Tsuna wasn't quite sure what to think. Yes, over the years he's had his fair share of people stand up for him when it came to bullies, himself included when the occasion really called for it, but he couldn't really recall a time like how Kazumi quite literately called out the entire class. He could imagine what it might have been like; Kazumi tearing into Nezu-sensei back in their middle school days had she been there. And secretly, deep, deep, DEEP down, that brought him some sadistic joy.

It was still too early for Reborn to rub off on him entirely.

"If you can understand this much here," Kazumi had carried on, putting the confrontation behind her as if it hadn't even happened, and pointed out a specific portion of the homework from the night before. "Then you're pretty much good to go." And Tsuna did, more or less, understand what Kazumi explained to him. Granted some of it was still fuzzy, but at least now he thought he could actually retain the information and somehow figure out the problem on his own. And maybe actually catch up with the rest of the work.

"Thank you very much, Kazumi-san." Tsuna said with a smile and expressed as much gratitude as he could muster. "I appreciate your help. And I'll try to remember what you said earlier." When he looked up from his textbook, he found Kazumi starring at him owlishly with a hint of pink on her cheeks. "Umm, are you alright?" Calling out to her seemed to bring Kazumi out of whatever trance she was under, as she shook her head away from it.

"Yeah, I'm fine. If you need any more help, don't be afraid to ask. I don't care if I have to explain the same question three different ways, I'll do it until you get it." With that she got out of her borrowed seat with a pointed stare and returned to her own, bringing out the book she had been reading earlier.

"Juudaime, I'm so sorry!" Tsuna jumped slightly when Hayato was suddenly whispering loudly beside him. After looking at his Storm questioningly, Hayato continued with his heartfelt apology. "I should have been able to help you with your homework, but in the end that girl was able to assist better than I. I have no excuse. I'm unworthy of you."

"Hah? What? No, Hayato!" Tsuna struggled to find the words to console his right hand. "You don't have anything to be sorry for. I think, that maybe, you understand math much differently than I do. So really, it's my fault, for not being able to keep up with you."

"What? No, it could never be your fault Juudaime! I'm the one that-"

"Hayato please, we've talked about this." Tsuna interrupted, giving Hayato a meaningful look before he could spiral himself into a series of self-demeaning comments.

"R-Right." Hayato took a deep breath and allowed himself a moment to calm down and regain him composure. "Juudaime, I'm glad to hear you're now able to understand the work." Tsuna gave another, relieved, smile.

"Aha! I know what this reminds me of!" Takeshi said suddenly, having been silent for the last few minutes while deep in thought. "That first summer we were all together; we tried teaching Tsuna to swim but totally failed." While Takeshi was laughing at the memory, Hayato was beginning to see red from the Rain's unwanted recollection, and Tsuna couldn't help but cast worried glances between his two Guardians.

When their usual bickering began, Tsuna just sighed and figured it would be best if he let them at it. It was either that or get caught up in it and likely end up in the nurse's office. Again. Instead, he tuned them out and focused on finishing the problems before their free period could finish. It was slow at first, but he found with each question that passed, he was finally getting a grasp of the information provided by Kazumi, and was actually starting to get the hang of it. By the time the bell rang, he only had five questions unfinished and he was confident he could answer them.

xXx

The rest of the day went like a speeding roller coaster. But that was normal. It was between moments of calm and relative relaxation, that the whirlwind that Tsuna grew to know as his everyday life continued to catch up with him at every possible moment. And so by the end of the school day, he was utterly exhausted.

"Tsuna." Tsuna abruptly came to a halt as the sound of Reborn calling his name.

Oh no. His mind groaned once he caught that twinkle in the infant hitman's eye. Tsuna sighed at his inevitable fate.

"Yes, Reborn?" He asked tiredly, expectantly; already having a pretty good idea of what was going to come from his tutor's mouth next.

"It's time for training. Let's go." Reborn didn't leave room for complaints as he began herding Tsuna towards the forest at the edge of town.

"We're not bringing anyone else?" Tsuna asked.

"No, there will be time for that later." Tsuna's brow creased from confusion. It had become odd for Reborn to make 'training' a solo event.

"Then, why now? And all of a sudden?" Silence passed, and he began to think Reborn wasn't going to answer him.

"There's been word from Italy. Assassinations of prominent members of the mafia, as well as lesser known leaders of smaller famiglia. Only a few were allied with Vongola, so that eliminates the immediate possible pattern, but we're being cautious now." Tsuna listened with a horrified expression as Reborn relayed the news.

"So what does that have to do with me? We're in Japan, not Italy."

"There is one connection that's been made through combined resources." Reborn started, eyeing Tsuna. "And that is the name 'Yamashita'." Tsuna felt his mouth go dry.

"Kazumi-san?" He asked, voice cracking just the slightest bit.

"There's been no confirmation on that yet. As I said, now is the time to take precautions. I did warn you before to keep your guard up with Yamashita Kazumi; now I'm expecting you to." Tsuna was speechless. Perhaps he had set his hopes too high about Kazumi actually being just a normal high school student for once. Perhaps he was, as always, too optimistic.

"What if it's not her?" He could still be optimistic, right?

"Hum. In the unlikely event it isn't, then it would just be an unfortunate circumstance of having the same name."

"Unlikely, hun? I suppose you're right. After all, how many people with a Japanese name could be living in Italy?" Tsuna had a feeling Reborn actually had an answer to that, but he knew that was one rhetorical question he would never answer.

