When Reborn had first received his mission from the Ninth, he'd assumed it would be just like teaching Dino; whipping a teenage future mafia boss into shape to be respected and feared by any and all mafioso. But then the Ninth had to make things complicated by telling him that the boy-Sawada Tsunayoshi-had zero clue of his heritage.

No matter, Reborn thought. It was one small obstacle in the grand scheme of things. It would not deter him from turning the scrawny boy into the Vongola Tenth. And then things were made even more complicated when the Ninth had offhandedly mentioned some...things about his Flames, which were supposed to have been sealed by the Ninth himself when he visited years ago, to protect him and keep him under wraps from the watchful eyes of the mafia world.

"It's alarming," Timoteo had said to him as he sat in his big office chair and looked over files. "The agents keeping guard of the boy and his mother have reported sightings of Sky Flames."

"What do you mean by that?" Reborn demanded. Flames in themselves...they were like a beacon for assassins. Especially Sky Flames, the rarest of them all, and coming from an obviously untrained civilian boy living in a small but thriving town.

Timoteo sighed heavily. "His Flames were supposed to have been sealed, I even made sure of it personally. The agents most likely haven't been seeing things, but I'll need you to keep him under careful observation for the moment."

"So what you're saying, is that I shouldn't let him in on anything mafia-related until I confirm that his Flames really are unsealed?"

"Yes," Timoteo nodded. "And if possible, find out the trigger for it."

That was how Reborn found himself teaching math of all things, thirty-eight hours later, after Tsuna had begged, of course. He struggled largely not to reveal his real identity. It was just too tempting. However, Reborn had his orders, and he needed to make sure to follow them, even if he personally thought it might be detrimental to the Family not to train the young boy as early as possible. He supposed he could start with the boy's academics.

It was boring, having to play at being an actual academics tutor rather than a hitman. Training Dino had been much more fun. As it stood, Reborn couldn't even use his Spartan methods to make the boy understand the material. That would be too strange. Though he did threaten to hit Tsuna every time he got a question wrong after being taught the method (and following through with his threats) the end results of bumps on the head and fewer mistakes was not as satisfying as getting to blow up his student.

The only relative fun came when he watched the rest of the students too; specifically one named Hibari Kyoya. He seemed to be feared throughout the school which Reborn found to be quite interesting, and he never went to class despite being a third-year, instead choosing to loiter the roof or in the hallways. He seemed to be the leader of some sort of committee within the school that went after troublemakers and rule-breakers.

Hm. He could be a good addition to the Famiglia.

Tsuna's on schedule to be on cleaning duty today so as per usual, the rest of the students assigned on that day ditch him the first chance they get. Tsuna doesn't even protest, just silently straightening the desks and chairs before moving to wipe the blackboard. It isn't until he's a quarter of the way through with sweeping the floor that the door slides open again.

It isn't Reborn at the door.

It's Yamamoto Takeshi, the star baseball player of the school, a below average student, and one of Tsuna's classmates. They'd never been assigned to clean on the same schedule so Tsuna had no idea what this guy was like other than he was overly friendly and often infuriated the teachers with his thoughtless answers.

"Oh, I didn't know anyone was still in here." Yamamoto flashed a sheepish smile. "I just came in here to..." he looked around for an excuse, and finding none, just grabbed a broom and gestured to it.

"But you aren't assigned today."

The boy blinked. "Wait really? Today isn't Wednesday?"

Tsuna gave him a weird look. "No, it's Tuesday. But well...you're welcome to clean too, if you want to."

Yamamoto deflated. "Ah right... I'll do that I guess." He did start sweeping, so Tsuna went back to his own corner too, but after five minutes, he noticed Yamamoto still sweeping the same spot.

"Are you planning to sweep the other areas too?" he asked. The baseball player startled and laughed.

"Huh? Oh, yeah. Sorry, I was just doing some thinking."

"About what?" Tsuna questioned curiously. "I-if you don't mind me asking, I mean."

Yamamoto waved him off easily. "Not at all, it's nothing important." He says quickly, going back to sweeping, this time actually doing other spots too. "Well actually," he says after a while, "I was thinking about my grades."

Tsuna stopped in his motions to look at him. "Your grades?" he asked questioningly.

"Yeah," he said sullenly. "My grades have been lower than usual and I've been having trouble keeping up with the lessons. I think it's going to really affect my future."

Tsuna tilted his head to the side curiously. "The lessons we've been having lately are pretty tough. Even the best students in class have been putting in extra work. And my grades are still worse than yours anyway."

"You don't understand, Tsuna. It's not just my grades, but also baseball. I've been doing a lot worse this season than I ever have my whole life. At this point coach might not even let me play in the next inter-school competition. I... I'm messing up my entire future."

The brunet lowered his broom to really look at Yamamoto closely, noting how stressed and tired he looked. "I don't think you are," he said, causing the baseball player to look up at him in surprise. "Messing up your future, I mean. It's natural for people to hit a low once in their lives, but as long as you get through that, it'll be fine right?"

