Thank you everyone who reviewed! Skull is a fave of mine, so I like to see him suffer ;P.

I still don't own KHR.

On the way back to Namimori, Tsuna was nervously doing homework. Reborn would assign him additional work from time to time in order to catch up more quickly with his regular coursework.

If this appeared too generous at first glance from Reborn, that's because it was.

Of course, this was Reborn, so there was a catch to the tortur-ehem….tutoring.

Tsuna was sitting at the provided desk in his room on the cruise ship. Next to him, Reborn stood at the edge staring unnervingly at the side of fluffy hair with sharp, button eyes.

Tsuna felt a drop of cold sweat slowly drip down the side of his face. With a small gulp, he clenched his pencil tighter and tried to will the words in front of him to order into some sort of sense.

Instead of his normal attire, Reborn was wearing black cleats, black pants with white lining the outside hem of his legs, a black and white striped t-shirt, and a black baseball cap bearing a crosshair pattern above the brim. A stopwatch was held almost carelessly in one small fist, and a whistle was poised to blow just in front of his mouth..

Just barely poking out of his pocket were a few colored cards.

Yes, in case it wasn't obvious, Reborn was wearing an impeccable sports referee uniform.

He was, of course, absolutely adorable.

Tsuna hesitantly wrote on the page.

Precisely one minute and thirty seconds passed in these conditions. For one person, it was much too short. For another, it was much too long.

It can be guessed which was which.

A shrill whistle blasted into Tsuna's eardrum with almost physical force. Even though he knew it was coming, the sheer noise of it caused a full body flinch and a small shriek to escape from his lips.

Reborn held out his hand imperiously.

Tsuna handed him the worksheet obediently.

Skimming over the work, Reborn released a thoughtful hum.

Tsuna gripped his knees tightly to try to stave off the fine trembling in his fingers.

The paper lowered just enough that dark eyes could peer over the edge.

Too fast for mundane eyes to see, the tiny hitman reached into his pocket, whipped out a card and proclaimed, "RED! PENALTY!"

The card held two inches from Tsuna's face was a bright red and an angry emoji was drawn in the middle.

"NOOO!" Tsuna despaired while clutching his head between his hands.

"No complaining, Dame-Tsuna. It's your own fault if you can't memorize a simple formula."

"Ehhh?!" Tsuna whined.

"However," Reborn tugged his ball cap down sharply so his eyes were shadowed, "before we get to the fun-"

"For you maybe," Tsuna mumbled quietly.

"-I have something to ask you, Dame-Tsuna." Reborn continued, ignoring the disrespect for now.

Tsuna, who knew that whatever it was that could cause Reborn to interrupt his fun for a moment was important gave his full attention to Reborn. He leaned forward eagerly, thankful for the few moments of respite this would hopefully give him.

"You recall the man we met Backstage."

"...Silva-san?" Tsuna tilted his head inquisitively.

"That's right," Reborn nodded and slipped his hands into his pockets.

"What about him?"

Reborn pursed his lips for a second before answering, "What was your impression of him?"

Tsuna leaned back and crossed his arms, "My impression, huh…."

Tsuna sat in silence for a long moment. Reborn kept his eyes on Tsuna, but the boy's eyes wandered to the side and unfocused as he thought seriously on his tutor's question.

"...Kind of...weird? I guess?" Tsuna frowned. "He had sunglasses on, so it was kinda hard to tell what he was feeling. It seemed like he was trying to annoy both you and Colonnello-san on purpose, which I think is crazy," at this he made sure Reborn understood how serious he was by looking straight into his eyes, "and he said some weird things-about a storm bird? I didn't really get it, but it….felt important, somehow."

Tsuna didn't think he could ever find the words to describe what he had felt in that moment. It reminded him of when he was under the effects of a Dying Will Bullet; light and heat and knowing all wrapped up in a burning desperation. The aching cold that he had lived with for most of his life being brushed away in order for him to focus on one single thing. Under Silva-san's heavy gaze, no matter how hidden it was behind oversized lenses, he felt like nothing in the world could tear his own eyes away. All of his attention was on the strange man in front of him.

"And," Tsuna continued, "he felt….empty. No," his eyebrows scrunched together trying to recall the exact feeling he had sensed,"not empty. But, uh, like, I was looking at something that was less than what I thought it would be, I guess?" He looked at Reborn beseechingly. "Does that make sense?"

Reborn was standing stock still and a bubble was slowly expanding and retracting from his nose.

He had fallen asleep sometime during Tsuna's explanation.

Tsuna, in disbelief, opened his mouth in order to screech before he suddenly stopped, his teeth clicking as he snapped it closed.

If Reborn was napping, maybe he wouldn't have to be play the punishment game?

Slowly, he stood up from his chair.

Carefully, he tiptoed across the plush carpet. His steps made barely a whisper on the soft weave. He breathed a quiet sigh of relief that he didn't trip when he reached the doorway.

Gingerly, he reached for the doorknob. He pressed down on the handle.

A bullet slammed into the door an inch away from his ear.

"HIEEE!"

He fell back onto the floor in shock.

"Where are you going, Dame-Tsuna?"

Tsuna felt his spine creak as he stiffly turned to face the dark looming presence behind him.

The demon in a child's suit smirked sharply at the terrified face of his charge.

"I'm not done with you yet."

Luca meandered down the street of the quaint Japanese town he had been avoiding his entire life.

Namimori was nice, he supposed, Definitely different from the (un)controlled chaos of Mafialand that he had been living in for the last five years, but nothing really compared to that.

The town wasn't really like anywhere else that he had lived, either.

This was due to the fact that the whole town seemed to be gassed with mist flames.

Alright, that was a bit of an exaggeration, but there was a definite excess of illusion-type flames threading throughout the town.

Every so often, Luca would pass by an otherwise completely innocuous area and get hit with a sudden sense of look away/nothing to see here accompanied by a sticky feeling on his skin.

It was very annoying! Other people might have had no trouble ignoring or dismissing these- these-deception farts, but Luca was having trouble not stopping and staring at such pervasive and blatant flame use.

How the hell did normal people not sense things like this? He felt like he wanted to take an hour long shower and he had only been walking around for thirty minutes!

He bet it was all Kawahira's fault too! That stupid oji-san just couldn't help himself, it seemed.

Luca stopped in the middle of the road, hit by a sudden, horrifying realization.

This was where he was going to live for the foreseeable future.

Oh sweet Sepira, this would be hell. Yup. This was it. This was hell. Surrounded by Kawahira's sticky flatulence and "retired" mafiosi just itching to get some action.

….He did not mean that how it had sounded.

Was the town already infecting him? Namimori definitely had its own brand of crazy, that was clear from what he could remember from the anime. Was it contagious?

Who was he kidding, he was already madder than a hatter, this would be perfect!

As long as these mist flames stopped clinging to him he swore to fucking god-

Yeah, so not much plot happening this chapter, but whatev. We'll get there.