'You have remarkably passed the first phase of your training. We start on the next one tomorrow afternoon.' -Hibari

"Well this note is a little cryptic." Vero pondered aloud after regaining consciousness and reading what the note curiously taped to his head said. "I…passed? But how?"

He closed his eyes, trying to recall what happened in that final clash before he had been knocked out. He could only remember bits and pieces - flashes of him running at Hibari and swinging with vigor, but barely missing as the cloud guardian dodged and then hit the blonde square in the jaw with an uppercut using just the tip of his tonfa.

'And then…I blacked out.' The young Cavallone boss concluded in thought, but still felt that he was missing something. 'There's…something else though. Something weird happened back there…'

He thought back to the moment once more, this time focusing on the tonfa that barely made contact with Hibari's cheek. He wasn't wrong that he missed, but he could now clearly remember that he somehow cut it, but how exactly?

Vero continued to hone his focus and eventually discovered something quite surprising.

"An orange flame?!" He finally exclaimed with slight disbelief. "It was tiny but that must've been what cut Hibari-san…meaning I really did pass!" - he rejoiced for a minute but one final concern suddenly came to mind - "We'll be training in the afternoon now though…Is Hibari-san trading time slots with Yamamoto-san then?"

The young Cavallone boss tried to ponder on it but his stomach interrupted by suddenly rumbling. Vero heeded its plea and headed towards the kitchen where he started smelling something incredibly heavenly. His stomach made a deeper grumble in response, so he quickly entered without another thought.

Within he happened to see a young woman standing at the stone watching over a soup pot. Her back was facing him but he could see that she had long straight light brown hair which ended just above her waist. She was currently wearing a simple pale lime green dress that ended at her knees and a green cardigan with quarter sleeves over it.

She must have heard the automatic doors open, because without turning she said, "Lunch will be ready in just a bit…"

She then turned to face him, revealing herself to be none other than Sasagawa Kyoko.

"Oh! Vero-kun!" She exclaimed happily, having recognized him instantly. "What a surprise! You should've told me when you were dropping by. I would've prepared a feast for your arrival."

"Thanks for the thought, Kyoko-san, but I arrived here late at night so there wouldn't have been a chance." The blonde replied politely.

"Nonsense! I would've made it work." The brunette pouted playfully, then adopted a bittersweet expression when continuing. "After all, your cousin Dino-san was important to us as well as Rosetta-chan, so when the news of their deaths reached us…well let's just say we were all surprised and beside ourselves."

There was indeed truth to her words, for they were just suddenly…gone. Only those of the inner Mezzanotte family knew the absolute truth and had arranged the funeral to conceal it. Even so a lot of attendees refused to accept that such a thing had happened but played along anyway.

Squalo was not one of them. He decided to crash the event instead and lashed out at those he had believed didn't do anything to prevent their deaths. Eventually he even targeted Vero himself, taking his anger out on the boy who was rumored to be there when it happened. Luckily Tsuna and his guardians stepped in to defend the boy so the white haired male just up and left.

Reborn was the other exception. He didn't even show up for the funeral despite being invited. Some had just assumed that close to the date of the event he had been called out on a job he couldn't ignore, but those who knew him best figured that wasn't the case.

The fact of the matter was that Reborn knew his student wouldn't die so easily, and he thought the same of Rosetta so he didn't come as a way of expressing his refusal to believe the lie. Unfortunately due to this no one had seen him at all close to the day of the funeral or even afterwards, so he had disappeared himself. In fact, no one has seen or heard from him since…

"Oh dear! The pot's boiling over!" Kyoko suddenly exclaimed with worry, waking Vero from his daze. She then began to fluster about, trying to get everything under control.

The young Cavallone boss was initially thrown off but quickly offered his assistance. She accepted his help gratefully and together the two of them regained control and finished cooking the food. Soon after they were done some of the guardians started wandering in and thanks to Vero's help none of the dishes had been ruined.

As soon as the males all sat down to eat, Vero decided to ask Yamamoto about his earlier concerns. "So, a passed this first phase of Hibari-san's…but now I'll be training with him in the afternoons. Does this mean I'll be training with you in the morning now?"

"Oh yeah, congrats on passing!" The rain guardian exclaimed happily before continuing with a more serious tone. "As for our training…unfortunately I've been given an important task and will be away for some time so I won't be able to train with you."

"Oh, that's okay. I can just train by myself." The young Cavallone boss replied casually.

By this time Gokudera had entered and responded to the teen's comment. "Not necessarily. There are two of us that have yet to teach you anything."

"That would be you then…and Ryohei-san." Vero concluded.

"It's not my turn yet!" The sun guardian immediately replied loudly. "I'm still busy to the extreme!"

The storm guardian looked a bit annoyed at his exclamation but continued with his earlier statement. "Anyway, lessons might be at varying times because of the duties I have to see through as the right hand man but I'll be teaching you about box animals and rings starting tomorrow."

He then turned to Kyoko and requested that the two plates be made to go.

"Is Tsuna-kun busy working overtime again then?" She asked but seemed like she knew the answer already.

Gokudera smiled apologetically in response then said, "He told me that he knows you aren't able come by as often as you want and he's sorry that he missed you. He at least asked me to come by and get some of your cooking, so he wouldn't miss out on that."

"Of course he did." The female admitted with a soft sad smile. "So I went ahead and put some of his favorites together ahead of time." - she handed the male the plates but continued more strictly - "But tell Tsuna-kun that the next time I decide to drop by he better come see me in person!"

Gokudera chuckled while Ryohei complemented his sister's preparedness (to the extreme) from the background. The storm guardian then accepted the plates, reminded Vero of the meet up time for their lesson, then left.

The rest who had been left in the dining hall continued eating their meals in relative silence, and then Vero trained with Yamamoto one more time before the rain guardian had to prepare to leave. The young Cavallone then turned in for the night, wondering what Gokudera's lessons would entail…