A/N: I want to thank everyone that added this story to their favourites and follows as well as everyone that reviewed the first chapter.
Narumi knew something was up when Tsuna rushed to his room without a single greeting to her or Nana.
She winced when her young cousin slammed the door. What happened? He seemed fine when he left the house, not happy but he didn't look like the world ended. Narumi put her red pen down and placed the test papers to the side. Her test paper could wait, her cousin could not. If she left her cousin alone then there was no way he would be willing to leave the house tomorrow.
"You coddle the boy too much, Naruto," Kurama grumbled like he always did whenever Narumi tried to comfort her cousin. She could almost picture the nine-tailed fox scowling at her. "He will never grow up if you coddle him like a mama bear."
Narumi stared at the photo, which hung on the wall, showing an image of her fifteen-year-old self swinging her baby cousin. "I'm not coddling him, Kurama. I am comforting him since Nana won't realize her son is hurt unless someone tells her," she grumbled as the door behind her opened.
She twisted her body around, where Reborn stood behind her with a lazy posture and a tilted hat. The bastard showed no emotions in his eyes nor did his emotions indicate that he had done anything wrong. Narumi took a deep breath, wiling to calm the rage which threatened to consume her. His emotions and posture might indicate he didn't do anything wrong, but Narumi was willing to bet that he did something.
She took a deep breath, willing for the emotions and the rage to fade away. When she finally felt the overwhelming emotions inside her fade, she allowed herself to focus on the emotions raging in the young man in front of her. Anger, overwhelming anger, radiated from the man and Narumi wondered if the man took his anger out on her cousin.
"If I find out that you took your emotions out on my cousin today, then I am going to kill you," Narumi declared, her blue eyes hardened at the man in front of her. He arched his eyebrow but the blonde shook her head. There was no need for her to explain to herself. This bastard did not deserve her acknowledgement, it was her cousin who needed her.
She twisted her body around and rushed upstairs, knocking the door frantically. Her whole body tensed at the sound of Nana talking to Reborn like there was nothing wrong. Why are you talking to him? Don't you notice that your son is trying to lock himself from the world? Why don't you ever notice that something is wrong with him? She wanted to yell those words to her; she wanted to throttle her for not noticing her son's pain.
"N-Narumi-neechan…what are you doing?" her cousin yelled as she barged into the room. Narumi thinned her lips and locked the door behind her. She jerked her finger towards his study chair. Tsuna gulped. He took his seat, folding his arms on his leg and an anxious look on his face. The panic in his eyes and the emotions radiating from him told her that he was frightened. "W-What do you want to talk about?"
"What happened?" She demanded.
Tsuna looked everywhere but her eyes. "Nothing, Narumi-neechan…"
"Don't lie to me, Sawada Tsunayoshi! I am not your mother! I know when you are lying straight to my face!" she roared, putting her hands on her hips. She could hear Kurama laughing at her name use and the blonde made a mental note to change the fox's cage into a cage filled with sunflowers, bunnies and anything nice.
"You wouldn't dare!"
"Try me, Kurama!" Narumi felt her lips twitched when the fox grumbled about ungrateful brats and how he should have taken the offer to be reincarnated as a person. For all his complaints about her coddling and her threats, she loved the fox inside of her. He was her last connection to the shinobi world, a reminder that her memories weren't some nightmares but events that had happened to her.
"I confessed to Sasagawa-san," Tsuna said, his grief-stricken voice broke her out of her rambling thoughts. The young teen looked like a kicked puppy and the blond-haired girl felt like cursing at her female student for breaking his heart. It was life, Narumi knew it, but it didn't mean she accepted it. She could never like anyone who hurt her family or her friends.
She forced her hands opened, she forced her whole body to relax as her cousin clenched his hands into a tight fist. "I thought you weren't going to confess to her, why did you do it?" Narumi whispered, taking a seat on the floor beside her. She hesitated for a moment, uncertain on whether it was appropriate to rub his back. Even when she had been Naruto Uzumaki, she had never been good with helping someone deal with heartbreak.
It seemed to have carried on to her second life.
