A/N: I would like to thank everyone that added this story to their favourites and follows as well as everyone that reviewed the last chapter.
"Mama, do you love Reborn?"
Narumi spluttered her tea and stared wide-eyed at her young son. What did he just ask? Love? Why was he starting to sound like Nana? The five-year-old was way too young to ask these kind of questions. Nana must have put him up to this because she refused to believe that those cute green eyes knew what they were talking about.
Lambo was way too young to ask these kind of questions and judging by the way he tilted his head, Narumi knew he had no idea what he was talking about. Knowing this made her relax her shoulders. But what should she say to him? Her answer shouldn't be something that could make her son suspicious.
She knew Nana would question Lambo as soon as he was away from her watchful eyes.
"I don't love Reborn as much as I love you."
Her sweet, adorable son beamed and tackled her. It was adorable how much such simple words could make Lambo so happy and so eager to give her a hug. Maybe it wasn't Nana who put him up to this. It must have been jealously that made him ask such a silly question. No one could really compare to Lambo or Tsuna in her eyes and the relationship between her and Reborn was fake.
But since she couldn't tell Lambo that her relationship with Reborn was fake, she would need to figure out another way to reassure her son.
"Mama, I really don't like the fact you are dating Reborn!" Lambo declared, puffing his cheeks. He looked so adorable with those puffed cheeks and that tiny scowl playing on his lips. It was just so cute that she had to hold herself back from pinching his cheeks and blowing his tummy.
She quirked her lips into a bright smile and allowed a small laugh to escape her lips before shaking her head at him.
"Don't worry Lambo, Reborn and me are probably not going to be together for very long," Narumi declared, flicking her son by the forehead.
Lambo giggled and rubbed his forehead before pecking her on the cheeks. A smile played on her lips as she watched her son as he dashed to the yard. Judging from that excited glint in his eyes, her son was probably planning to dig himself to the center of the Earth again.
She should tell him that it was a fruitless endeavor but Narumi didn't want to see him lose that smile.
"That hurt my feelings, Naru-chan."
Narumi curled her lips into a thin smile. There was only one person who would dare to purr at the use of that nickname and she was not going to give Reborn the satisfaction of her turning her head around to look at him. Nope. She was going to keep her eyes focused on Lambo and watch her son as he tried to dig a tunnel again.
"For me to hurt your feelings means that you need to have a heart, Reborn," Narumi said dryly. She leaned against her chair and let out a small sigh when Reborn took the seat across her. Judging from the way his lips were curled into a smirk, her words hadn't really affected his mood.
Not that she expected it to but Narumi could always have some hope that her words could cut him.
"Well I have a heart since I'm alive," Reborn replied, shrugging. The smug tone in his voice made her bristled and a part of her wondered when she could be free from the contract. For the past few weeks, Bianchi had been coming to her workplace and house in an attempt to murder her with her poison cooking.
Not once did the attacks work but it was getting to the point that she contemplated whether or not to kill the woman.
"Why are you here? I thought you said that you were going to have Tsuna fight Ryohei," Narumi asked, taking a sip of her tea. The smirk on his face widened and the blonde understood immediately that her cousin had won against Ryohei. That made her curl her lips into a smile. She knew he could win. After all, Narumi trained him to be a good fighter.
Although she wished Tsuna was just a tad bit faster but she would have to bring out the kunai to make him run faster.
"Tsuna won against Sasagawa but I had to use the Dying Will bullet on him," Reborn replied. Narumi jerked her head and slammed her cup of tea on the table. She probably shouldn't have reacted like that since the table cracked into half now. But it was never a good thing when the man used the bullet.
People would taunt her cousin whenever Reborn used the bullet.
"Did you have to use the bullet? Tsuna can defeat Ryohei without the bullet!" She folded her arms against her chest and narrowed her eyes at him. Was he trying to make an excuse to use the bullet again? It wouldn't surprise her if he made an excuse to try and use the bullet on her cousin.
