SkyGem: Lol, I'm sorry, guys. I know some of you were looking forward to Tsuna meeting the rest of his guardians, but they only make a very brief appearance because, surprisingly enough, guardian fluff isn't a main theme in this fic for once *le gasp*. You'll see what I mean by the end of this chapter. Hope you like, ne?

Tsuna had been at Nami High for about three months when it happened.

It had actually started off as a rather normal day.

Reborn had woken Tsuna up the usual way (with a Leon hammer to the head), Tsuna had rushed through breakfast with his family, which had grown quite large, since Bianchi, Fuuta, and I-Pin had decided to follow them to Japan, and had set off to school with Hayato and Mukuro.

Along the way, they had met up with Takeshi, a classmate of Tsuna and Hayato's who had been brought into the fold.

Homeroom passed by as per normal, and then, English came along, bringing with it an event that Tsuna still had no idea whether to classify as good, or bad.

The sensei had given the class time to work on an essay in class, and as everyone got busy writing, Tsuna was called to the front of the class.

"You needed me for something, sensei?" asked the brunet, coming to a stop in front of his teacher's desk.

"That's right, Sawada," replied the man. "Do you remember what we talked about last week?"

"You mean about the Nami-chuu student that you want me to tutor?" asked Tsuna, feeling his stomach begin to churn. From the first moment his sensei had suggested it, Tsuna had known that it would be a bad idea to accept, but with Reborn threatening him at gunpoint (Leonpoint), the poor teen really had no choice in the matter.

"That's right," nodded his teacher, "His parents would like to know if you could come over tonight for the first tutoring session. They would also like for you to stay for dinner, so that they can get to know you better, seeing as you'll be spending a lot of time with their son over the next few weeks."

"Today's fine," agreed Tsuna with a small nod.

"Great," said the sensei, smiling down at his favourite student as he handed him a small piece of paper. "Here's the address. You can head over right after school."

Looking down at the piece of paper, Tsuna groaned, finally realizing why his hyper intuition had been acting up.

Why, oh why did fate hate him so much?

Mitsuru let out a snarl as he slammed his bedroom door shut and dropped onto his bed.

That woman annoyed him to no end!

"'You need a tutor,' she says, 'Your marks are too low,' she says. 'Why don't you call me okaa-san?' she says," he grumbled quietly to himself.

Mitsuru knew that under all the sweetness, there was a heart as black as pitch, and he was going to find some way to prove it.

Snarling once more, the thirteen-year-old got up and stomped downstairs to get something to eat.

Just as he was nearing the bottom of the stairs, though, the doorbell rang, and he rolled his eyes as he went to answer it, already knowing who it would be.

As the surly thirteen-year-old threw open the door, he saw a boy standing there, about two years older than himself, that looked just as happy about his presence here as Mitsuru was, which was to say, not at all.

"Hello," said the sempai, bowing politely and saying, "My name is Sawada Tsunayoshi, and I'm the new tutor. Would you happen to be Sano Mitsuru-kun?"

"That's me," nodded the boy, stepping aside to let his new tutor in.

"Oh, Mitsuru-kun, is that the new tutor?" came the voice of the wicked witch of the west as she stepped into the hallway to greet their guest.

When she caught sight of Tsuna, though, Mitsuru was interested to see that she completely froze up, her eyes going wide with shock, and her hands beginning to shake; it was almost as if she had just seen a ghost.

Looking back at Tsuna, Mitsuru saw that the older male had an overly polite smile on his face as he bowed and said, "Ojamashimasu."

Instead of welcoming him into their home, though, as one would have expected, Nana blurted out, "What are you doing here?"

Tsuna merely smiled wider at this, saying, "It's a pleasure to meet you too, Sano-san. My name is Sawada Tsunayoshi, and I'm here as Mitsuru-kun's tutor."

"His…tutor?" asked Nana, seeming dazed, and Mitsuru decided to give this new guy a chance.

Anyone who could make the evil step-mother upset was a friend in his books.

"Let's go upstairs then, ne sempai?"

For the next few hours, all the two boys did was study, study, study, and normally, Mitsuru would have been bored to death by now.

Surprisingly enough, though, this sempai had a very…unique way of teaching that actually made learning the content easy and even almost fun.

By the time the two had to go down for dinner, Mitsuru's mind was stuffed so full of new information that he felt any second now it would come pouring out of his ears.

In light of becoming fast friends with his new tutor and slowly trying to catch up to the academic level the rest of his class was at, Mitsuru had almost completely forgotten the strange tension between she-who-must-not-be-named and his new tutor.

As the four of them sat down around the dinner table together, though, he was forcefully reminded of it as the two refused to acknowledge each other in any way.

In the end, it was Mitsuru's father who broke the awkward silence that had formed by asking, "So, Tsunayoshi-kun, forgive me for asking, but I don't think I've seen you around here before?"

"Oh, well, I'm not surprised," answered Tsuna, a genial smile on his face, "I only just moved back to Namimori, after all. I've been living in Italy for the past nine years, you see."

"Italy; that's pretty impressive," commented Mitsuru's father, and the boy couldn't help but agree. "But you said you've just moved back to Namimori? You used to live here before?"

"That's right. I used to live here with my mother until she kicked me out of the house," replied the brunet in a nonchalant voice, merely continuing to eat his dinner.

Mitsuru, meanwhile, almost choked on his food due to what he'd just heard. "Your own mother kicked you out of the house? How old were you?"

"Six," replied Tsuna shortly. "I was lucky, though. I was only alone for the majority of one day before my father, who'd been working in Italy previously, arrived in Namimori and found me. I've been living in Italy with my extended family ever since."

"What extended family?" asked the she-witch sharply.

Tsuna merely shrugged and answered without looking at her, saying, "My dad's boss is actually a really distant relative of ours; something like the descendant of my great-great-great grandfather's cousin. But since the Italians value Family so much, they helped us out. I stayed at his house whenever dad had to go away for work, and he hired lots of private tutors and the like to help me with my homework, since my marks used to be so low."

"Your marks used to be low once upon a time?" asked Mitsuru incredulously, and Tsuna almost laughed at the skepticism in his voice.

"That's right; in fact, I think that might be part of the reason my mother abandoned me in the first place…completely stupid it is. Honestly, how can you expect a child to do well if you never offer them help? Every time I asked her for assistance, it was always 'I'll help you later' or 'Why don't you ask the sensei tomorrow?'"

Mitsuru's dad shook his head sadly at this, clicking his tongue disapprovingly before saying, "Horrible excuse for a human being, that lady is. You're lucky you live with your father now. You must really resent her by now."

At this, Tsuna actually looked thoughtful for a moment before a small smile graced his face, and he looked at his mother for the first time since dinner started.

"Not really, actually," said the brunet. "I've long let go of my hatred for her because, let's face it, she's not even worth it. I'm in a better place in my life now, somewhere she has no place in. I simply no longer care about her."

The End

SkyGem: Lol, well, my endings are rather abrupt, aren't they? Anyways, please do leave a review and let me know what you thought of this chapter, ne? Ciao!