"You wouldn't believe me, Naru-neechan…I can't even believe what happened," Her cousin said, his voice barely audible to the human ear. The sincerity and wonder in his voice told her everything. She should drop it because Tsuna knew her. If he thought that even she could not believe it then it must be something impossible. But Narumi couldn't drop it. When she was Naruto Uzumaki, she had always stopped to listen to people's stories.
How could she ever expect herself to stop doing that?
"Just tell me and I will help you try to make sense of it," comforted Naruto, rubbing her cousin's back. Tsuna didn't move, didn't say anything or even made any indication that he heard her. Traumatise, she thought distractly, her hands combing through her cousin's soft hair. His behaviour reminded her of the traumatised people Jiriaya forced her to meet; they had a similar characteristic to her cousin.
"You are going to become angry with me," whispered Tsuna. He took in a shaky breath. "I became one of the things that you hated."
The one thing she hated? Narumi felt her heart dropped in horror at his words. Perverts, liars and people who broke their promises. These were the things she hated but she taught Tsuna better. When Nana had been in her depressive state over her husband leaving, it had been Narumi who tried to make her cousin a better man than his father. There was no way he could be that person.
She taught him better and Tsuna had always made it a point to be a better person.
"What did you do?"
"I-I might have confessed to Kyoko in my underwear," Tsuna choked out, his eyes locked down on his hands. The guilt and fear laced in his voice told her that her baby cousin wasn't proud of his actions. She didn't even need to sense his emotions to know he felt remorseful for his actions.
Narumi knew this. She knew her cousin felt guilty for his actions but it still broke her heart to know this. It was just so hard for her to wrap her mind around the fact that he would do something like this to a girl—not just any girl but his crush. How could he confess to his crush in his underwear? She frowned. How did he do that anyway? Last time she checked, he left the house with clothes on.
"How did you end up confessing to Kyoko in your underwear? Were you being bullied again?"
Her young cousin blinked. "A-Aren't you going to yell at me for confessing in my underwear?"
"I should yell at you but I also know that you went out of this house with clothes on your back," Narumi forced herself to smile at her cousin, to reassure him that she was going to try and be reasonable with him. "Now I want to know the whole story and tell me the truth, Tsuna because I know when you are lying."
"You won't believe it."
"Well I believed that you confess in your underwear, didn't I?" Her cousin slumped his shoulders and the blonde sighed. "You can mope about your embarrassing confession after you tell me the whole story. Now keep your chin up and tell me the whole story."
Tsuna straightened his back and began to tell her the events, which led to his confession. His voice remained strong and unwavering as he told her how he and Reborn met Kyoko, who thought the young man was his relative. He then told her that the young man figured out about his crush on Kyoko, telling him that his loser complex was just amazing.
Narumi wanted to throttle Reborn for saying those words to her cute cousin.
"Reborn put a gun on my forehead and told me to die," Tsuna choked out. "I-I thought he was joking about the g-gun because w-who carries guns? Who will threaten a kid? I-I thought it was a joke."
For the first time in her life, Narumi could not say or think of a word. All she could do was stared at her young cousin, who seemed ready to break down again. What could she say? If she opened her mouth then she feared she would let her rage out on her cousin. Her cousin, who seemed to be suffering from the experience. This was all Nana's fault.
The woman should have done a background check.
"N-Narumi-neechan?"
"Continue with the story," she forced herself to spit the words out. A part of her felt like demanding if he knew the reason for the man carrying a gun, but this was not the time or place to figure out. If she wanted to find out the truth then she would need to confront the man himself.
Tsuna gulped and continued with the story, his voice wavering when he described the gunshot to his head. This was when Narumi felt the hairs of her neck stand up. The image of her cousin's bloodied body popped into her mind and all she wanted to do was hurl out the pasta that she ate earlier. She inspected her young cousin, who did not seem to carry any wounds from the gunshot. Any other person would stop the story and tell him that he was lying, but she wasn't an ordinary person.
The lack of wounds might make it seem like he was safe but the panic and fear in his eyes was enough to convince her that he was telling the truth.
She scratched the back of her neck as Tsuna described how he felt a power surging through his body. How he suddenly regretted not following her advice and confessed to Kyoko before she got her boyfriend. He told her about how he felt so determined to find her that all the clothes on his body had been ripped apart, except for his underwear.
"I...I didn't realize that I confessed to her in my underwear," he choked. "She probably thinks I am a pervert! If that isn't bad enough I confessed in front of her boyfriend."