"Tsuna didn't have the guts to tell Sasagawa that he didn't want to join the Boxing Club," Reborn explained. "So I had to use the Dying Will bullet on him."
Narumi pinched her nose. This really did not surprise her when she considered Tsuna's personality. Saying no was impossible for the boy especially when Ryohei was the brother of his classmate. She should have figured out that this was what Reborn planned to do. But things had been hectic in the school.
With Nezu-sensei gone, they needed to find a replacement teacher and Narumi hadn't found a teacher that was willing to deal with the delinquents in this school.
Correction: she couldn't find a teacher who was willing to work in a school where Hibari studied.
"You didn't just come here to tell me about my cousin's progress, did you?" Narumi asked, shaking her head. She should not be concerned over the state of this school. It would not be difficult for them to find a teacher or even a benefactor. Yeah. She should be more concern about Reborn's plans for her cousin.
He never told her about the end results of her cousin's training. She always had to hear it from Tsuna, who liked to complain about his tutor's training methods.
"You catch on pretty quick," Reborn said. The fact he was not smirking at her made her stomach churned, because she knew what that expression on his face meant. It was never good news when he didn't smirk. No sir. When Reborn was this serious then it meant he was going to tell her a piece of bad news.
A piece of bad news that he knew would irritate her.
"What did you do?" Narumi asked. She tried to keep her tone as even as possible because it would be a bad thing if she alerted Lambo that she was furious with Reborn. It was bad enough Lambo disliked Reborn. She didn't want it to get to the point that her adopted son was going to actively kill the man.
"I didn't do anything," Reborn said, rubbing the back of his neck. "It is just a side effect that Tsuna will experience because I shot the 10th bullet at him."
Narumi narrowed her eyes. "Side effect? What kind of side effect?"
"He is going to get a disease by tomorrow," Reborn admitted. She jerked her head at him. That was the side effect? An incurable disease! The side effect of those nasty bullets was an incurable disease. She should keep her temper in check and not do anything reckless. But it was hard to control her temper when she knew her cousin was going to get sick.
She stood up from her seat, picked up her cup of tea and made her way to Reborn. Without a second thought, Narumi poured the steaming cup of tea on Reborn's head.
"If you knew he was going to get sick if you used those bullets then why the hell did you do it?" She snarled, blue eyes darkening at him. "Answer me, Reborn!"
"You didn't wait for me to finish, Narumi," Reborn said dryly. He removed his wet fedora hat and placed it on the table before darting his eyes at her. His black eyes didn't gleam with irritation but Narumi could see that the hitman was amused by her reactions. If it weren't for the fact she didn't want to destroy the walls, she would have punched him in the face.
"Wait for what? You think I can be calm and rational when you just told me that you got him sick?" She argued, folding her arms against her chest. "He is a 14-year-old boy who hasn't even started living his life!"
How could he be so irresponsible? It was bad enough he had to toughen up her cousin through sadistic methods, but to actually make him sick was just a new level of low even for him.
"Do you honestly believe I would have shot that bullet without bringing someone to cure him?" Reborn fired back. Narumi closed her mouth and curled her lips into a scowl. No. He wasn't stupid or reckless. The man must have planned the whole thing carefully before he fired that bullet today.
Even though she knew this, she could still feel the bubbles of irritation that threatened to consume her.
"Will this Doctor be able to completely cure this disease or will he only slow it down?" Narumi asked. She leaned her body forward and placed both hands on either side of Reborn's chair. She had to cage him and make sure he didn't try to run away from her. If he looked away from her for even one second then Narumi knew for a fact that the older hitman was lying to her.
"He can completely cure this disease," Reborn answered, fixating his eyes on her. "He is one of the best doctors that I know."
Reborn better hoped that the doctor could cure her cousin because if he died then Narumi would have no problem sending the hitman to the next world.
(Next day)
What the hell happened here?
