This has been betaed by shanagi95. Who was generous enough to do it. THANKS!

Timeline: After the Arcobaleno fights. Tsuna and Co are in High school, so roughly they are 15-16 years old.

Infiltrating the Mafia.

Chapter 1: Orders

"So everything is ready Reborn?" Came the calm voice of the Ninth through the phone and the Hitman smirked at the air. "Of course Boss, you just need to give me the order." He was lazily sipping his preferred espresso brand, a blend from Kenya that was just the right amount of nutty and smooth. "I was surprised when I saw the blueprints. Someone improved the design?"

"Well, your memories from the future showed some weakness in the structure, so we had to improvise a bit. But I'm sure Tsunayoshi will approve," came the cheery tone from the most powerful mafia boss alive. "How is he taking High School by the way?"

"He is doing great Boss, believe me he will be overjoyed at his summer project." Smiled the Hitman, while a strange thunder could be heard in the distance, like an ominous sign of a disgrace to come, that or Lambo having another tantrum, when a series of explosions followed the thunder he decided it was the last.

The first sign was when he woke up. It was early and there were no grenades, missiles, bombs, or even a gun pointing at him. But he ignored it.

The second signal was that he managed to eat a full breakfast in relative peace; an occurrence so unlikely that was similar to winning the lottery.

The third one was a little more outrageous; Gokudera and Yamamoto had chatted, not bickered and not argued. No, they had amiably chatted about some Baseball match, for a record time of fifteen minutes. And then they had reached the school unharmed, undisturbed. Only to find that Hibari had deserted his position in favor of one of his more mild tempered underlings.

But the most outrageous warning sign was when he was seated in the middle of his classroom and he caught the big letters on the blackboard proudly announcing 'Math exam canceled' that he started to shiver and sweat. He could not ignore his now hysterical Hyper Intuition screaming at him to get his ass out of the chair and start running.

He was at the door when a whinny, high voice came through the speakers. "Ciaossu!" The sound was a dark omen of doom for him. For a while, they had been amused at the fact that after the fight against Checkerface, the Arcobaleno had won the ability to swift through their adult and babies form at will. "This is professor Rebo-Yama. I have a special announcement for the school." He had been happy for them…until he understood that it meant that Reborn now had gained two forms to torture him with.

"The classes are ending two weeks earlier this year. Since the Vongola Corp will be generously refurnishing the whole school." Tsuna grabbed his phone and started to dial frantically to his one salvation. "Ciao? Enma? Are you still in that dangerous mission in Russia? Can I go there?" He pleaded in his lowest voice and gasped when a slap to his hand sent the mobile flying to the air. "Uh, uh…" A smug Bianchi gave him a smile from where she was carrying on her back an unconscious Gokudera with a grinning Yamamoto behind.

"We are going to a trip together Tsuna," smiled Bianchi and Tsuna did the only logical thing he could do in such occasions. He ran with an agility born from his multiple near death experiences. He dodged poison cakes and pies with an enviable agility derived from pure fear.

"Get out of my way!" he screamed to the group of students blocking the door of the school. But only receive scared stares. In high school he had gained a bad reputation from the multiple series of bizarre and violent events around him and everybody proceeded to avoid the teen like the plague. That, and the strange group of dangerous looking people that always seemed to surrounded the small brunette.

Tsuna jumped in the air, but landed with the remains of his Dame's self and almost broke his ankle, but still, he managed to keep running. If he could reach the train station he might be free. One blink and he could see the gates of the school opening before him like the door to paradise before he saw something large, metallic and hard looking approaching his head.

"Running is against the school rules." Was the last thing he heard before the darkness claimed him.

When he was little he had imagined his sixteen self as a tall, strong figure. "Juudaime! Please stay still, that Hibari bastard gave you a good one." He had not imagined himself, still scrawny, still below the average height and definitely not bound to the floor of a helicopter. Wait, what? "HIEEE! Where are we?" He screamed in panic, he could see beside him an equally freaked out Gokudera, while a grinning Yamamoto tried to calm him. Not that it was working.

