chapter one

It all started with this: "My job is to make sure you become a suitable leader for the Vongola crew," said Reborn.

With those words, everything in Sawada Tsuna's life changed.


No, in retrospect, it started with: "I hired a personal trainer for you," said Tsuna's mother as he walked into his room, only to be confronted with the sight of a small baby sitting on his bed, armed with a very large gun.

"Ciaossu," said the baby, and Tsuna spluttered with disbelief.


But if you think about it, really, didn't it all begin when:

"Hey, Dame-Tsuna, catch the ball!"

As was typical with Tsuna's life, he caught the ball with his face. The force of the throw sent him colliding painfully with the ground, while his teammates grumbled.

"Every team you're on loses," said Tanaka, scrunching up his face into an expression which suggested that Tsuna was worth less than the ground he was currently sprawling on.

"I'm sorry," said Tsuna meekly.

"Of course you are," said Sasaki. "That's why you're doing the cleaning!"

"Wait—" Tsuna struggled up to his feet, and then frantically did his best to catch the broom his laughing teammates threw at him.

"That guy is completely useless," he heard Tanaka saying to the others as they walked out of the field house.

"Grades?"

"They're horrible."

"Sports?"

"Any team Dame-Tsuna joins loses!"

His shoulders slumped. It was all true. The only reason he ever came to school was to see Sasagawa Kyoko. And now there was this rumor going around that she was dating Mochida, captain of the kendo club at their school…it all seemed so pointless. His entire life was pointless.

Tsuna walked over to the window and peered out at the courtyard. If only he could be like everyone else…not such a failure.

Suddenly, Tsuna frowned. There was someone in the courtyard, a small baby by the look of it. Only the baby was absurdly dressed: wearing a fedora, huge T-shirt, baggy pants, and very colorful sneakers. Tsuna grinned at the sight, and then his grin abruptly dropped off his face as the baby proceeded to do continuous somersaults.

"What the hell?" said Tsuna, pressing his face against the window.

As if that shock wasn't enough, the baby then began to—

Tsuna's jaw dropped. He had to hallucinating. There was no way a small baby was break-dancing. Break-dancing.

He closed his eyes for a few moments, and then opened them. The courtyard was empty.

"It must have been a hallucination," Tsuna said loudly to himself. "Caused by stress." He nodded. That made a lot more sense than seeing a one-year-old break-dancing.

And that he was hallucinating probably meant it was time to go home. He sighed, and walked out of the room. As he made his way downstairs, he wondered why, out of all the hallucinations he could have possibly had, he had hallucinated a small baby break-dancing. Couldn't he have had a pleasant hallucination, like Kyoko kissing him?

He promptly blushed at the thought. "There's no way that could happen."

By the time Tsuna reached his house, he'd managed to neatly shove the sight into the "Things that Never Happened" compartment of his brain.

(It was a useful compartment to have, especially for one with such an embarrassing life as Tsuna's. It enabled him to pretend the non-existence of events he'd rather not recall, though at times, the compartment would overflow. His life was just too much of a failure for it not to.)

"Okaasan! I'm back!" he yelled, as he made his way upstairs.

To his surprise, she answered him back with, "Tsu-kun! Come to your room!"

Her waiting in his room was never good. Tsuna gritted his teeth and prepared to for another Your-Life-Is-Destined-To-End-In-Failure-If-You-Don't-Try-Harder-I'm-So-Disappointed-In-You lecture. Every mother in the world was armed with this lecture, but Tsuna got it on a daily basis.

Tsuna walked into his room, and then nearly toppled over with shock.

"I've hired a personal trainer for you," said his mother, beaming and looking completely unaffected by the fact that there was a baby sitting on Tsuna's bed, and holding a very large gun.

"Ciaossu," said the baby.

Tsuna spluttered for a few minutes before he was able to get out, "You were the baby in the courtyard!"

"My name's Reborn."