This was the single thought running through Narumi's mind as Bianchi ran out of the door with an irritated expression. She should be happy that the teen was not going to attack her today but it only made her knit her eyebrows. It wasn't like her to do this. Bianchi always tried to find any opportunity to attack her but for her to run away like that…just did not make any sense.
She chewed on her bottom lip and stepped through the open door. Everything about the house looked normal…except for the unconscious man lying in front of the staircase. If she had to guess from the purple food lying on top of his face, Bianchi must have attacked him with her poison cooking.
But why would she try and kill this man?
"That is the doctor I told you about who can cure Tsuna." Narumi blinked and twisted her head around. The sight of a pale-faced Tsuna covered with skulls around his arms alongside a frowning Reborn made her frown even more. Black eyes flickered from her to the man before them, not looking one bit pleased at the sight.
That made both of them.
"I have a sister complex!" Narumi frowned and jerked her head at Tsuna. Her cousin had his mouth shut but she could see from his flushed cheeks that it was not something she should have known about. Actually she already had a feeling about that aspect of Tsuna. He had always been too overprotective whenever a man came near her.
Not as bad as her first father but then again no one could compare to Minato.
He actually threatened Sasuke because he thought we were dating.
"Well aren't you beautiful!" A deep voice rumbled. Narumi twisted her head around, blond eyebrows twitching as the unconscious doctor came back to life. Brown eyes gleamed with lust, almost reminding her of Ero-Sennin and those times when he chased after all those females in the spa.
If it weren't for the fact she had been underage and his goddaughter, Narumi had no doubt that Ero-Sennin would have tried to hit on her.
"Shamal, Narumi is my girlfriend and she is off-limits!" Reborn said sharply. Narumi blinked. Even though she knew they had a fake relationship, she had never seen those black eyes gleamed with irritation. Should she be happy? Or should she be irritated with the possessive label? It wasn't like she had a relationship to base it on.
The doctor blinked and stopped in his tracks before jerking his head at Reborn. From the way his brown eyes widened, she presumed he found it hard to believe that Reborn would date her. What was it with these people? She was pretty enough to date someone like Reborn. There had been a lot of men who wanted to date her.
She just chose not to date them.
"And said girlfriend wants to remind the Dr. Shamal that he came here to cure her cousin!" She said sharply, gesturing to Tsuna. The doctor blinked and darted his eyes to her cousin, lips cured into a frown. No concern shone through his brown eyes as he took in the pitiful state of her cousin.
If anything, he looked almost disgusted by the sight of her cousin and that made her stiffened her back. That look reminded her of Ero-Sennin. This was the look Ero-Sennin made when Konohamaru showed her his Yaoi-version of the Sexy Jutsu. She had been amused and delighted by it, but the same could not be said for Ero-Sennin.
Right now it seemed like history was repeating itself and not in a good way.
"Reborn, you know that I don't examine men."
Those four words echoed in her ear as her eyes took in the disgusted expression of the man. Did he just say he was not going to check her cousin out because of his gender? She must have heard him wrong. But looking at the downfallen expression of her cousin and the way Reborn avoided her eyes that this was true.
She clenched her hands into a fist and stomped over to the doctor. Maybe it would be a good idea for her to control her temper and think of another way to get him to do what she wanted. Using the Sexy Jutsu would have been a good idea but she wasn't a 12-year-old girl starving for attention anymore.
"Dr. Shamal, I dare you to repeat that again," she whispered with a sweet smile on her face. The man smiled, opening his mouth to protest but closed it as soon as she slammed her fist against the wall beside him. The smug expression on his face faded and his brown eyes blew up at the sight of the crumbled wall.
Just because she was no longer a kunoichi, didn't mean she had lost the strength from her first life.
"A-Aren't you being a bit unreasonable?"
Narumi curled her lips into a wide smile and her blue eyes sharpened at those words.
