A/N: This one took a bit longer than the last couple. I guess the fount of inspiration is losing its geyser-esque pressure. Or it could just be that I was having problems with the manga chapter. Anyway, here it is - for your entertainment. (Though I don't really listen to that song…) Enjoy, and please review.

Keeping You Character - Chapter Thirteen

Lambo, though she didn't stick around for class hours, often walked with Reborn and Tsuna to school. Not only because it helped give her a vague schedule to follow (Necessary because she had gone years with no schedule whatsoever - she just continuously took on bounties, and slept and ate when she got tired or hungry.), but because during the course of the manga, many interesting things happened on the trip.

Currently, she was walking along the wall that edged the sidewalk Tsuna regularly used, directly following Reborn like a baby duck. Though, instead of waddling and eating chunks of bread, she was walking with an unusually coordinated gait, and sipping at a thermos of Earl Grey that Nana had given her when she came to pick up Tsuna. It most likely looked a bit absurd, but it probably would have been worse if she had still been wearing her tiny lamb suit. Instead, her diminutive form was clothed in the most sickeningly adorable, yet comfortable, garments she could find - namely some green denim suspender-shorts, overly big, white t-shirt.

Usually, she kept to her 'natural', fifteen-year-old form, instead of switching to baby-form. (Unless Bianchi was around.) Because while said child-form was good for napping and getting into small spaces, not only were her limbs too short to wield her weapon of choice, but the body certainly wasn't trained to the heights she had attained. And since her past forms were 'set in stone', as it were, she couldn't even train in her five-year-old form because it would make absolutely no difference. Given that she was a slightly paranoid type of person, she preferred to be in a form where she had the best chances of defending herself from potential threats.

Plus, it was also somewhat annoying to be treated with the cooing condescension that most people treated small children with - though that was sometimes useful for getting out of trouble.

Still, she made an exception for today. The child-form would most likely save her from a potential slapping - considering the person Tsuna was going to encounter.

Her head tilted to follow a certain house as they walked past, sharp eyes lingering on the upstairs bathroom window. It was where one Miura Haru habitually stood every day when they walked by. The girl wasn't there at the moment, but usually she never missed the chance to watch Reborn as he walked by - more often than not she was half-asleep and drooling toothpaste foam.

'Actually, now that I think of it,' Lambo thought to herself as she continued her relaxed balancing act on the fence, 'Haru kind of looks like a zombie like that… Maybe that's why she wants to hug Reborn as soon as she meets him - it's an excuse to get close to his head so she can crack open his skull and eat his brain out of the cranial bowl with a spork.' She nodded to herself decisively. 'I actually wouldn't be that surprised if zombies existed in this universe - there's already that one guy, Moretti I think, who pretty much qualifies as undead. After all, he wouldn't have to stop his pulse and breathing for that one technique if they are already nonexistent.'

She as pulled from her increasingly arbitrary thoughts as Reborn suddenly halted in front of her, and she was forced to stop before she ran into his back. That would have been bad, as Reborn was very choosy about who he let in his personal space - and she was pretty sure that she wasn't on the guest list for his personal bubble. She craned her neck to look around him, only to see Zombie-girl squatting on the fence in front of the hitman.

Tsuna was busy deliberately not looking at the girl, because with the position she was in, it would be very easy for him to accidentally see up her skirt. Considering his absolutely horrible luck, the girl would definitely notice if he did, and immediately try to kill him.

"My name is Miura Haru," Haru stated with a deep blush on her face. "I've seen you walk by on this fence every school day for a while now. Your name is Reborn, right?"

'Wow, what a major stalker,' Lambo thought with a sweat-drop. 'Reborn seems to attract those types, huh?' Nightmarish visions of Bianchi danced through her mind.

"Will you be my friend?" Haru asked bashfully, yet bluntly, looking at the home tutor with imploring eyes.

"Sure," Reborn said with his usual nonchalance.

'Reborn, you shouldn't act cool around stalker-types,' Lambo thought with a mental face palm as she sat down on the fence top to watch the show. 'It just encourages them.'