"It was you!"

"Tsunayoshi," said his mother. "You're being rude to Reborn-san."

Tsuna mouthed a few words frantically but nothing came out.

"I'll go and get some drinks," chirped his mother, and left Tsuna's room.

Reborn waited a beat, and when it looked as if Tsuna wouldn't be getting out of his state of shock any time soon, said "My job is to make sure you become a suitable leader for the Vongola crew."

"What?" No matter how many times Tsuna turned the words around in his head, they failed to make sense. "Vongola crew?"

"You're going to be the leader of the tenth generation," said Reborn, as if it all made sense. Which to him, it probably did, in some twisted way. And he still was holding that gun, rendering it impossible for Tsuna to do anything like bodily remove the baby from his room. "I was hired by a certain man to train you."

"Wait," said Tsuna. "What is the Vongola crew?"

Reborn raised his eyebrows, which looked extremely strange for a baby to do. "You've never heard of them?"

"Why would I have?" snapped Tsuna, annoyed that he was being lectured by a one-year-old.

"That's no matter," said Reborn, ignoring his reply. "Tomorrow you will meet in the field house at lunch. That is when your training will begin."

"But—"

Reborn raised his gun, and Tsuna's protest trailed off into a decidedly unmanly squeak.

"Or else," said Reborn, and then hopped out of Tsuna's window. For a few, frozen seconds, Tsuna simply stared. And then he rushed over to the window. His room, after all, was on the second floor.

There was no one in sight, and the lack of a mangled body on the ground dispelled Tsuna's fear that the baby had just stupidly plunged to his death. Still, now it seemed like Tsuna hallucinations had gotten worse. Such was his life.

Just then, Tsuna's mother entered the room again, holding a tray of drinks. "Oh?" she said. "Did Reborn leave already?"

"Reborn," said Tsuna slowly. It hadn't been a hallucination?

"Tsu-kun," said his mother impatiently. "Sometimes you can be so slow. I've said already, I hired him as a personal trainer!"

"I don't need a personal trainer!"

His mother gave him a look.

"I don't!"

"Sooner or later," said his mother severely, "You will have to decide what to do with your life, Tsu-kun! And you could really use some discipline now. I'm sure you could get good grades if you just tried harder."

"Whatever," mumbled Tsuna. Why couldn't she understand that there was just no point in trying harder? He just screwed up at whatever he did.

"I'm going to sleep!" said Tsuna loudly, in an attempt to stave off another lecture.

His mother stared at him, hands on her hips. "It's the middle of the afternoon!"

Tsuna pulled his bedcover his head in response and refused to open his eyes until he heard the sound of her leaving his room and going back downstairs.

All of this was just—stupid. He didn't want a personal trainer, even one that could do somersaults. He didn't need a personal trainer.

Tsuna turned over on his side and slept.


He had an extremely strange dream that night. He dreamt of a stage and flashing lights. There was a crowd chanting that mysterious name over and over again: "Vongola! Vongola! Vongola!"

Tsuna woke up covered in sweat, his eyes stinging. He glanced at the clock beside his bed automatically, and then stared in complete shock. The clock read 7:32 a.m.

The realization hit him with the force of a homicidal cow: school started at 7:35 a.m.

"Oh crap!"


Though Tsuna had, for once in his life, gotten lucky and managed to avoid Hibari Kyoya, leader of the Namimori Middle Discipline Committee, he spent the morning of his classes in a daze. School usually depressed him for several reasons, one of them primarily being that he never had any friends to eat with during lunch. Now though, he was dreading lunchtime even more than he usually did.

When the bell rang, Tsuna drew in a deep breath and stood up, clutching his bento tightly. It was time to go to the field house, and confront Reborn and tell him he didn't need a personal trainer.

Or at least, that was the plan.

By the time Tsuna managed the find the field house, lunch was nearly half over. He took a quick glance around, saw that there was no one around, and slipped into the field house. He dropped his bento.

