's R-" No, stop. Tsuna wasn't falling for that a sixth time, and lucky for him Reborn seemed to have taken enough pity on Tsuna to resist another go at beating him up. "Anyways, what I was trying to ask was, if they could be watching us now, doesn't that mean they already know who we are?"

"Now you're just being closed minded," Reborn admonished as he went about wiping his hands on a cloth and putting away the bazooka he pulled out from who knows where. "Knowing who you are and watching over you doesn't necessarily have to be related to one another."

"How can they be watching over me and not know who I am? Better yet, why would they be watching me if they didn't know who I am?"

Of course, being involved with the mafia and his baby hitman tutor for two years, Tsuna should have seen the news he heard next coming.

Before Reborn could respond, there was a pounding of feet going up the stairs and the next thing Tsuna knew he was being pulled off the bed with an armful of his overexcited mother as she announced, "Great news, Tsu-kun! Your brother is coming back from Italy!"