Haru swooned in sheer delight at the positive answer, nearly falling from her perch to the hard pavement of the sidewalk as she gave a small squeal of joy. Instead, she twisted flexibly in mid air, and landed in a crouched position. Reborn hopped down onto the sidewalk as well, standing next to Tsuna who was watching the whole affair in his customary state of incredulity.

'Too bad she didn't go 'splat' on the pavement,' Lambo considered with sheer academic interest, observing the scene from above as she took another sip of her tea. 'It would have been interesting to see if she could just snap her neck back into place if it broke - things like that don't usually affect zombies for long.'

"That's wonderful!" Haru exclaimed with glee, her creepy pedo-blush spreading over her cheeks. "Now, Reborn-chan, if it isn't too forward of me, can you give me a biiiiiig hug, like this?" she demonstrated by squeezing her own arms around her torso - like the standard position of someone in a straightjacket.

Lambo thought the allusion to her being a nut job somewhat fitting. 'Calling him '-chan'… and then straight out asking to violate his personal space… Maybe this is why zombies are constantly searching to consume the brains of others - because they have none of their own.'

"Don't touch me so easily," Reborn said threateningly, whipping out one of his guns. "'Cause I'm a hitman."

'So does that mean all hitmen have highly selective personal bubbles?' Lambo pondered to herself. '…that can't be, because Lussuria exists. Then again, maybe he is discerning in that he only goes for the male, muscly and deceased. I know that I myself have a personal bubble just as bad as Reborn's…'

Haru stared at the object of her affections in shock.

Tsuna, on the other hand, was a bit more used to Reborn's particular brand of eccentricity. "N-now Reborn, don't go saying things like that in plain daylight!" he exclaimed nervously, not exactly wanting this new, albeit crazy, girl to be sucked into mafia matters as well.

Before the poor student could say anything else to scold his tutor, he was interrupted by a palm colliding heavily with his cheek.

"You bastard! What have you been teaching him? Assassination techniques?" Haru yelled in anger. "Babies are angels with pure white hearts!" she continued to rant. "Are you destroying that lovely pureness with your rotten corruption?" she demanded, grabbing at his collar threateningly.

Tsuna was understandably shocked. After all, Reborn was the one trying to corrupt him.

Lambo, on the other hand, nearly snorted out tea as she held in her laughter. 'Reborn? Pure? That's like saying Satan is just a poor, misunderstood little angel! Unless she's referring to the pureness of his resolve, or something - that's the only thing I can call 'pure' about him.'

"And not only that, but Reborn-chan's friend will be corrupted if she stays with you too! Who would leave the responsibility of two innocent children in your horrible, tainted hands?" Haru shouted in his face, shaking him back and forth by her grip on his shirt.

"He looks like a bobblehead," Lambo commented from her seat on the wall, small legs kicking rhythmically through the air - she was definitely glad she had the foresight to switch to her younger form, to be seen as a 'victim' instead of a 'corrupter'. Reborn nodded with his usual smirk, watching the little quarrel with the air of someone at the movies.

"W-wait a second!" Tsuna desperately tried to appease the apparently psycho girl that was throttling him. "I think there's been some sort of misunderstanding!"

"What exactly do you think I'm misunderstanding?" Haru scowled at him, yanking roughly on his tie.

"I didn't teach him any assassination techniques!" Tsuna cried, looking a bit nauseous from the rapid jerking of his head.

"You liar!" Haru yelled. "I see you with him almost every day - you're his big brother, aren't you?"

"We're not siblings!" Tsuna shouted back in response to her harassment.

"Then you're an even bigger bastard!" Haru shrieked with renewed ire. "Turning someone else's baby into a devil!"

'She's just not listening to a word I say!' Tsuna groaned mentally, sure that his brain was rattling from all the shaking.

Lambo, reading his thoughts from his expression, couldn't help but think, 'Now you know something about what it's like to be on the receiving end of ignorant hate from Bianchi… Maybe this'll teach you to not try to get me to play 'bait' to lure that psycho away.'

"Listen you! You're not going to see Reborn-chan or his friend any longer!" Haru commanded, nearly prodding his face with a threatening finger. "You're too much of a bad influence!"

Reborn finally deigned to speak up. "That wouldn't work."