Narumi could only watch her cousin cry about his misfortune. How could she comfort him? The words 'there, there' would be the last thing he wanted to hear. In her 42 years of life experience, there was nothing to prepare her for this. Sakura used to confess to Sasuke and get rejected, but even she hadn't confessed in her underwear.
Sakura had never been that desperate.
"What do I do, Naru-neechan?"
"I…I don't know. I don't know," she repeated, wishing for the first time in her life that she knew the heartbreak and embarrassment her cousin was going through. Crushes were messy but they seemed to get messier when you confessed in a manner, which was embarrassing.
She really hated Reborn for what he did to her cousin.
"Reborn, I want to have a talk with you."
Reborn sighed at those words. He expected the young woman to question him, her relationship with his student was just too strong for her not to do it, but he hoped she would have waited until the morning. Instead the twenty-four-year-old decided it would be a good time to ask after everyone went to bed.
"What do you want to talk about?" he flipped the page of the newspaper, only to mask his expression when the young woman snatched the paper from his hands. The fury in her eyes reminded him of a lion ready to attack. If he was a weak man, he would be terrified but Reborn could not bring himself to be scared of a young woman.
"Why did you shoot my cousin? What is your actual job?" said Narumi, the calamity in her voice almost unnerved him. A few minutes ago the woman was ready to attack him, now she acted like they were having a normal conversation. Interesting, he mused, taking a sip of his delicious cup of coffee. His lips twitched when he caught sight of the tiny wrinkle in her nose. Not a big fan of the drink, he thought, a shame since coffee and alcohol was the only good things in this world.
"Like I said to your aunt, I'm a tutor."
The young woman pinched her nose. "Cut the bullshit. What kind of tutor would shoot my cousin in the forehead? Do you think I am naïve as my aunt?" he masked his expression and the woman growled. "I am not naïve. I knew from the moment you entered this house that you are dangerous."
Dangerous? The woman was intelligent and observant enough to figure out that he was dangerous. She had been the only adult in this household, who had been weary of him. Iemitsu claimed the girl would not know the difference, claimed she had been raised as a civilian like his half-brother had requested. Yet the young woman had been able to pick up the clues.
"I am not lying about being a tutor," he took another slip of his coffee, lips twitching when he saw the annoyance in the woman's eyes. "I am just not the tutor that your aunt thinks I am."
"What are you?"
"I think you know," he said, putting down the newspaper. Black eyes searched deeply into the blue eyes, picking up the subtle clues to the emotions playing through her mind. There was a weariness in her eyes and an oldness in her eyes, which didn't seem to match her youth. It was the look of a young woman who seen too much, but Narumi Sawada did not know about the Mafia.
She did not know the role that the Mafia had on her father and her uncle.
"You are a hitman," she whispered, she took a seat on the chair beside him. Her small hands wrapped her head as if she was trying to comfort herself. "Oh god, what the hell was Nana thinking? Is she so obsessed with trying to get me to settle down that she is willing to kill her son and her?"
He did not miss the omission of herself. Believed that she could defend herself against killers, he mused to himself as the woman continued to curse her aunt for her actions. "I won't kill them or you," his lips twitched at her disbelief, "I am just here to tutor Tsuna."
The young woman thinned her lips, her eyes showed she didn't believe him. Smart woman, he mused, sipping of his coffee. If it had been her aunt then she would just accept the answer, not bothering to doubt him. Narumi Sawada seemed to doubt people's words, she would have made a good assassin. It was just too bad that her father wished the girl to have a normal life, to never have a chance to inherit the Mafia. Out of the two of cousins, Narumi would have been the better candidate.
It was just too bad that the young woman was the bastard child.
"When you say tutor Tsuna, you don't mean school subjects." She said, her voice filled with tiredness that a twenty-four-year-old should not have. He nodded, there was just no point for him to deny it. Unlike her aunt, Narumi Sawada was sharp enough to pick up the hints and clues. If he did not admit now then she would figure out later.
Iemitsu would be a fool to think that he could keep his niece in dark forever.
"Can I ask what you are tutoring him?"
"You can."