"You think so?"

"Uh... I-I guess?" Tsuna shrugged not knowing what else to say. "You look pretty tired, I think you just need a short break from all these things."

Yamamoto seemed to mull this over in his head for a while before he turned to Tsuna and grinned. "I guess you're right. Thanks, Tsuna!" and then he's out the door, sweeping forgotten as he runs down the hall. Tsuna walked over to the window facing the entrance of the school and saw Yamamoto run through the gates seemingly filled with energy and couldn't help but feel that even though the baseball player had looked so excited, there was something terribly wrong about him.

Tsuna walked in on a commotion early the next morning. Several students were screaming from where they stood in the field just beyond the Namimori Middle School gates. On reflex, Tsuna looked up like the rest of the students, gaze travelling from the cloudless sky to a lone figure on the edge of the roof to the rapidly forming crowd behind the person.

"Tsuna," Reborn called with a frown, appearing at his left. He'd been trying to question his stupid student all night, but Tsuna hadn't said a single word about what happened while Reborn left him to sweep the classroom as he attended to other things. "Was this why you couldn't focus or fall asleep last night?"

"U-um." The boy on the roof was definitely Yamamoto Takeshi. The hordes of worried students confirmed that much. But then, Tsuna just felt like there was something off, didn't think much of it since he didn't know the other student all that well anyway, if at all. "I th-think so? I don't know, I just felt really unsettled for some reason. He actually talked to me yesterday..."

The teachers started coming out then to scope out the situation and Tsuna quickly ducked into the school building, tripping on a few steps on the way to the roof in his haste. Reborn sat in his fluffy brown hair and let the boy carry him up several flights of stairs to their destination where a crowd of students-most of them from Tsuna and Yamamoto's class-are gathered behind the fence trying to talk Yamamoto out of jumping.

It took the boy over a minute and half to run up to the roof and he panted heavily as he stood behind the door. Reborn took note of this and mentally formed a workout schedule to keep the boy in shape.

The students were flocked a good five feet away from the rusted metal fence, none daring to go any closer for fear that their approach would cause Yamamotobto actually jump. Tsuna paid no heed to them and went to stand behind Yamamoto. Now only the fence separated them.

"Hey Tsuna." Yamamoto greeted cheerily. For the first time, Tsuna noticed that his arm was in a sling.

"Good morning, Yamamoto-san," he hedged. "...May I ask why you're here?" The baseball player waved him off airily.

"I wanted to think alone. I guess everyone got the wrong idea."

"On the other side of the fence?" Tsuna questioned doubtfully.

Yamamoto narrowed his eyes. "Is there a problem with that?"

Tsuna quickly threw up his hands in surrender. "N-nothing! I mean... I can see why everyone would get that idea."

Unexpectedly, Yamamoto sighed, his guard from earlier dropping along with his fight. "To be honest they're right. I was up here contemplating. Yesterday I was practicing batting for a little while and this happened." He gestured to his sling. "And suddenly I realized; baseball is the only thing I'm good at. I barely pass in class, and I'm only popular because I'm good at baseball. Now that I can't use my arm, I'm no good anymore."

He waited for a reaction. Pity maybe. Or another attempt at talking him down from his plans. However Tsuna did none of this. Instead, what came out of his mouth was "Wow, you're such an idiot." Yamamoto blinked and laughed.

"Pardon?"

"Don't you think your arm can heal? If it's a super serious injury and you really can't play anymore, you still have a whole life ahead of you. You're young enough to look for a new dream and to try out different things. Why should you let baseball tie you down?"

"I..." Yamamoto gaped. "I've never thought of it before, since I was already so good at baseball..." he admitted sheepishly.

Tsuna smiled. "Right... Well come on over then, I think the teachers called the police."

Laughing, the baseball player grabbed the hand offered by Tsuna and made to jump over the fence. But the rusted metal let out a tired creak and gave way under the boy's weight and he fell, dangling over the edge of the roof with only Tsuna's hand around his good arm keeping him from falling. The hushed murmurs of the students grew to shrieks and screams as the Tsuna strained to keep his feet planted on the roof. But that was proving to be difficult as Yamamoto was much heavier than he was. Not longer than five seconds later, he found himself tumbling over the edge of the roof as well.

Reborn jumped from his hiding spot as Leon shifted, ready to aim and shoot his student with a Dying Will bullet. He'd deal with the consequences of blowing his cover later; keeping Tsuna safe was his number one priority. Before he could though, there was a burst of flames from the two falling students and the next second, they were safely on the ground with Tsuna carrying Yamamoto, sporting a Sky Flame on his forehead and bright orange eyes.

A/N: This was supposed to be finished earlier! But a few days ago I got super sick and didn't feel like doing anything while I was recovering LOL. Sorry for the OOCness