Reborn was break-dancing. Again.

"You're late!" said Reborn, coming to a stop in the middle of one of those spinning moves that Tsuna didn't know the name of.

"I couldn't find—" began Tsuna, and then said instead, "That's not what—I don't want to have you has my personal trainer! Find someone else to tutor!"

Reborn stared at him. "You have no choice in this."

"W-what do you mean I have no choice?"

"I told you before," said Reborn, "A man hired me to train you. I will teach you everything necessary in order to become the leader of the Vongola crew."

"Wait," said Tsuna. He'd finally connected the dots. "The Vongola…break-dancing crew?"

"That's right," said Reborn, and looked pleased. "So you have heard of them."

"Only because I heard my classmates—" Tsuna broke off. Kyoko had mentioned the Vongola crew before to one of her friends. She'd even looked like she thought they were pretty cool. But— "I don't want to learn how to break-dance!"

Reborn brought out his gun. "Oh?"

Tsuna swallowed hard, backing away rapidly. "If I learn how to break-dance, I'll definitely mess up! And I'll break my neck, or my spine, and I'll be paralyzed for life!"

"That won't happen," scoffed Reborn. He narrowed his eyes. "And it's that kind of attitude that makes you fail."

Tsuna winced. Reborn didn't have to say it so bluntly even if it was true.

"Now get over here," continued Reborn. "I'm going to tell you about the history of break-dancing, called bboying or breaking among most of those who actually do it. By the way, boys are called bboys, and girls are called bgirls."

Reluctantly, Tsuna edged closer, and at a gesture from Reborn, sat down.

This was it, he thought. He'd hit rock bottom—being forcibly taught by a baby how to break-dance. In order to stave off the inevitable weeping that followed such a realization, Tsuna stuffed his mouth full of rice from his bento.

"Breaking emerged during the 1970s. Of course, there is some dispute about where it started…but I believe it was in Bronx, New York." Reborn paused at this point to give Tsuna a threatening glare. "You better be paying attention, because I'll quiz you on this later."

"Argghle," managed Tsuna through a mouthful of rice.

"There are four elements of breaking: toprock, downrock, power moves, and freezes or suicides."

Tsuna groaned. It all sounded so complicated.

"Toprock is what you do while still standing up," said Reborn, continuing on and ruthlessly ignoring Tsuna's pained expression, "Downrock is what you do on the floor. Examples of power moves are windmills or flares or swipes. Finally, you can think of freezes as poses."

Tsuna blinked. "Poses?"

"Poses." Reborn nodded, and then gestured at Tsuna to stand up. "We'll get you started with basic toprock."

"But the bell will ring! I have to get to class!" protested Tsuna. Right on cue, the bell did ring.

"Fine," said Reborn. "Get back to class. I'll walk with you."

Tsuna sighed. Now he couldn't go back home midway through his classes, which was probably what his mother had intended. He still couldn't believe that she had hired Reborn to teach him how to break-dance. It made no sense whatsoever.

They walked to Tsuna's homeroom in silence, Tsuna wondering what he could say. Reborn seemed lost in thought, staring deeply at the ground. Abruptly, Reborn stopped walking, and prodded Tsuna with the gun. He was at a zero-tolerance campus! What was Reborn doing, waving that gun around?

"That boy," said Reborn, and Tsuna followed where the gun was pointing to see Yamamoto Takahashi, possibly the most popular boy at Namimori Middle.

"What about Yamamoto?"

"He'll be a good addition to the crew," said Reborn, and smiled with a glee that was terrible to behold.

"The crew?" Tsuna's voice rose and squeaked at the end. He sounded like a mouse that had been stepped on, really. "What crew!"

"The crew you're going to make," said Reborn, and gave him a disappointed look. "The tenth generation Vongola crew."

"I'm not going to—Yamamoto wouldn't even be interested! He plays baseball!"