"Reborn!" He screamed, ignoring the pain in his head and the feeling of a hammer in his brain. "What is your plan now?" The pilot, with matching helmet, glasses and leather jacket smirked at him. "You heard Bianchi. The ninth has invited you and your guardians for the summer to Italy."

Tsuna took in the words, and stared in clear appreciation at the door of the helicopter. Even bound he had a good chance of getting his flame to work and escape. "Don't even think about it. Those ropes are anti- dying will flames." Laughed Reborn with a cackle, or it sounded like that to Tsuna's ears.

"What are you really planning?" He grumbled, while he let Gokudera helped him seat himself against the wall. "You suspended the whole school two weeks early. This is too strange even for you." It was a testament to his years of torme…training that he managed to evade the five bullets that perfectly framed his skull.

"Patience Dame-Tsuna. You will learn soon enough." He smiled widely making Tsuna shiver in horror.

Before they landed he had learned that Reborn had drugged him for the twelve hours of the flight to Italy, and that they were just a few hours from their destination. Held at gun point and under the severe eyes of Reborn he found himself dressed in a gray suit, a very ugly gray suit, with an equally gray shirt that made him look like a brick.

They landed at the top a very large building. A very large, very modern looking building. Just before they landed Gokudera grabbed him by the shoulders, with a very disgruntled expression and tears in his eyes. "Boss! Please, please be strong! We all support you, Boss!" His so called right man almost shouted in his face. "Ma, ma. I'm sure Tsuna will have fun in his special summer camp!" Grinned Yamamoto with his eternal calm tone. Which was received with a strangles scream of anger. "You baseball-freak! For the last time IT'S NOT A DAMN SUMMER CAMP!" He screamed at the other before returning to his boss. "Just hang in there boss and we will come and rescue…AGH! ANE-SAN!" The visage of Bianchi impeded the bomber from finishing his speech, but it was enough to revive his suspicions.

When they finally got off the building Bianchi took a newly unconscious Gokudera and an oblivious Yamamoto to the exit, while Reborn grabbed the bindings from Tsuna's arms and legs and finally let him crumble to the floor in a heap. "Ugh… Reborn! What is happening here?" He demanded and received an amused stare, before Reborn tossed to him a black folder. Tsuna opened it with caution, expecting an explosion or some kind of chemical weapon and found only his picture and sheet after sheet of official looking documents.

"That, is Yoshi Tsunada. Meaning it's your name Dame-Tsuna." Explained Reborn as if he was explaining that the donuts were supposed to be round or that yes, the sky is that blue thing up there. "WHAT? Reborn! No one will fall for this stupid nam…" When he found himself with not one, but two guns pointed at him he closed his mouth in a wise, lifesaving decision.

"The Ninth is building the base in Japan earlier. After he saw the important role it had on the battles in the future he decided to start building it ASAP." Reborn explained with a very pleased expression. "They are building it in the place of Merone base, and the one under the Namimori Shrine will be prepared to be eventually the half for the CEDEF and half for Fundation. Of course we will wait a little for Hibari to be ready for it."

Tsuna stared at Reborn in what he suspected was a slacked, vegetable-like stare, that almost gained him a new piercing hole in the middle of his forehead. "So, as you know a base needs Vongola members to run it. Your first official underlings Dame-Tsuna."

Tsuna felt the increasingly pressing urge to run away, or plead for asylum in some foreign country. "Oh… and we are in Italy because…?" He ventured, praying, begging, and outright supplicating for his suspicious to be unfounded.

"Because… You and your guardians will choose the new members." Smiled Reborn and pointed with his gun the folder. "You will be infiltrating the main group of new candidates as one of them. But it must be absolutely a secret that you are the Decimo. NO ONE is to learn about your true identity, if they do…" He said in a threatening tone.

