Chapter 7: Moods
The clam-shaped plane landed on the roof of a Vongola-owned hotel situated in Syracuse under the cover of darkness. Shoichi had said they used some mist flames to camouflage the large abomination that was supposed to be a top secret war weapon. Tsuna still hadn't quite forgiven Shoichi for that, but after everything that happened inside of it, Tsuna was just happy to be able to get out.
His happiness was short-lived. As usual.
Even though it was around midnight, the student body of Namimori Gakuen had energy enough to subdue a couple or so elephants. They filed out the plane and on to their first step into dear Italia in giddy amazement, not bothering to hide their excited squeals or mind their manners at all.
Nevertheless, Hibari wasn't pleased.
After the tragedy that was their first moments in Italy, the students had mellowed down somewhat. That is, until they saw the flashy interior of the hotel they were staying in, and then they were back to 'ooh'-ing and 'aah'-ing and pointing at this and that so conspicuously that everyone else had somehow turned their attention on them.
A fact which Hibari didn't appreciate.
Only Tsuna and his guardians were remotely behaved, but that was only because they've been here before and had seen more. Their first time weren't much different, and only Mukuro and Hibari didn't drool at the sight of the wondrous beds (and food) they provided.
Right now though, none of them had the energy to appreciate beautiful accommodations.
They were tired, hungry, and Tsuna was feeling like doubling over like Shoichi as he thought of the stacks of paperwork that no doubt waited for him in his office. He didn't even have time to worry about the fact that he had an office. In. Italy.
After the fiasco with the ninjas, destroying the entirety of the entertainment room, Reborn had punished them by starving them to near-death, and forcing Tsuna to spar with Hibari to avoid the prefect going berserk in his frustration. The skylark never liked losing, and if he didn't win, that was considered a loss in the prefect's book.
Ties didn't exist in the raven-haired boy's dictionary, it would seem.
As for his guardians, they took over his paperwork during the time the Sky and Cloud sparred, which, as you might have imagined, was a disaster. Yamamoto laughed, Ryohei 'extreme'd, Lambo asked for candy, Chrome and Mukuro ran away, and by the end of the day, Gokudera had blown away half of the papers he'd worked on and made far more mess than he fixed.
Be that as it may, none of them were in a good mood, so when Osamu—poor, poor Osamu—tried to brag about his mother that worked for a prestigious company and had apparently taken Osamu to a hotel much like this one plenty of times and threw a snide remark to Tsuna who 'wouldn't know how to act in such a high level environment' if his life depended on it…
Well, it wasn't a very pretty sight.
Tsuna rather enjoyed seeing his shocked (and disantled) face when Hibari, the Hibari, pounded his face with a tonfa and broke his nose for reasons his brain didn't seem capable of understanding.
Everyone else quieted down after that.
An hour later, everyone was grouped (at last) and sent to their rooms to rest. Reborn, in his Reboyama costume once more—it still baffled Tsuna how no one noticed past his disguise when he looked…oh, that's one dangerous line of thought. Stop, Tsuna. You don't want any more paperwork, do you? —told them to be in the lobby by eight the next morning for their guided tour, warning them against tardiness, eyes glancing at the brooding prefect by the corner for good measure.
It worked, and the students of Namimori went to bed dreading the next day. No one was staying up late that night.
No one, except Tsuna. It would seem like Tsuna was exempted from all the good things. It's true.
After all their schoolmates had left, Tsuna and his guardians walked like hungry zombies to the special elevator reserved for the higher-ups of Vongola to the special floor they usually occupied during their stays in there. It was only accessible with a Vongola-issued ring, so they wouldn't worry too much about assassinations and other distractions, and had a fridge and a kitchen they could make food in.
Right now, an assassination could come and they really wouldn't care.
They were hungry.
Damn, Reborn. Not for the first time, Tsuna found himself cursing his sadist tutor.
Their late dinner ended in a food fight that destroyed half of the kitchen.
Tsuna supposed it wasn't entirely unexpected (fact is, it was entirely expected) but knowing it was bound to happen didn't save him from having to take responsibility-meaning, cough up some money-of their destruction. This was the entire reason he was a mafia boss in training. If he wasn't he'd be swimming in debt.
Looking at the carnage that was the aftermath, Tsuna wordlessly walked off to his office, locked the door-which was illogical, since, when has that ever stopped people from barging in?-and resigned himself to another all-nighter with his beloved paperwork.
An hour later, Reborn came in with more.
The next day, unsurprisingly, Tsuna was in a bad mood.
His mood was so gruesome that even his guardians saw fit to leave him alone for a few hours, lest he blew up and they got caught in the storm. They didn't want that. Tsuna in a bad mood meant Sadist Tsuna, and they didn't want the pain.
(Tsuna's blows can be really, really painful.)
However, even though his guardians were smart enough to stay clear of the raging sky, none of the other students had an inkling of the danger and merely assumed Tsuna was abandoned by his friends, as they had long since expected, and saw it as a chance to get back to their former routine of bullying the brown-haired boy.
Osamu, his nose bandaged from Hibari's torture last night, saw Tsuna looking glum in one corner of the lobby with neither of his 'guard dogs' in sight, and decided he was fair game and thought he could release his frustration on the weakling at least.
Uh...it didn't end well.
Or, more like, it didn't start well. Hibari, apparently having snuffed the bully herbivore's plan, intercepted Osamu and the poor, poor boy ran away screaming. And bleeding. No one ran away from Hibari without at least a few drops of blood flowing from open wounds.
No one tried anything after that.
Tsuna, for his part, wouldn't have started chewing out his guardians if they had gone within three meters of him, but he appreciated the distance nonetheless. He didn't know what he would have done if they made a ruckus around him right now.
He was still tired, even though Reborn, in a rare show of kindness, had allowed him to sleep for four hours. That didn't usually happen when he had that much paperwork. Still, Tsuna had trouble sleeping since the alien creature in his brain-namely, his Hyper Intuition-was nagging him. He had been feeling uncomfortable ever since they landed, more than the usual tugging from all the surrounding dangerous people.
He didn't know what it was, but he knew something bad was coming for him.
It bothered him a bit that he wasn't all that worried and wondered when he became...so different from his old self.
He was quiet the whole day.
"Done soul-searching?" Reborn, wearing an old man attire, complete with the white hair (bald at the center) and long mustache, barged in Tsuna's office just as he was finishing the last of his paperwork.
Feeling accomplished, but still a bit lost, Tsuna smiled wryly at his tutor and said, "You know I've never been good at thinking over stuff."
"I know. You're Dame-Tsuna, after all."
Tsuna nodded, before leaning back on his chair and looking up. "But I'm kind of different now."
A strong kick landed on his stomach and the young brunette doubled over.
"Nah. You're still Dame-Tsuna."