"Irregardless Dame-Tsuna, time to get to work. You've gotten lazy, and you're going to need to refine your skills." Reborn called out in that chipper tone of his. With a groan, Tsuna pulled his mitts from his bag, slipped them on effortlessly, and in one fluid motion consumed two of his Dying Will pills.

As Tsuna's Flame lit upon his forehead, Natsu came out of the Vongola ring and sat next to his master. The lion cub looked up expectantly, waiting for Tsuna to give some sort of command or instruction as to what they would do.

"Alright, let's get this over with."

xXx

Three full hours and a couple of scorched trees later, Tsuna was finally on his way home. At last. He didn't think he would have missed his bed this much since the time he and his Guardians had travelled into the future using Lambo's Ten-Year-Bazooka.

"I'm so hungry. I can't believe Reborn made me do all that work before having dinner." The aforementioned hitman was now nowhere to be found. As soon as he was satisfied with Tsuna's hard work, he had ran off to who knows where. Tsuna certainly didn't know, and really didn't want to anyways. He was just annoyed that he was left to practically drag himself home on an empty stomach.

As Tsuna trudged down the street that would finally take him home, he thought back to his earlier conversation with Reborn. He was still hopeful for the unlikely event to unfold, and that Kazumi simply just had the misfortune of having the same name as some supposed assassin. But that the same time, his intuition was telling him to give up that hope. Even if it had also told him earlier that Kazumi was relatively harmless.

"What do you think, Natsu? Kazumi-san seems like a genuinely good person, but Reborn keeps insisting that I shouldn't trust her." He looked down at the extravagant ring on his finger, focusing on the lion carving in the metal. With a soft 'Gou', Natsu gave his non-committal response. Tsuna hung his head. He probably shouldn't have expected an actual answer. This was definitely something he'd have to bring up to the rest of his Guardians and ask for their opinions. Especially Hayato, Takeshi, and Chrome.

He would talk to them tomorrow at lunch. Or during their free period. Whenever they had the chance to get away from anyone who could listen in. Tsuna also knew with his luck, his Guardians would over react and become over protective the second they found out his life was POSSIBLY in danger. Not that it wasn't always in danger anyways.

Why did his Guardians always have to be so overzealous?

xXx

Kazumi snorted. It wasn't her fault, she had been in the middle of sipping from her juice box when Tsuna mentioned something in passing that started to make her laugh. Although, instead of laughing, she was now coughing, trying to catch her breath.

"Are you alright, Kazumi-san?" Tsuna asked as a show of concern, despite the mirthful grin he couldn't help forming at his lips.

"Yeah. Just great." She breathed out, coughing one last time to clear her throat. "But let me get this straight. You confessed to Kyoko-chan, in your underwear, in front of the entire school?!" Tsuna could tell Kazumi was trying really hard not to start laughing right in front of his face, saving him from anymore punishment than what he had already faced since that humiliating fiasco years ago.

"Aha, yeah. I was so embarrassed about it for years, to the point where I never wanted to hear about it if I could help it. Thankfully now I can laugh about the whole thing." He sighed tiredly as the memory came back to him, despite the small smile on his lips. "Mochida-sempai challenged me to a kendo duel because of that. And to this day I don't really know much of anything about kendo." Kazumi sputtered again from the new knowledge.

"Please tell me you fought him in your underwear." Tsuna answered by simply grinning at her. "No. Way." She looked at him bug-eyed and let out choked laughter. "I swear, I would pay my entire life savings to see that!"

"You haven't even heard the best part yet." Takeshi said, cutting in from across their semi-circle on the roof's floor. "Tsuna won!" He told, his grin prideful as if he was talking about his own brother, while slipping an arm around the brunet's shoulders.

"Aha, that part I'm not so proud of." Tsuna interjected before Kazumi could say anything, casting a sidelong glance away from everyone.

"What? Why? You won, didn't you?" Kazumi asked genuinely curious, but that only seemed to make Tsuna grimace.

"Kinda?" The questioning look he got from his evasive answer was enough to make him continue. "I kind of ripped out all of his hair?" There was silence for a moment. Long enough for the wind to blow past, and quiet enough for it to be heard. The next thing any of them knew, Kazumi was wiping tears from the corner of her eyes as laughter shook her frame.

"Forget my life savings, I'll sell my soul to go back in time and watch that!" Tsuna found himself grinning with Kazumi as she continued to wipe away stray tears while she tried in vain to contain her laughter. "Dammit, you're going to make my sides burst!" A giggle escaped her lips as she moved to stand up. "I need to get a drink before I die. Save all of your good stories for when I get back." Kazumi was barely able to contain the fits of giggles as she made her way to the door that would take her back inside the school building, that she missed the tension between the boys as they watched her depart.

"So," Hayato started when they couldn't hear Kazumi's laughter anymore. "What were you saying earlier about assassins?" Tsuna turned to face his two Guardians that were present and began to relay the information Reborn that had scrounged up and dumped on him the day before.


Alright, so here's chapter, a bit shorter that the rest but, it's kind of filler anyways. It also had me stumped for a bit. Until I decided to do NaNoWriMo…

Yeah… I wrote this fic for NaNoWriMo…

That said, I have up to chapter 18 written. But the chapters between this one and that one are by no means the final versions. Like, at all. I have A LOT of editing to do; rewriting parts, shuffling scenes around, and adding in ones that I missed or straight up completely forgot about. xD

Anyways, please be patient with me and look forward to the next at least 14 chapters!

Eventually...

I'm sorry.

Rahxe