Tsuna was very well trained to Reborn's methods so he shuddered at the unvoiced threat. He settled to frown and gape at the other. "We have kept your face under the highest security. Only the most trusted members and allies recognize you by face. You will be searching for the most potential members and we will also use you to investigate the quality of our selection programs."

"Ah… I don't think this is a good idea…" Tried to reason the very freaked out teenager. "I CAN'T SURVIVE THIS! NO WAY!"

"You will have to, how you can be the next boss if you can't even understand your own family? Until now you have only been in contact with the most important, most powerful members. It's an invaluable opportunity to observe your family from the anonymity. You will never have this chance again. By the way, your guardians are under orders to ignore, and pretend not to know you if they ever come in contact with you, as well as all the people who knows you. So you will be by yourself. " Tsuna stared in horror at the very well thought, rational advice. "You're mad. Agh! That really hurt!" Tsuna nursed his bruised stomach and ego from the well placed kick to his stomach and glared at his adult tutor.

"It's only for three weeks and the ninth is counting on you. If they discover your identity he will be very disappointed. And I will be very, very disappointed. Do you remember what happens when I'm disappointed?" Said Reborn in a low, dangerous tone and Tsuna paled when memory after horrible memory passed through his tormented mind. "YES, YES! I won't disappoint the ninth!" He vowed in desperation.

"Good boy. Your meeting is in the basement of this building." Praised Reborn and Tsuna couldn't understand how Reborn still managed to reduce him to his whimpering pubescent self. "Ah, by the way you should hurry, because you're already late for your meeting." Laughed the Hitman; boarding the Helicopter once more. "By the way you are absolutely forbidden to use your flames. No matter what. If you do..."

Tsuna was left gaping in horror at the helicopter and launched himself to the stairs, and noticed a bright red number 39 marking the floor number. Cursing under his breath he launched himself down the stairs. He reached the basement door gasping for air and almost puking. He looked up and found a large hand grabbing him by the neck of his gray suit. "OH? Looks what we have here!" Growled, really growled, like in animal, rabid beast growl. A very large, very scary looking man.

"YOU-ARE-LATE." He pointed spitting in his face at each word, and Tsuna found himself staring and trying to make his very basic Italian to help him understand. "Uh… Sorry?" Tsuna noticed something; there was a very important thing missing in this exchange. "You're sorry? OH YOU-WILL-BE-SORRY!" There was definitely a very strange thing with this situation. When the man stared at him nose to nose, Tsuna found out that while he was slightly panicked he wasn't afraid, the ball of horror in his chest was a mere prickling.

"GO TO YOUR PLACE TRASH!" When the man tossed him to the group of men and women he found that it didn't hurt even half of the kicks of Reborn. Not even close to Lambo's grenades. He landed at the feet of a tall young man; he looked like some kind of wanted criminal. "Tch… pathetic." He said to him.

"My name is Calvino Arbore, and if I hear even one joke about it you are dead!" Barked the man, and Tsuna nodded with the rest of the group. The boss heir watched warily at the man that was clearly the one in charge. He was a giant, very muscled and with a face crisscrossed in a myriad of different scars. He was completely bald, as if obeying his name, and was dressed in a black suit, that contrasted with the gray suits that everybody was wearing.

"Now listen. You have been handpicked do the opportunity to gain an enormous honor. The Decimo is about to select his main force for the new base in Japan. And you have the opportunity to be the ones under his direct order." Excited murmurs went through the group and Tsuna noticed that the room was really packed; there were at least a hundred people there.

"In three weeks' time the Decimo himself will be evaluating you and choosing the ones he deems worthy of being under his direct orders! This is a great opportunity since you will be at the top of the ladder from the start! That is, if you survive the very hard test that the Decimo is sure to make!" Tsuna choked at the proclamation and gained the attention of the man who approached him with a menacing snarl.

