Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

A/N: I would like to thank everyone who reviewed as well as everyone, who added this story to their favorites and follows. This chapter is different from the original chapter 21.


"So I'm going to have a former student come stay with us for a few days."

Narumi looked up from her test papers and stared at Reborn. Her black-haired friend had a smirk playing on his lips as he slid into her office, closing the door behind them. I guess I can mark the papers later. Sighing, she pushed the papers to the side and gestured for the hitman to take a seat on the chair in front of her.

"Is your former student also another version of you?" She raised an eyebrow and picked up her pen from the table. Twirling her pen around, Narumi inspected the black-haired man and a tiny frown played on her lips when Reborn quirked his lips into a smirk. What was going through that man's mind for him to give her that kind of smirk?

The male plopped himself onto her chair, feet kicking onto the table, and he offered her a smirk. "If you mean if he is as charming as me, Amore then no. You can never find anyone as charming as me."

"Fon is more charming than you," she retorted. The smirk on Reborn's face faded like a whisper in the wind, and Narumi grinned. She chuckled. It was always enjoyable to break the egotistical man's pride especially when his black eyes gleamed with slight mischief. A shiver ran down of her spine, she shuddered and then stretched her smirk as wide as her face allowed it. "But to be fair anyone is more charming than you."

"If I wasn't charming then how was I able to convince you to do our fake relationship?" He retorted.

She smiled even wider and flicked the pen back and forth between them. "Reborn, I didn't know you were so forgetful because didn't you cash in this as a favor? This wouldn't have happened if someone had actually communicated with their ex-girlfriend."

"You know where to hit a man where it hurts, don't you?" He grumbled. Narumi only offered him an innocent shrug and quirked her lips into a smile. Reborn gazed at her for the longest time, black eyes darkening until they resembled the blackest of pits. It mesmerized her, pulling her in like she was his prey, and Narumi furiously shook her head.

Focus. She had to focus on the problem at hand.

"Let us get back to topic at hand," she cleared her throat. "Is your former student going to cause problems for my cousin? Because god so help me, if you pulled that same stupid stunt again then our deal is over."

Reborn chuckled. "Well I can't have that! I'll definitely miss kissing you."

Narumi flushed a bright shade of red and looked away from the smirking man. Why was she so flustered by those words? But it might be because the man looked genuinely sincere with that smirk playing on his lips. No, she shouldn't focus on that fact. This was definitely not the time for her to be fooled by that playboy.

"Can you please be serious and tell me whether or not if I have to worry about Tsuna getting hurt." She gulped down the lump in her throat and turned her chair away from the man. Turning towards the window, she focused her gaze on the trees. Lush green leaves fluttered in the wind, dancing gracefully with the wind.

She blinked when Reborn twirled the chair around to face him. His black eyes inspected her, searching her like he was trying to figure out what was going through her mind, and Narumi looked away. Her heart jumped like it was going through several jump ropes as those black eyes continued to inspect her.

"He is a klutz," Reborn informed, his hand reaching out to stroke her hair. "But that klutz won't intentionally harm your cousin."

Narumi tilted her head and frowned. "What do you mean he won't intentionally harm Tsuna?"

"When you spend some time with Dino then you will understand what I mean," Reborn replied with a grimace. His hand continued to stroke through her hair, straightening every single tangle and frizz in her hair. She leaned her head closer to his hand, desiring more of the warmth of his hand. His hand felt so good against her hair, destressing every knot in her head.

She closed her eyes. "How long did you teach him?"

The black-haired man paused and seconds passed but the man still did not say anything. Nothing could be heard between them, the only sound inside of her office were the sounds of the birds chirping alongside the distant barks of the neighborhood dogs. Inhaling, Narumi tilted her head up and blinked at the dark shadows hiding his expression.

"Nearly seven years," Reborn answered, tilting his hat down even more.

Raising her eyebrows up to her hairline, Narumi lowered her head and twisted it around until her eyes finally met the black eyes of Reborn. Was he being serious? The man barely looked older than her. He even has the body and skin of a young adult. She darted her eyes to the black jacket hugging Reborn's body, before darting her eyes away from him.

It didn't matter how old Reborn truly was because everyone had their secrets.

"Then you must be really close to him." The hitman blinked and gawked at her like he couldn't believe she would come to that conclusion. She guessed the man expected her to question him about his age or to ask about his age. I can't ask him something that he isn't ready to talk about. Sighing, she stood up from her seat and pushed the male onto the chair.

"Amore, I like where you are going with this," Reborn purred. Narumi rolled her eyes and lightly whacked the back of his head before taking a seat on his lap. Compared to the other chair sitting just across her, the man's lap was definitely more comfortable. She rested her head on the nook of his neck and breathed in the bitter, coffee scent clinging to the hitman.