Haru turned to him quizzically, while Tsuna heaved a premature sigh of relief. 'Yeah, you explain it to her, Reborn. Why'd I have to be the one who was slapped, anyway?' he thought grumpily as he rubbed his tender cheek.

"It's my job to raise Tsuna to be the Tenth boss of a mafia family," Reborn told her bluntly. "So I can't be separated from Tsuna until then."

Lambo raised a hand to offer up an explanation of her own. "I'm Tsuna's bodyguard," she offered candidly. "My contract says that I have to stay on until he learns to get over his wussiness."

Tsuna was abruptly punched - in the same exact place he had been slapped.

Lambo stared at her charge, deeply unimpressed. 'He was staggered by that? A punch from a physically weak, middle school girl?' she thought in slight disappointment. 'I mean, I know he's supposed to be super-pathetic at this point, but it's kinda frustrating to see him as such a… wuss when he's so strong in the future.'

"What's with the mafia stuff?" Haru demanded, looking about to start breathing fire at him. "That's going too far, even for a delinquent like you! And forcing such a small child to be your bodyguard? You shouldn't be allowed to restrict them like that!"

Haru glared deeply at Tsuna for a moment, before seemingly deciding something and stomping away. 'I'll leave the hugs for later - something has to be done about this baby-mistreating criminal!'

"W-wait! Listen- !" Tsuna tried to call her back - he didn't really anyone to think of him as some kind of person that manipulated children, even someone as bizarre as her.

Haru gave him a demonic glare, making his words cut off with a startled squeak. She then turned to give a sunny smile to the two diminutive Mafioso spectators. "Bye-bye," she told them, before hurriedly turning the corner, plotting ways to separate them from Tsuna.

Reborn smirked at his hapless student. "You two get along well," he remarked casually. "Like a married couple."

"Maybe one that's about to get divorced!" Tsuna yelled at him, still cradling his injured cheek.

"You really need to learn how to manipulate conversations for you benefit, Doormat-guy," Lambo told him critically with a condescending sigh. "If you can't explain such a simple situation without getting the other person homicidal, you'd fail in Family negotiations," she explained knowingly from her spot on the wall, poking a tiny index finger toward his face.

"There's absolutely nothing simple about my situation!" Tsuna shrieked, looking at his age-changed bodyguard with incredulity. "And I don't want to be a mafia boss!"

She shook her head condescendingly. "Silly Doormat-guy. This is relatively simple for the mafia world. You should learn to stop working yourself up so much over every little thing."

'That just means it's gonna get worse!' Tsuna despaired inwardly, turning away from his pint-sized tormentors to trot glumly off to school.

Lambo shook her head in disapproval as she watched him leave.

"He's gonna need a lot of work," she told Reborn seriously. "Even if he does have the potential, without any resolve, he'll go nowhere."

Reborn simply smirked at her, one hand absently stroking his pet chameleon. "I'm the world's greatest hitman. He'll learn." 'After all,' he thought to himself, 'resolve is one of the specialties of the Vongola Family.'

Lambo didn't doubt it - judging by the look on the tutor's face, he'd only stop short of killing Tsuna in his endeavor to beat the resolution into him. She exhaled slightly through her nose at her own thought processes as Reborn disappeared in the direction of Nami Middle. She followed suit, and turned toward home.

'Still, that means Tsuna will need a new nickname eventually,' she thought contemplatively. 'After all, 'Doormat-guy' will only fit for so long with Reborn as a tutor.'

There was a reason that Lambo was somewhat miffed to have such a position as 'bodyguard' foisted upon her. Mainly, it was because Tsuna didn't have one in the original manga, and Lambo wanted things to run parallel to said events. (Though it was also because she didn't really want to be bothered by the significant responsibility.) It would be nearly impossible for things to stay the same, considering a bodyguard was so prominent a figure in their charge's life.

There was a reason for Lambo's urge to keep the storyline relatively congruent to the original story. The reason was simply this: she's a lazy, lazy person.

And because of this aspect of her character, the obvious conclusion that you can come to is that she didn't want to have to deal with not knowing what will happen the next day, because it's troublesome. Instead, she had wanted to coast through the next couple of years with the security of foreknowledge, and the entertainment of annoying people with her unflappable mien. But because of her prominent position in Tsuna's dealings, something was bound to change.