"What? Are you disrespecting the Decimo you shrimp? First you're late and now you disrespect those better than you?" Asked the man and Tsuna resisted the urge to sigh. This was Reborn fault; all of his pain and misery were because of that sadist. "Ah? N-no sorry I was just very impressed…" He muttered and the man let him go and returned to his place.

"Che! As you can see there are some people here clearly unworthy of the honor of being under the command of the Tenth. But the trash will be washed away by the end of these three weeks." The man took out a remote control and pointed it to a projector.

"Ciaossu!" Tsuna flinched at the cheery tone, and an image of baby Reborn appeared in the screen under the name 'Vongola productions'. Before the song of 'The Godfather' started playing in the back. A shadow of muscled man wearing a fedora appeared on the screen. "The Mafia Boss… a leader who rules a criminal organization." Came the voice of the narrator that sounded suspiciously like the voice from adult Reborn.

Tsuna gaped at the movie. 'No! He didn't!' He thought with horror. "Able to move a number of trusted members with one hand. Willing to risk even his life for the family." The image changed to see a veritable army of shadows appear at the man's back, all of them heavily armed. Tsuna recognized this as the cheesy story that Reborn had tried to shove down his throat the first days of meeting him.

"Surrounded by the respect and admiration of all. Seen as a hero by the children of the slums." The image changed to see the man creepily hugging a group of children while some of them threw flowers and ribbons to the air. "Not this crap again…" He couldn't resist saying out loud, his mind rebelling at hearing for the second time the same propaganda.

"YOU AGAIN?" Bellowed Calvino and a giant hand grabbed him by the neck. "Hear me you boy! I don't know how you managed to be here! I don't care who is your daddy or your mommy but if you disrespect the Tenth you will be death by the end of the week!" Tsuna watched in awe as the man first was red in anger only to change rapidly to a purple and then an almost blue in anger.

"Just for you to know the Decimo is a powerful, merciless man. Who will not hesitate to have you reduced to dust if you disrespect him!" Grinned the man evilly. "WHAT?" Gasped an appalled Tsuna, he had never reduced someone to… well he had never reduced someone to dust just for disrespect… he had only done so to less than four people!

"Yes that's right! The Decimo is a man with powers and wisdom beyond his years! He is the true heir of Primo's will and with the most pure sky flame you will ever see. Of course worthless idiots like you could never understand the greatness of him!" Were those stars in his eyes? mused Tsuna in horror, was this man some kind of… fan? "He defeated the Varia when he was barely fourteen and has since then defeated all that stood in his way! He is a man among men! It's my job to present him with the best among you and not even a little idiot like you will ruin it!" Finished the man then tossing him to the floor in disgust.

Who was telling these people such lies anyway? 'Reborn', said the practical side of his moaning inner self. "Okay! You will be under training for three weeks under me! If anybody-" He said pointedly looking at Tsuna. "-is weak and has the wisdom to recognize it, leave now! You will not have another chance!" Nobody moved even though Tsuna stared with longing to the door.

"I don't have to tell you that this is a secret operation! The family has gone through many troubles to maintain the Decimo face out of the grasp of our enemies and allies alike. But his name is well known, so you better remember and learn to respect it! His name is Sawada Tsunayoshi, currently sixteen years old. Direct descendant of the first Boss and is the son of a living legend the one and only Iemitsu Sawada the leader of the CEDEF!"

Excited murmurs flooded the room, all of them seemed awed at the news and Tsuna flinched and twitched at each praises to his father.

"Your rooms are in the floor below us, you may not contact your families. If any of you leave this building without my permission I will have your hides so fast you won't even have time to scream!" The door opened and Tsuna saw another person enter the room.

"Ah! You're early! Everybody this is your other instructor." Bellowed the man and the group let out mixed sounds of awe and apprehension. "This is…"

Who will be the other trainer?

Calvino- Bald

Arbore- roughly meaning Tree

I would love to hear your opinions on this ;)