"He's got flow," said Reborn, ignoring Tsuna. "He'll be a great addition."

"Flow," said Tsuna weakly.

"Flow is everywhere," said Reborn. "Like God. Unlike Him, flow doesn't watch you in the shower."

Tsuna made another strangled sound, and at this point, wondered if it was possible to just run away from the mess that his life had become.

Sadly, he knew this was impossible.

"Now get to class," said Reborn, thwacking Tsuna over the head with the gun. "And come back home straight away so you can began learning how to break."

Before Tsuna could come up with a good argument, Reborn vanished. He was left staring at the space where Reborn had been standing merely seconds before, and wondering if teleportation was something all bboys learned as part of their breaking skill set, or if it was unique to Reborn.

And then he realized he was going to be late for class again.


At the end of the day, Tsuna was ready to go home and just collapse into bed. The fact that Reborn was waiting at his house for him though, made Tsuna pack up very slowly. As he packed, he watched Kyoko out of the corner of his eye.

She looked particularly pretty today, and as always, her smile was innocent and carefree. Tsuna sighed heavily without meaning to, and froze when she turned to look at him.

"Hey Sawada-kun," said Kyoko. "How did you do on the last quiz for math?"

Tsuna flinched a little. "Not that g-great."

"Oh," said Kyoko. "That's too bad. Good luck on Friday's!"

She began to turn away, and Tsuna called out, "Have you heard of the Vongola crew?"

Kyoko turned back to him, looking surprised. "That break-dancing crew?"

"Uh, yeah," said Tsuna.

"I think they're amazing," said Kyoko, and smiled. Tsuna stared, unable to help himself. If he did become leader of the tenth generation Vongola crew, could he make Kyoko smile like this?

"I'm thinking of learning how to break-dance," blurted Tsuna.

"I didn't think Sawada-kun would be interested in anything like break-dancing," said Kyoko, looking startled.

There was boisterous laughter from behind them, and Tsuna spun around, blushing desperately to see Mochida and his friends leaning against the doorway, their faces twisted in mirth.

"Dame-Tsuna? Learning how to break-dance? That's pathetic." Mochida sneered.

Tsuna made a small whimper inside of his head. He hadn't meant to say it aloud, and now people besides Kyoko had heard him. Everyone would laugh, he thought dully.

"Yeah, there's no way that could happen," jeered one of Mochida's friends. "Dame-Tsuna would never be able to break-dance!"

"That's not true!" said Kyoko suddenly, and Mochida and his friends stopped laughing abruptly, while Tsuna looked up, his eyes wide and his heart pounding. Had Kyoko just…?

"I don't think it's very nice to laugh at someone for trying out a new hobby," said Kyoko. "I'm sure Sawada-kun could learn how to break-dance if he wanted to!" She glared at Mochida, and then swept out of the room, her face flushed with anger.

There was dead silence in the room for a few seconds, and then Mochida broke it with, "You just made me have my first argument with my girlfriend. You're dead, Sawada!"

"I didn't mean to—" tried Tsuna, but he knew it was hopeless. Never-mind that he hadn't even started this in the first place! OK, well, maybe he sort of had, stupidly trying to impress Kyoko when he wasn't even really sure he did want to learn how to break-dance from Reborn—

"Tomorrow," said Mochida, "We'll meet in the dojo for a one-on-one fight. We'll see what you're made of!"

Before Tsuna had a chance to protest his innocence again, he and his friends left, stomping heavily through the hallway.

"Great," said Tsuna to the empty room.


By the time Tsuna made it back to his house, he was in such a state of nervous agitation that he tripped over the statues in the front yard twice, walked directly into the front door several times before realizing the doorway was three feet to his right, and then had to take four tries to just walk up the stairs to his room. Every time he thought of Mochida's threat, his feet refused to move.

"I'm going to die," said Tsuna when he opened the door to his room as saw Reborn calmly reading shounen manga on his bed.