She inhaled. "You know you're lucky that I don't like that chair or I wouldn't have sit on your lap. Now tell me about your relationship with your former student!"

"Demanding, aren't you?" He quirked his lips into a smirk and Narumi turned her head away from him. Blue eyes widened just a little bit when the hitman brushed his fingers against her cheeks. As his fingers stroke her cheeks, her throat began to dry up and her whole body shivered with an unfamiliar emotion. She let out a shaky breath and Reborn snorted. "But to answer your question, Dino didn't want to let me go but that was probably because he didn't think he could stand on his two feet."

"Or maybe he actually likes being around you." She cocked her head to the side.

Reborn snorted. "I doubt that."

His breath tickled her ear and she shuddered before letting out a laugh. Her ears must be that sensitive if that kind of sensation could make a laugh escaped her lips. But that sensation wasn't enough to explain why her heart kept flipping around like it was in the middle of the circus. Nothing could explain her strange feelings, not even her lunch was an explanation for the flips in her stomach.

"If he has been around you for that long, then I'm pretty certain that he found traits that he liked in you." Narumi raised her head and blinked when Reborn gazed at her for the longest time. She didn't know how long he inspected her but it was long enough for her stomach to do flips and turns that only a gymnast could do.

His head inched closer to her, his eyes inspected her like he didn't know what to make of her. Narumi scowled and turned her head away from the ever-searching eyes of Reborn. Why was he making that kind of expression? It wasn't that weird for her to compliment him. She could be completely nice to him when she felt like it.

"Well even if he likes being around me, I can't sleep with him and Tsuna."

Narumi frowned. "Reborn, are you trying to subtly tell me something that we both know is a bad idea?"

"I'm not going to sleep in the same bed as you," he informed her. The blonde groaned and smacked her hand against her head. When she thought they were having some kind of decent moment, he just had to do something like this. She took in several deep breaths and twisted her whole body away from him, only for the male to turn her back towards him. "I wouldn't suggest this if Dino didn't know me well."

She grimaced. "I'm going to talk to Bianchi today and get her off your back so we don't need—"

"—Do you really want to break off the ruse?" Reborn asked, tilting his hat up at her. He peered down at her with lips curled into an amused smile, his black eyes darted towards the window before looking back at her. "I'm the reason your Aunt hasn't been demanding for you to go on any blind dates."

Narumi paused. Reborn had a very good point when she thought about it, because Nana had backed off from the topic of dating since they started the whole façade. If they ended this thing between them, then she would have to endure boring blind dates with weak-willed men. That was the last thing she needed right now.

She definitely hated the fact that she was actually the one who benefited more from their fake relationship.

"Why the fuck must you point that out to me?" She puffed her cheeks as Reborn let out a husky laugh. Wrinkling her nose, the blonde pressed and swirled her finger against the hitman's smooth shirt, wrinkling it at the process. "And why couldn't you be a man of religion or whatever is the word opposite of a womanizer?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "Because this is the curse of being so good-looking."

"You aren't that good-looking!"

That was a big fat-ass lie but he would never get her to confess those words to him.

Raising his eyebrow at her, Reborn inched closer and closer towards her until they were only a couple of centimeters away from each other. He was so close that if he moved an inch closer then his lips would brush against her. Not that she actually wanted another kiss from him. Oh no, the last time he kissed her was because he found her different from every woman that he had ever dated.

Not that they were actually dating.

"Your eyes says a whole different story, Amore."

With those words, he pressed a hot, scotching kiss against her neck. His soft lips burned a mark onto her skin, made her whole body shudder with such strange, fiery emotions. She should scold him for this. There should be a need for her to remind him about their contract, but all she could do was gawk at him.

The man did not offer her a smirk nor gave her any signal that this was another one of his ways of teasing her. He only lifted her from his lap as if she weighted nothing but a bag of feathers, and then placed her back on her seat. His black eyes stared blankly at her, not giving any glimpse of what was going through his mind, and all Narumi could ask was…

"Why?"

The question rang in the air and Reborn turned away from her. He walked up to the door, his head directed straight at the door and his whole body was steady as an ox. All she could do was stare at him with her heart thundering against her chest. Was that hitman going to explain to her? Or was he going to apologize again?

"Because you tempted me, Minx."

Her eyebrows twitched.

"So you are going to start kissing me and doing all that kind of stuff because of temptation?" The question hovered between them and Reborn turned his head to her. She balled her hands into a fist, tightened her jaw and waited for his answer. Why was she asking questions instead of smacking him for behaving this way to her? It was pointless to question Reborn, not when he rarely gave her a serious answer.

