Target 36: Yamamoto's Prowess

One Winter day, Tsuna was home with Yamamoto, and Squalo was not far from them within Tsuna's room. "Vooooi, get out of here, you piece of trash!" Tsuna scowled in face of Squalo's welcome, only to gulp when his death glare was now on him. "What did I tell you about bringing your stupid friends here?!"

Somehow, Yamamoto chuckled, and before Tsuna could cover for his friend, he spoke: "It's alright, Squalo. I was the one who insisted." Yamamoto then sat by the table, forcing Tsuna to follow suit if only so the brunt of Squalo's killing intent wouldn't fall solely on Yamamoto.

"As if that'd make it any better for me! Are you and the other two planning on making my daily life more of a pain in the ass than it already is?!" Since when has it been a pain? You do nothing for most of the day! Tsuna incredulously thought. "Besides, we're busy right now! Tsuna's gotta study! You get up from this damn table and leave us alone!"

"Can't I just study with Tsuna, instead?" Yamamoto offered, his tone casual as he locked eyes with him. "You know, I've been noticing Tsuna's grades are getting better since you started teaching him, so maybe I could check how that is for reference. Besides, the more, the merrier, right?"

"Hell no! You think this is some charity?! You're lucky you got away from training with Tsuna alive, but you're not making something as boring as teaching worse than it is!"

"Squalo, you don't have to tell him off like that," Tsuna protested.

"What, you wanna have this guy around while you're studying?! There's no way you're gonna focus like that!" Squalo exclaimed, "And I sure don't wanna have to babysit another kid looking to take advantage of the situation!"

Yamamoto scratched his head as though troubled, muttering, "Guess he won't budge." He looked towards Tsuna with a slightly weaker smile, and Tsuna turned back to him with a small frown. "Well, we can hang out later, Tsuna, so it's alright."

"Yamamoto..." Saddened, Tsuna had little to utter back to Yamamoto, who was standing up from the table. He had briefly turned to the side of the room's window, only to tense.

Though he wouldn't admit it were someone to ask, Squalo's eyes widened slightly when he saw the brat he despised catch a ball that had been thrown through the open window of Tsuna's room. It had been a fast movement, one Yamamoto was likely so familiar with he executed it without thinking. Most of all, the speeds he had reached were beyond those of a normal person, and Squalo knew that better than anyone. "Whew," Yamamoto uttered as he lowered his hand to look at the ball. "Looks like someone threw this over here by mistake."

"W-woah..." Yamamoto just caught that ball in a split second...! Tsuna thought in pure awe, No wonder he's a baseball ace...

Hearing shouting from beyond the open bedroom window, Yamamoto peeked outside, leaning towards the edges of the window with a smile. "You want me to throw this to you?" Shouts of approval resounded from outside, and Yamamoto chuckled while leaning lightly back to give his arm room for the throw. "Alright, then! Make sure you catch it and go play somewhere better some time, will you?" Then, leading a bored-seeming Squalo to blink in confusion, and Tsuna to tilt his head to the side, Yamamoto's eyebrows had furrowed, and his eyes were narrowed as though gauging precise distances. His carefree smile was now a focused smirk, and as he moved his arm back for the throw, he said in a voice lower than normal, "Here I go!" Tsuna flinched when Yamamoto let go of the ball, unable to even see it fly off the window from the sheer speed and power, and he was certain the children's squeals were not out of excitement, but sudden fear. What just happened...?!

"Why'd they run away?" Yamamoto questioned, frowning in confusion. "Oh, well..." He turned towards Tsuna and Squalo, and smiled now as if his mood were brightened by their presence. "Anyway, I wouldn't wanna bother Squalo some more, so I'll just go now. See ya!"

Surprisingly, Squalo remained silent. Tsuna had even bothered to look his way, expecting an insult from Squalo, something that would force Tsuna to interject. However, Squalo only stared at Yamamoto as he walked out of the room. "Uh, see you, Yamamoto!" As such, Tsuna was forced to speak up first, before Yamamoto had closed the room's door behind him: "Squalo? Is something wrong?"

"Huh? Something wrong? As if!" Squalo easily claimed, and glanced towards the window. "I was just thinking about that brat. He looks like a plain idiot, but he's got reflexes, I'll give him that." He'd been frowning then, pondering on Yamamoto, but when he looked back towards Tsuna, he grinned; an expression that would never bode well for Tsuna. "For a normal person, that is! As far as I could see, he was as slow as a snail!"

"Uh-huh..."

"What, don't believe me?" Squalo said with a quirked eyebrow. "If that looked any impressive to you, you've got a long way to go! Not like that'd surprise anyone, considering it's you!" Tsuna grimaced in face of Squalo's open mockery. Ugh...

"W-weren't you gonna teach me or anything?" Tsuna immediately said, if only to escape further awkwardness. The proposition worked with another bout of additional insistence, though Squalo's mood had soured with the task. However, as Squalo had driven Yamamoto away, Tsuna thought of the two as even in attributing suffering to each other in that particular instance.

On the other hand, Yamamoto lingered on Squalo's mind, thinking of his reports to the Ninth about people close to Tsuna with offensive potential. Knowing better than to fan the fire of Tsuna's candidacy, Squalo decided shortly into his time with Tsuna not to report this event to the Ninth, for even the brat's sake.

Author's Notes:

At first the reviews were on top of the target so as to be seen first, but I started thinking it would be obstructive to reading the actual chapter then and have as such moved the guest review responses to the bottom. Hopefully that's a better decision! Regardless, since the last target, this story got 1 favorite and 1 follower (I count only the people that appear and don't count decreases in the favorite/follower count, by the way, so if the counting seems wrong at times that's usually the reason why); thank you very much! This target might not seem very important, but it has some later uses wink wink! I always feel like making even more targets to spread out the main events of the daily life arc but I stop myself afterwards because, by doing that, I'll make the arc even longer than it already is, hahaha.

Guest - This review was originally made since Target 34 for Target 2, but I posted it here so as to not suddenly edit it into Target 35. With that in mind, I deeply apologize for having forgotten to respond! I was so caught up in getting the target out while writing more of this story that despite the fact that I'd known since the beginning what to say to this review, I hadn't said it! Speaking of, that headcanon is awesome: I now really wanna see Levi just entering a house through a cat flap. I'd lose it if Levi entered a house through a cat flap, you have no idea; also, Lussuria dropping through a chimney! And Xanxus appears from your dish washer lol I should stop here! Regardless, thank you very much for the review and sorry again!

Fenrir-kun - I feel like Tsuna was able to ignore a lot of his flaws through the bullets. Reborn shoots the bullet, and since Tsuna doesn't have to do anything himself, he doesn't have to confront his own incompetence to its fullest; Reborn instead makes him feel helpless first only to show him he can do it with his Dying Will. Which, the more I checked the source material for reference, the more I found it to be a huge problem, especially when Tsuna gets Hyper Dying Will Mode: at all times, it isn't really Tsuna who's fighting, but Hyper!Tsuna. Tsuna doesn't solve the problems, it's Dying Will Tsuna. Tsuna can feel proud of himself for doing the things, but he doesn't actually get better as a person as a result. With Squalo, Tsuna doesn't really have the room to feel good about himself, but it's also true that all the things he did are his own accomplishments, and that definitely is the main factor for the divergence in Tsuna's characterization here. Anyway, thank you very much for reviewing!