Lambo Bovino is a mess.
His best friend is dead. His only friend, who he was told over and over again that he was to protect with his life. His best friend, who was mailed back to him piece by piece.
That doesn't even include the host of other issues caused by the activation of Dying Will flames - the fixations on other people with active Flames, burnout caused by the intensity of the required emotions, depression, PTSD, inability to let go of control, etc..
If Reborn had any other option, he would have the kid under psychiatric treatment, far away from anything to do with the training of Vongola's next heir. Unfortunately, despite their wariness about Flames, Vongola's entire succession process is based around their boss having guardians of each flame type, and at the moment, Lambo is the only unattached Lightning Flame user Vongola has control of.
There's nothing Reborn can do. For all that he's the Greatest Hitman in the world, if Vongola decides that the former (almost) guardian of their former (almost) heir needs to go test (and if possible become the guardian of) their newest heir, no one will get in their way.
Reborn lets Leon detransform and crawl onto the brim of his hat as he pulls it down to hide his eyes. He watches Tsuna sit up.
Bovino watches too, and it's the only thing that redeems him in Reborn's eyes. Bovino isn't quite ready to die yet. He's still cautious enough about facing an unknown threat that he stops to think, that he watches and gathers information and just rushing in.
Reborn doesn't know what to expect as he watches Tsuna stand. He'd learned while training Enrico and Frederico that everyone reacted differently to Dying Will Bullets.
Enrico, even in just Dying Will Mode, has- . . . had been scarily calm. Not always rational, but when it came down to it, he did his best not to be noticed. It wasn't exactly the best trait for the head of a mafia family, but it was better than running around and making a fool of yourself while you achieved your goal.
Frederico had been an odd mix of calm and exuberant. Sometimes he would do the aforementioned running around like a fool, sometimes he practically disappeared for the five minutes that the Dying Will Bullet affected him.
And besides the two students he'd trained in Dying Will, he's heard of numerous other reactions - from CEDEF's Basil and the way he seemed normal in Dying Will Mode, to what he'd heard from about Xanxus's temper from Lal during the brief period of time it took for her to get him acclimated to sparking his own Dying Will.
Tsuna . . . Tsuna isn't like any of them. Or maybe he is. He's calm like Enrico had been, so he's a little bit like Enrico.
But Tsuna didn't go into Dying will mode, Tsuna went straight to Hyper Dying Will Mode. Reborn can see it in his eyes as he stands. There's none of the contained fear there had been in Enrico's eyes in Dying Will Mode. Reborn can see it in the trembling of his hands as even just ignited, the removal of Tsuna's mental and physical limits wore on his body.
"Tsuna?" Sasagawa Ryohei asks, scrambling to his feet from the crouch he'd gone into to check Tsuna's injury. "Are you extremely alright?"
". . . Ryohei," Tsuna says. The flame on his forehead flickers as he turns to look at his friend. It flickers again as he turns to look at Bovino, then dies entirely as he collapses into an alarmed Ryohei's arms.
"Reborn?" Bovino asks, his flames dying as well as he takes an instinctive step forwards.
Reborn steps forwards. He ignores Ryohei's flinch and aborted attempt to pull Tsuna away as he finds Tsuna's pulse. He sits back and doesn't bother to hide his relief when he finds Tsuna's pulse still strong.
"He'll be fine," Reborn says as he steps away, not quite speaking to either Ryohei or Bovino as Bovino steps forwards.
"What did you extremely do?" Ryohei demands as Bovino asked, "Wasn't that Hyper Dying Will Mode?"
"I shot him," Reborn says, lifting Leon down from his hat as the chameleon transformed into a cell phone. "I shot him and he came back to life. These things happen."
"Does that happen extremely often in the mafia?" Ryohei asks, but his eyes aren't on Reborn. Bovino jerks back a step when he realizes that Ryohei is looking to him for the answer.
"No," he says slowly, before gaining more confidence. "No, that would make things rather hard."
"Why didn't you extremely collapse when your flame went out?"
"He doesn't actually know that much about flames," Reborn interrupts as he places Leon, once again a chameleon, back onto his fedora. "As for the collapsing, that normal."
"It is?" Bovino asked.
"Yes," Reborn replies. "People normally collapse after the first several times they activate Hyper Dying Will Mode. You collapsed rather often, don't you remember?"
"Yes, but - shouldn't he have only accessed regular Dying Will Mode?"
"You should take Tsuna home now, Sasagawa Ryohei. We can talk some other time," Reborn says as if Bovino hadn't asked him a question.
Ryohei's eyes narrow - but when he glances down at Tsuna, his gaze softens again.
"I can't protect him if I don't know what to protect him against," he says as Reborn walks towards the edge of the clearing, and Reborn pauses next to the first tree.
"Something went wrong," he admits without turning around. "I need to go figure out what it is. Tsuna should be fine when he wakes up. He shouldn't have activated Hyper dying Will Mode so early, but . . . he should be fine. He was only active for a minute." He pauses as Bovino shifts off to the side, a curious noise dying halfway out. "I'll see you later, Bovino. Don't worry. Just, there's something I need to do first."
Reborn leaves them there, leaves them and tries not to wonder if he's making a mistake.
But something is wrong here. Something is wrong with the last heir Vongola has left. Vongola can't afford the uncertainty of being without an heir for much longer than a year. Considering that the next possible heir has yet to be born, and every other candidate (down to the last bastard child they could track down) is either dead or not a sky, Vongola is screwed if Tsuna doesn't work out.
He needs to tell Timoteo.
(He needs to tell Superbi Squalo and Sawada Cristiana. Even without the heir, Timoteo's word matters less and less every day as the next generation takes over.)