Reborn offered her a weary smirk. "You're the biggest temptation that I ever had and…you make it hard for me to remember boundaries. You make me an impulsive man, Narumi."

With those words, the man walked out of the door and all she could do was stared at the door with a slacked jaw. The desire to yell and to demand for him to come back wasn't there. Only shock struck her. Only her fizzled nerves brought out any sensation in her because that had definitely been different. It was so different from the other sides of him that she had seen.

Because just like yesterday, there had been nothing insincere about his words.

That terrified her.


It was the wave of anger and resentment coming from one of the nearby bushes that alerted Narumi of Bianchi's presence.

She stopped in her steps and swirled her whole body in the direction of the tsunami of anger and resentment. Her eyes focused right on the rustling bushes that stood on her left. Subtle shadows waved alongside the rustle of the bush, following in its rhythmic beat. If she had never been a kunoichi in her first life, then she probably would never notice it.

"You are doing a terrible job of hiding yourself." A flicker of purple swooshed behind the bushes, barely noticeable to the untrained eye but war had been Narumi's teacher. Another rustle and a purple, rotten-odor soda can flew straight towards her. The scent blew across with the wind, its odor so pungent that the birds, flying above her, crashed to the ground.

She shifted an inch to the right and the can zoomed past her. The can barely gazed her, didn't even flutter against her ear before it crashed to what could only be the nearby house. From behind her, Narumi could hear the frizzle as if something was being melting down to the core. A quick glance over her back told her that had been the case.

Who knew poison could melt a white wall?

Bianchi jumped out of the bushes, her green eyes radiating with rage and the whiskered woman sighed. She dropped down to her feet, pulled out two kitchen knives and tossed it in the direction of Bianchi's legs. The knives pierced into the pants sleeves, pushing Bianchi straight to her neighbor's walls, and the blonde pulled another two knives.

The knives flew to Bianchi's straps, trapping her against the wall, and Narumi slapped her hands together. She smiled faintly and eyed her handiwork. Pride crept up into her stomach. It had been so long since she had someone moved faster than a car. Most of her previous targets had been slow delinquent boys, who did not know the meaning of rejection.

"I thought you were a civilian," Bianchi growled, struggling and failing to get the knives off of her. "How can you throw a knife that quick?"

"I guess you didn't bother to ask anyone about me." She hummed and strolled towards the squirming woman, darting her eyes to the empty road before flickering her eyes back at the teen. "If you had bother to get information then they would tell you that I was the number one delinquent in this town or that I've a strange fondness for knives."

Narumi smiled wearily and gazed at the gleaming, silver knives that kept Bianchi in her place. It was a good thing Nana seemed to buy knives more than anything else, because it would be hard to explain to her Aunt about the disappearance of her favorite kitchen utensil. She frowned. Now that she thought about it, her aunt brought more knives after she married Iemitsu.

But that could be pure coincidence.

"So are you going to kill me now?" Bianchi spat.

Raising a single eyebrow, Narumi snorted. "Kill you? You're harmless."

The pink-haired teen stopped squirming and looked at her like she was the most insane woman she had ever met. The blonde chuckled and stopped right in front of the teen. In the eyes of a trained assassin, she must seem insane for dismissing her. Maybe she was insane but could anyone blame her? Compared to Sasuke, Kaguya and Madara, Bianchi was nothing.

"You've no sense of danger, don't you?" The pink-haired woman asked, curling her lips into a frown. Disbelief laced in her tone and green eyes squinted at her like she was trying to figure whether she was an idiot or just had no common sense.

"I know you want to kill me but it will be impossible for you to kill me," Narumi shrugged her shoulders and offered the teen a slight smile. "And even if I did have a sense of danger, it would make it difficult for me to talk to you."

Bianchi frowned and cocked her head to the side. The wave of pure anger faded, it was now only a hum in the background as the 17-year-old teen stared at her with furrowed eyebrows. She lowered her head, dark shadows hiding her delicate features, and the blond-haired woman looked away from the teen.

Clearing her throat, the pink-haired teen asked. "Why do you want to talk to me?"

"Because I'm actually more interested to talking to you." Narumi quirked her lips into a weary smile when Bianchi blinked wildly at her. "I know I'm insane to talk to you especially when you've been trying to kill me. People would tell me that I shouldn't reason with you but I never claim to be completely sane."

From inside of her mind, Kurama snorted. "Yeah, only you would forgive that Uchiha for his actions towards you!"

She scowled and puffed her cheeks. Was it really insane for her to forgive Sasuke? What could she have done? Doing things the way Hashirama and Jiraiya did things, didn't seem to work when it came to fixing the problem. She grimaced. That had been her line of thought in her first life, but would she do it again in her second chance of life? Definitely not.