"Unreasonable?" She whispered, placing her hand on top of his shoulder. "Unreasonable will be me going into the kitchen and taking out one of my Aunt's meat knife and using it to get rid of those balls that you men pride yourselves for."
His face paled. "Y-You would never do it."
"I will do that and much more if you don't begin curing my cousin in the next five minutes!" Narumi snarled, baring her teeth at him. "Once you are done curing him, I'll be teaching you about the importance of respecting all patients and females by making sure to crack all your ribs and having the hospital have only male attendants taking care of you."
"Y-You don't have that much power…do you?" He stuttered.
"Naru-chan doesn't say anything that she doesn't think she cannot accomplish!" Reborn declared. There was a smug tone in his voice and Narumi knew if she just turned around then the man would have a smirk on his face. Bastard. Just because they had that contract between them, did not mean that he was getting out of here without a few broken bones.
"Caro, don't think that you aren't going to follow your dear friend to the hospital just because we are dating!" Narumi said, turning her head around to look at Reborn. The smirk on his face fell and alarm shone through those black eyes. She curled her lips into a very thin smile while her cousin coughed, looking absolutely pleased at the sight before him.
Good.
She also hoped that Tsuna took this as a lesson not to anger a female and to be honest with them.
"I brought him here and he is going to cure Tsuna now," Reborn said, inching closer to the door. The absolute fear in his eyes told her that he could probably feel Kurama's chakra leaking out of her. Good. If he was terrified now then he was going to learn that she was not a woman he wanted to anger.
Narumi nodded and smiled widely. "But you should have told me Caro that your friend is a perverted doctor that likes to harass girls. I think it is time I train you how to be a dutiful boyfriend."
She was going to make it clear to him that she was not a woman that could forgive easily.
"That girlfriend of yours is terrifying! Are you sure she is a civilian!"
Reborn kept his eyes fixated on the ceiling. If it were not for the fact that Narumi actually broke his ribs, he would turn around to look at Shamal. But his ribs burned alongside his legs and other bones that he did not know he had. He knew Narumi had a temper. But not once did he think she would go this far with him.
The desire to see her furious was definitely not worth this pain.
"She was a delinquent when she was in middle school," Reborn answered. He doubt that this would be enough to explain her unnatural strength but it explained her personality. God. If he was in this much pain, he could only imagine the hell that the hitman beside him felt. All those men that Narumi hit…they were lucky if they survived.
He didn't know whether to be terrified or to laugh at her behaviour.
"Her appearance is way different from her personality!" Shamal grumbled. Reborn rolled his eyes. Leave it to the man to complain about her personality. The both of them wouldn't be in this situation if the man just did what he asked him to do without making Tsuna's gender a big deal.
"It is what makes her interesting," the hitman said. If his shoulders were not in a cast, he would shrug. So he had to settle with smirking and looking up at the ceiling. One glance at Narumi and someone would think she was a fragile woman. But she was probably one of the most terrifying woman that he had ever met.
"You should have warned me that she was terrifying," Shamal whined. "I nearly wet my pants because of her!"
"You deserved it," Reborn said dryly. From the moment Shamal entered puberty, he warned the man about prioritizing females over males. But that boy never listened to his advice. It was a miracle that the man hadn't been sent to the hospital before this. Maybe now the man would listen to him when he gave him advice.
"Is this how you treat your dearest friend's son?" Shamal grumbled.
Reborn could feel his irritation growing at those words. If he was not stuck to this hospital bed, he would have taken a hammer and whacked the man for saying those words. How did that relate it to the situation they were in? If his friend was still alive, he would have slapped the man for making that comment to Narumi.
Honestly how could a son be so different from his own father?
"If your father was here, he would have told you to use your head and not make a woman angry!" He curled his lips into a very thin smile. There was no retort and Reborn knew that he caught the man in a trap. That child should never bring his father into a topic that he knew he would never win.