"You sure took your time," replied Reborn, tossing the manga off to the side carelessly.

"I'm going to die," said Tsuna, ignoring that blatant mistreatment of One Piece. It wasn't worth it, getting angry about something as trivial as that when he was going to die at the tender age of fourteen. He was too young to die! There was so much he hadn't even accomplished in life (for example: confessing to Kyoko how he really felt about her).

"You're not going to die," said Reborn. He paused, and then added thoughtfully, "Unless I decide to kill you."

That managed to penetrate Tsuna's shock, and he backed up a few steps. When Reborn looked distracted, Tsuna dived through the doorway, frantically ran downstairs, and thus escaped the horror of his life. He proceeded to drop out of school, yet through an amazing series of happenings, became a master ramen chef and opened his own restaurant. Tsuna then became famous throughout the world, with many celebrities visiting his restaurant. One day, Kyoko came to his restaurant and finally, he told her—

"Tsuna. Pay attention." Tsuna whimpered as his daydream abruptly fell crashing about his ears. Become a ramen chef? Was that really the best fantasy his mind could come up with? It wasn't like he even liked ramen.

"Now, we will begin with toprock," said Reborn, "You will learn the Indian Step."

"I will?"

"It's very basic," said Reborn, and demonstrated.

Tsuna stared. "Is that really break-dancing? It's just stepping around!"

"I'll put on some music," said Reborn, and turned on speakers that Tsuna hadn't noticed before.

"Where did those come from!"

"They're mine," said Reborn, and music began blasting through the house. "Huh." He turned the volume down slightly. "Begin!"

"I don't know how!"

Reborn leapt up and thwapped Tsuna over the head. "Ow!"

"I just showed you," said Reborn. "Step forward, with your knee up, at a ninety-degree angle with your right foot. Take your right foot, lift your knee up, and take it back to the original position. Repeat the same with your left foot in an opposite direction."

Tsuna tried and felt horribly self-conscious.

"Hmm," said Reborn. "Make sure you're on your toes, not flat-footed. Move your feet one at a time."

"This is embarrassing," mumbled Tsuna as he practiced.

"You'll get used to it," Reborn told him. "And move your arms. Don't let them hang by your side like dead fish."

After a few minutes of repeating the steps, Tsuna stopped. "Can't we do something else?" he pleaded.

Reborn tilted his head to one side. "Oh? You actually want to learn now?"

Tsuna remembered how Kyoko had smiled. "I guess so."

"All right then," said Reborn. His eyes gleamed scarily and Tsuna was suddenly filled with the intuition that he was not enjoy what was going to happen next. "Let's go!"


When Tsuna arrived at school the next day, he noticed everyone around him pointing at him, and giggling behind their hands. He brushed it off, used to being the butt of some unknown joke and too sore from Reborn's relentless drilling yesterday to want to find out.

It wasn't until Tsuna saw Kyoko that he remembered what had happened yesterday. It seemed incredible that he had actually forgotten Mochida's threat. Even worse, Tsuna was sure he knew now why everyone was sniggering at him. Doubtless, Mochida and his friends had spread the tale of Tsuna's claim of learning how to break-dance to everyone in school.

As if to confirm this thought, a girl sitting on his left—Keiko, her name was—turned to Tsuna and whispered loudly, "Been taking any break-dancing lessons lately?"

All the girls sitting near her laughed, and Tsuna bit his lip, wanting desperately to never have to come back to school ever again. The only thing that steadied him was Kyoko's concerned glance towards him, when the teacher scolded them for being noisy.

He just had to endure, thought Tsuna to himself. And try and avoid Mochida during lunch.

And why did everything horrible happen during lunch?

As soon as the bell rang, Tsuna got up, and walked hastily to the exit. He ignored the cries of, "Where are you going, Dame-Tsuna?" and wondered if Mochida and his friends would think to look for him if he hid in the boy's bathroom. Or maybe that was too obvious.