This was her chance to fully live her life.

"Why do you want to talk to me?" Bianchi growled, resuming her struggle against the knives. It was a good thing the knife was lodged tightly against the wall because if that woman was free, Narumi had no doubt that the woman wanted to kill her.

Narumi slid down onto the hard, concrete floor and tilted her head to the side. "Well Reborn told me about your…previous two relationships and how it is connected to your love for him."

Clinginess would have been a better word to use, but Narumi didn't want to further agitated the teen any more than she already had. It was bad enough that she reminded her of her bad experience. The guilt crept up into her stomach when the anger in Bianchi's expression faded away. It was guilt and irritation that replaced the emotions in her eyes.

"What are you going to say to me about those two relationships?" Bianchi grunted, looking down at her pinned feet. "That I deserved to have been hurt that way? That if I've been a little bit more modest or that if I've been a little bit prettier then—"

"—Your two ex-boyfriends were assholes," Narumi waved her hands and the pink-haired woman relaxed her shoulders. Bianchi's lips parted just a little bit, wide enough for a tiny fly to zoom in and out of her mouth, and the whiskered-woman exhaled. "It was just bad luck that you liked them but what happened to you was definitely not fault. It was their choice, not yours."

The pink-haired woman stared at her with wide eyes and jerked her head away from her. Narumi gazed up at the sky, the white clouds trailed one after the other like a heard of sheep. A calm before the storm. That was what it looked like at that moment. But she knew for Bianchi that it might not have been the case.

"Bad luck?" Bianchi huffed and let out a hollow laugh. "From the moment I started to date, I always somehow ended up dating bastards like them! No matter what I did, I would get hurt so how the fuck is that bad luck? The only form of luck I had was when I dated Reborn."

Narumi grimaced. Reborn had informed her that he had been a good choice, but it was one thing for the man to say it and another thing for Bianchi to confirm it. For the 17-year-old teen to look that frazzled and rattled told her volumes of how much Reborn mattered to her. I guess it must be scary to try and move on when you don't know the future. Her frown deepened and the blonde looked down on the ground.

Only gravel greeted her.

"He made you feel like you were the most special woman in the world, right?" Bianchi blinked and nodded. "I get that he was different for you and that difference made you clingy to him…wasn't it?"

The younger woman grunted and looked away from her. "I'm not answering that."

Bobbing her head, Narumi patted her jaw and closed her eyes. She didn't need the woman to answer her, not when the constant stalking was the answer that she needed. Another deep inhale and the blonde tilted her head up to the sky. What should she say to the young woman? Pushing her was definitely not going to help but she didn't really know what to say.

"Look I can't promise you that your next partner won't hurt you and I can't understand what you went through, but I can tell you that you can find someone better than Reborn," Narumi released a deep breath. "I mean you are still seventeen and that means you have your whole life ahead of you."

Bianchi snorted. "How can any man be better than Reborn?"

"He will genuinely love you," Narumi inhaled and looked at the young woman with hardened eyes. "He will do everything that Reborn did for you, but he might do it better than him…because he loves you. He will open up to you and communicate with you, which is something Reborn sucks at doing."

Bianchi bit her lips, but did not deny about the negative traits of the man. She darted her eyes to the roads, no one seemed to be walking on the roads. That was definitely good if you asked her. It would be a problem if one of the neighbors questioned her about her actions towards this teen. They might actually believe that she wanted to murder the teen.

"He is a good listener," Bianchi argued.

Narumi rolled her eyes. "So what if he is a good listener? We both know Reborn and we know that he avoids opening up to people. You know as well as I do that he doesn't deal with emotions. You know that flirt can't commit to anyone because he hates making an emotional connection! Once he gets bored with a girl, he leaves them."

The pink-haired teen surveyed her, her green eyes searched her like she was trying to figure her out, and the blonde thinned her lips. She waited for the teen to deny her but the woman only looked at her with bitter eyes. Narumi knitted her eyebrows together. Why did Bianchi give her that kind of expression? She was trying to help her.

"You haven't noticed it at all, have you?" Bianchi let out a hollow laugh.

Narumi frowned. "Notice what?"

Bianchi smiled bitterly and laughed with an emptiness that almost made Narumi's throat tightened. It felt like all the emotions inside of her had been drained out of her. The defeat and resentment in those green eyes almost made her collapse to the floor, because the 17-year-old girl looked so broken.

It was like all of her hopes had been taken away from her.

"The way he looks at you."


A/N: Dino will make an appearance in the next chapter alongside a reincarnated character and a KHR character. Can anyone figure out which reincarnated character is making an appearance? Do tell me what you thought about this chapter.