"Well if someone warned me that his girlfriend was a terrifying woman then I would have treated that boy immediately," Shamal said sharply. Reborn curled his lips into a smirk. It had been fun to watch Narumi threaten Shamal but that fun went away as soon as she directed her fury towards him.
He had been almost tempted to kiss her but Reborn knew that not even a kiss would shield him from her anger.
If anything, it would have made things worse.
"I just wanted to see how furious Narumi would get," Reborn admitted. "But I never thought that it would backfire."
He could feel Shamal staring at him and Reborn kept his expression blank. If there had been a benefit from angering Narumi, it was the fact that the doctor was probably going to take his secondary job more seriously. He better took it seriously after this. He did not went through this much pain, only for the doctor to go back to his usual ways.
Getting punch in the stomach would only be worth it if Shamal learnt to behave himself.
"You are serious about her, aren't you?" Shamal asked. "She is different from all the other girlfriends that you had in the past."
Reborn closed his eyes. Serious. That was the one word he would never really associate with himself when it came to relationships. But leave it to that man's child to jump to conclusions about his relationships. Even though Shamal didn't inherit his father's desires to have a committed relationship, the man did inherit that trait.
Stupidity was a trait that could not skip a generation.
But the ability to keep a secret was also a trait that he taught Shamal.
"Narumi isn't actually my girlfriend," Reborn admitted with a sigh. "I asked her to be my fake girlfriend because of Bianchi."
If Bianchi kept pursuing him like this, he might have to adjust the conditions of the contract with Narumi. At this rate, he might end up being in a fake relationship with the woman until Tsuna became eighteen. That was fine with him. But Reborn doubt that Narumi would be happy with them pretending to be in a relationship for another four years.
It would also be problematic if she found someone that she actually wanted to date. But he could always threatened that person and console Narumi when that man went missing. After all she shouldn't go out with a weak, cowardly person but someone that was powerful and strong.
"Even if she is your fake girlfriend, you would never claim a woman as being yours," Shamal pointed out. Reborn could hear the smugness in his tone and if he could move his arms, he would whack the man on the head. Instead he had to settle with scowling at the younger man.
"My student was watching us."
It was an excuse but there was no way in hell that he would tell Shamal that.
"That girl is different for you, isn't she?" Shamal asked. Reborn pressed his lips into a thin line. Different. He guessed that word would suit what he think about Narumi. She was different in the sense that she was not afraid to put him in line and knew how to throw a good punch at him.
But there was also the fact that he could feel his flames reaching out to her, trying to harmonize with her too.
"I respect her," he finally answered. "She is different from Iemitsu and his brother."
She was not a fool like them.
Shamal snorted. "You want to know what I think? I think you are in the process of falling in love with her."
Reborn rolled his eyes. That man was just as foolish as his father, if he believed that he was on the way of falling in love with Narumi. He wasn't in love with her. Attraction was what he felt towards the woman and if he didn't have the job of training Tsuna, he would have tried to sleep with her.
"You are just as idiotic as your father, Shamal."
"If my father was still alive, he would tell you that you are going to end up marrying her by the time your student is done with high school," Shamal retorted. "He would also demand to see some children from you and gloat about how even the great womanizer had fallen in love."
If his whole body wasn't screaming in pain, he would have whacked the man for that comment.
"I won't ever get married," Reborn barked at Shamal. "And I definitely have no plans in having any children."
Kids were risky in his eyes. There was always a chance that a child would inherit his flames and if anything happened to him if he died, then the child would have to endure the curse. It might not be as bad as Luce's curse but Reborn still wouldn't wish for it on any kid.
To never grow old and to watch your loved ones die?
Only a cruel person would wish this fate on their child.
"I will be the only one to endure this curse."
Shamal snorted.
"For the first time since you have been cursed…you hesitated."
A/N: I have decided to have two reincarnated characters to come in but I won't reveal who they are just yet. Do tell me of your thoughts about this chapter and the relationships between the characters.