Of course, the other reason for wanting some inkling of future events was because she wasn't keen on dying again any time soon. Still, the entertainment factor of validly having the 'I know something that you don't know' variety of smugness was also a prominent motive.

As it currently was, events had gone relatively according to the 'script'. One thing Lambo hadn't really counted on though, was the extreme amount of boredom that was building up. After all, she had gone from an exciting, spontaneous way of life, tracking people down to kill and/or capture them, constantly tasking her wits and physical prowess to complete her jobs with style… to living in Japanese suburbia, only getting any iota of excitement when manga events happened, with days, sometimes weeks in between incidents.

So, yes, Lambo was a tad bit bored out of her mind.

As if Lady Luck, or some other chaotic deity had heard her thoughts, her sharp eyes abruptly spotted something that would temporarily abate her boredom.

A puff of pink smoke engulfed her tiny form, only to reveal her fifteen-year-old body. She stared pensively at the man across the street, before pulling a high-tech piece of equipment out of her shorts' pocket. It was a specially made phone/computer hybrid that she had ordered to be made for her bounty hunting jobs. She lifted it into the air, trying to get the right angle to take a picture of the guy's face. She snapped a photo, and it appeared on the mini-machine's screen. Deeming it satisfactory, she pressed another button, and a small bar of light moved vertically downward over the image, scanning it. After a few moments, bold, black text appeared.

'Match Found,' it stated in Italian - because though she was still probably most fluent in English, Italian had become her favorite language because of its lyrical quality. Plus, other people would be less likely to understand it than Japanese or English, considering her current location.

Lambo clicked another button, opening the file that had been found. 'Federico Vandigo, eh? He works for one of the anti-Vongola Families… Most likely sent to eliminate my charge, then,' she read, quickly assessing the threat. '…the bounty is pretty high on this one,' she thought with a smirk, sharp eyes noting the faint outline of a gun inside his coat - which is what had made her notice him in the first place. Wearing a coat during one of the hottest weeks of the summer was a tiny bit conspicuous, after all.

Her smirk widened, and she shimmered out of the visible spectrum with a quick application of her illusions. 'And I don't even have to bother leaving him alive, meaning no need for the Black Sheep facade today.'

Needless to say, the man was efficiently ambushed, and his neck snapped - with no mercy, and no witnesses. It was almost sad how pathetically easy it was, considering his high bounty, but she supposed he must have just pissed off the wrong people.

Lambo grinned slightly as she dialed a number on her cellphone. "…hey, Iemitsu?" she asked. "I got a little something for your guys in Namimori to pick up."

She was never so glad that her negotiations for taking the bodyguard job had involved the 'clean up' for her jobs. No more lugging around deadweight (literally) for her. All she had to do was do the deed, call Iemitsu, and she got paid - no unnecessary hauling needed. It also had the added benefit of notifying Iemitsu about the number of people sent after his son - a good thing for the head of the CEDEF to know. Most importantly, however, it cut out her least favorite part of her chosen profession.

Ignoring his questions for more details, Lambo simply told him the location of the corpse. "I want the bounty sent to my Swiss Bank Account, paid in gold as usual," she informed him bluntly, before ending the call.

And with that, she walked out of the alleyway, leaving behind a corpse, and whistling a jovial ditty as she once again traveled toward her home. 'And there's a few more volumes of manga for me,' she thought cheerily. 'I suppose this job isn't so bad. I get the feeling Tsuna's gonna make me rich. And that means I can buy a few things for entertainment.'

Perhaps she wouldn't be bored all the time. After all, that was the eighth probable assassin she had 'disposed' of during the past couple of weeks.

Seeing that Lambo's sense of ennui had been abated slightly by the small, profitable detour, she was in no mood to ruin her happiness by being witness to Haru's stupidity on the bridge the next morning - and consequently, her conversion to a 'Tsuna Fangirl'. Though it would also make her witness to Tsuna's ridiculosity, she figured she would see enough of that in the future anyway - and besides, she already had enough blackmail on him to get him to give up his firstborn child.

So instead of being at the scene of the event, she was waiting at the Sawada house when Tsuna and his ever-present hitman-tutor arrived - the boy clad only in a pair of his embarrassingly-printed boxers, and still damp from his dip in the river.