She narrowed her eyes, almost reminding him of a cute little kitten with her annoyance. Maybe vixen was a better description, he mused, staring at the whisker birthmarks which decorated her cheeks. If it was not for the fact he was here for work, he would have tried to get into her bed. The young woman, after all, looked like she would give him a ride of his life.
"And are you going to tell me what you are tutoring him?" she growled.
Keep Nana in the dark was Iemitsu's request. The man pleaded and begged him not to tell his sweet wife about his actual job but nothing about his niece knowing the truth. He was a coward to keep it from only his wife. Reborn never had a stable relationship, not after he seen the disaster which had been his parent's relationship. However, he did know that a relationship could never be built on lies. The man should have told his wife the moment he decided to marry her.
He should have never left her in the dark.
"I was ordered by the boss of the Vongola Familigia to groom your cousin into becoming the Tenth," he informed her. He waited for the denial to come from her pink lips, waited to see if she would react like her younger cousin. No matter how old a person was, it would still be a shock to hear such news. His lips quirked at the lack of response from her.
There was nothing but quiet acceptance from her.
"Why Tsuna? Is there no one else?" she choked, clenching her hands into a fist. "Is there nobody else? Doesn't this boss have kids of his own? My cousin doesn't have the heart of a killer. You saw him! He isn't meant for that kind of life."
Reborn tilted his hat downwards, there was no way he would allow the woman to know he pitied her. His observations from the past week told him that the woman hated pity. It must have stemmed from the way she was treated as a kid, where the adults would whisper about the tragedy of her father's death.
"The Ninth had three biological kids," the young woman blinked her eyes. "And unfortunately for the Ninth, all three of them had either been murdered or they have died in combat. The other canadadite for the position would have been you but…"
Narumi sighed. "I am not legible because my parents had me out of wedlock," he nodded and the blonde shook her head. "Bastards! Who the fuck gives a shit about whether or not my parents had me out of marriage! Father used to say Mum didn't want to get married while she was pregnant with me because she wanted to fit into a wedding dress."
"Do you wish to inherit?" He asked, staring at the pretty young woman in front of him. Was she like Tsuna and Dino? Would she say no because she didn't want to be the bad guy? Or would she say yes? There was very little chance for her to become the tenth, not unless Tsuna died. It would have been difficult for her to inherit even if she had been born under wedlock. If only because the Mafia refused to see a strong woman leading them.
The Eighth had to fight tooth and nail to get everyone's respect.
The young woman closed her eyes. "I don't think anyone would wish to inherit such a powerful position…not unless they are some fool that doesn't understand the consequence," he felt his lips twitched upwards at her comment and there was a temptation to chuckle at her accurate description. She sighed. "But if I wish to inherit it, it isn't because of the power that will come from the Mafia. If anything, I would take it because I want to keep Tsuna out of it. I know that boy like the back of my hand and I know he won't be willing to kill people."
"And you are?"
"If it is to protect my family and friends then yes," she whispered with a determination that Reborn had yet to see in her cousin. "I am willing to do anything to protect them because I know just how fragile and short life can be."
He snorted. "Talk like that and people would think you are an old lady," he chastised her and he was taken back by the cheekiness of her smile. The smile suited her more than that ugly scowl she always seemed to have on her face. Now he could almost understand why Iemitsu and her idiotic father used to babble about how adorable his niece was when she had been a young girl.
"Maybe I am an old lady stuck in a young woman's body," she jested and Reborn could only sigh at the irony of her words. Those words suited him more than her, it had been more than twenty years since he was stuck at the age of twenty-six.
"Maybe."
The woman nodded and before he could even blink his eyes, the young woman slapped him in the cheek. Was this woman even human? The speed in which she slapped him was faster than even his own eyes could detect. In fact it hurt like a bitch, which spoke volumes of just how strong it was since he had a very high pain tolerance.
"If you humiliate my cousin again or make him undergo any situation where he could potentially get bullied then I will punch you so hard that you wish you were never born." Sawada declared, she stood up from her spot on the table. Her blue eyes held no emotions but Reborn knew a promise when he heard one. Unlike her cousin or uncle, she did not fear him.
She did not fear him even though he was a killer.
"Is that a promise…vixen?"
The annoyance in her face was worth the second slap of the cheek.
A/N: Please review and tell me what you think so far of this chapter, especially with the interactions between the characters in this chapter.