Before Tsuna could get far, though, a heavy fist thudded right past him. Tsuna froze, trembling. The fist was attached to the huge, hulking form of Yamada Akio, vice-captain of the kendo club.

"Where do you think you're going?" rumbled Yamada.

Tsuna's shoulders slumped. It seemed like there would be no escape. He followed Yamada to the dojo, wondering frantically how he was supposed to fight against Mochida. He'd never done kendo before! In fact, he probably wouldn't even be able to move, wearing that heavy armor.

Perhaps he could just stand still and let Mochida hit him. And Mochida, seeing how pathetic Tsuna was, would just leave Tsuna alone?

But then he thought of Kyoko watching. He couldn't just let himself get helplessly beaten by her boyfriend as she watched.

That was it; the only way out of this was just to run. Tsuna eyed Yamada, took a deep breath, and eyed the amount of space in the corridor. He could probably make that gap between those two gawking students—or if he told Yamada he needed to go to the toilet, Yamada would be distracted—

"Ciaossu."

Tsuna promptly fell over. "Reborn? What are you doing here?"

"Observing your actions," said Reborn. "As future leader of the Vongola crew, you had better not be thinking of running away from a battle."

"I wasn't," said Tsuna weakly.

"Good," said Reborn, and then eyed him. And then he sighed.

Tsuna twitched. "What are you sighing for? I'm the one who wants to sigh!"

"This is a chore," said Reborn, and before Tsuna had a chance to say anything further, brought up his gun and shot Tsuna with it.

What the hell, thought Tsuna, regret filling his entire body. He didn't want to die yet.

Barely aware of what he was doing (and what he wasn't wearing), Tsuna stood up, determination blazing in his eyes. "I'm going to do it! With my dying will, I'll show you all!"

He sped off towards the dojo, ignoring Yamada's shouts behind him. As soon as he arrived, he slammed the doors open. A distant part of his mind noted that a crowd had already gathered inside.

Tsuna charged towards Mochida, shouting, "Battle!"

Mochida burst out laughing. "Only an idiot would run in naked!" He brought his wooden sword down, directly on top of Tsuna's head.

By all rights, Tsuna should have collapsed onto the floor in a limp heap, but instead of dropping to the ground, Tsuna ignored the blow and head-butted Mochida.

Mochida fell, his mouth gaping open with shock.

Tsuna turned his back on Mochida in obvious dismissal, and faced everyone else instead. And then he began to break-dance, starting with the toprock that Reborn had taught him, and then doing basic downrock. He ended with a simple freeze.

Everyone stared. And then, gradually, everyone began to cheer. The flame that had been burning brightly on Tsuna's forehead fizzled out and he stared as everyone clapped him on his back.

"It seems like you really can break-dance!" said Tanaka.

"I have newfound respect!" shouted someone else.

Tsuna looked around himself wildly. He only had dim recollections of what had happened minutes beforehand. What had he done?

No, more importantly, had he just beat Mochida?

"Tsuna-kun," said Kyoko from behind him.

He closed his eyes. She probably thought he had been ridiculous.

"You are incredible," said Kyoko, and Tsuna choked. Up until this moment, he hadn't realized it was possible to choke on one's saliva.

Tsuna turned around, and looked into Kyoko's eyes as she said brightly, "Like, you're not some average guy."

Exactly what had Reborn shot him with?


A/N: Yay for line breaks, let us all praise line breaks. OK, I don't know what I've done here. Really, I DON'T KNOW WHAT I'VE DONE. So, reviews would be appreciated, though ones like, "You have forever tainted the spirit of bboying with your fanfiction!" will make me curl up in a ball and whimper, because YOU MAY BE RIGHT. Oh God. What have I done.

Oh yeah, and stuff like pairings, what's going to happen in the future...I don't even know! I'm looking forward to introducing Gokudera though, that's for sure. :]