Lambo looked up from her usual commandeered position on his bed, reading some similarly appropriated manga.

"Oh, you went swimming without me?" she asked with a slight pout.

Tsuna's eyes twitched spasmodically, torn between fatigue and frustration as his hands tightened on the towel he held in his hands. It was actually quite a mild reaction from the high-strung boy.

Lambo allowed her eyes to critically comb his figure. "Why didn't you bring your swimsuit instead of swimming in your boxers?" she prodded, hiding a slight smirk. She paused momentarily. "And you know, you should probably work on your physique a lot more if you want any girls to notice you."

Tsuna's will to keep himself standing seemed to shatter at those words, and he slumped to the floor, inwardly bemoaning his newest situation. 'Why is it that I seem to attract psychos?' he thought miserably. 'A girl finally notices me in a romantic way, and it just has to be someone like Haru, a girl who just threatened me yesterday - and more importantly, someone who's not Kyoko-chan!'

Lambo observed his defeated countenance. "Ah, so even you yourself know that you'll probably never be able to attract girls with your body," she stated knowingly.

Tsuna groaned piteously. 'And the only other female besides my mom that I encounter on a regular basis is this person!' Then, he suddenly withered even further. '…and Bianchi.'

Yes, Tsuna was not a ladies' man by any stretch. With his luck, Lambo might not ever even get the chance to blackmail him into giving up his firstborn. What a sad way for the Vongola Family Line to end.

~~~OMAKE~~~

'That was the eighth one in two weeks!' Iemitsu thought with a frown as he snapped shut his cellphone, equal parts worried for his son, and angered at the people sending assassins after him. '…Still, I guess this confirms that it was worth it to get Lambo on the job,' he considered.

"Who was that, Iemitsu?" a curious voice called him back to his current surroundings.

He looked up to see the Ninth Vongola Boss staring curiously back at him from across the expensive desk, and suddenly remembered that he had been in a meeting.

"Ah," Iemitsu trailed off uncertainly, wondering exactly what to tell his boss, considering Lambo's double-identity. "Just a friend of mine updating me on a situation," he told Timoteo vaguely.

"They must be a very good friend for you to respond so unhesitatingly." Timoteo probed slightly. "And to trust them with a 'situation'."

Iemitsu sweat-dropped slightly as he recalled the many times Lambo had mocked him, and the ominous favor he owed her - the real reason he had answered so quickly was because of her current job. Still, she was probably one of the most trustworthy people he knew outside the Vongola, and they had worked cooperatively together.

"I suppose you could call her that," he finally said.

Timoteo leaned forward, his eyes twinkling in the way only a person who's seen years go by could manage. "A her, is it? But not Nana or one of your subordinates? Now that is odd."

'How is it that you aren't the head of the Intelligence Agency, what with your nosy tendencies, old man?' Iemitsu thought to himself in fond exasperation. "Yeah, I guess."

"So who is this mysterious lady?" Timoteo asked with a slight grin. "She can't be a romantic attachment, so I must admit you have me curious."

Iemitsu involuntarily snorted at the word 'lady' referring to Lambo, before nearly choking to death on his own spit at the mention of 'romantic attachment'.

"Okay, first off, she's definitely no lady," Iemitsu stated firmly once he had recovered. "And besides that, even if I weren't married (God forbid), she'd be way to young for me." He paused for a moment before making a face. "Plus, I can't even imagine the type of guy who could handle a romantic relationship with her without her killing them…."

Timoteo raised an eyebrow. "So… she's a good friend to the Head of the CEDEF, apparently unconventional, young, single, and with a penchant for violence," he summed up.

Iemitsu couldn't exactly contradict any of that.

Timoteo leaned back contemplatively. "Perhaps Xanxus should meet this young woman," he mused out loud. "This could be the only chance there is for grandchi-, er, a good relationship for him."

Iemitsu once again began choking to death on his own spit. 'I don't know what's scarier,' he mused, thoughts spiraling due to a lack of oxygen. 'the thought of what kind of damage those two would do if they got into an fight, or what kind of damage they could do if they did get together.'

And thus one in-universe person hopped onto the Xanxus/Lambo ship, without even knowing who she was.