OpalescentGold: I do not own Katekyo Hitman Reborn!

Undertakings

This is how they improve.

Lost

Noriko is watching Ryohei win a boxing match when her phone rings loudly. She picks it up to hear Tsuna yell hysterically through the satellite phone she insisted he buy about being lost in a forest somewhere.

Apparently, Takeshi and Hayato are there with him, too. Surprise, surprise. It's still Dino's fault.

"Reiki! Is something extremely wrong?" Ryohei peers down at her, wiping his brow with a towel.

Noriko sighs and gets to her feet, smiling fondly. "We should go find Hibari-san," she says vaguely. "He has the biggest task force."

Annoyed

Needless to say, the Chairman of the Disciplinary Committee is not impressed when he hears of the situation and makes that clear to Tsuna five hours later when they finally find the group with the help of the prefects.

New Years

There's another ceremony on New Years, Reborn explains to them, a battle between allied families. Representatives would be participating in themed competitions and the winning family would be awarded a generous prize.

Also, the loser family would be fined one million yen.

Noriko tilts her head to the side and muses on a cold day a few hundred years ago. It was a suggested game by Cozarto and that...that was fun, though the penalty was actually washing the dishes that night.

Considering both families spent the day together, there were a lot of dishes.

The Vongola lost that game, but it was alright because mysteriously, G. and Ugetsu weren't able to sleep that night and showed up to help Giotto. Knuckle and Lampo popped up not much later.

Alaude was awoken by the noise and dragged Daemon up with him to suffer. Cynthia smiled in startled delight when Cozarto and his Guardians appeared. The dishes didn't taken much time to get done after that.

Instead of going back to sleep, they all gathered around in a large room and drank hot coffee, laughing and talking until dawn. And oh, it was a beautiful dawn, all rose pink and dazzling orange and bright ruby.

"Oi, Reiki, it's your turn!" Hayato shouts at her, snapping her out of her memories.

Noriko smiles and wonders if this year's dawn will be just as beautiful. She hopes so. "Coming!"

Parents

"Nori-chan? Do you want us to go to your Parent Participation Day?" Kiku asks gently over dinner.

Noriko swallows her bite of rice and shakes her head. She doesn't want her parents caught up in her mess. "It's not necessary, Kaa-chan. Stay at home and rest."

"Well, if you say so..."

Fuuta

Ranking Prince Fuuta shows up and begs Tsuna to take him in. Ever the soft-heart, Tsuna complies, and they all end up getting ranked.

Takeshi is ranked as number five for people with baseball potential.

Hayato ends up ranked number one for people suitable to be a kindergarten teacher.

Noriko is atmospherically out of range for rankings of fairness.

Tsuna's number one love ends up being Leon, the chameleon.

In the end, it turns out that it is raining and rain throws off Fuuta's rankings.

Noriko is just relieved that no one realizes that some of those rankings were, in fact, correct.

Valentine's

Noriko gleefully passes out chocolates to everyone she knows on Valentine's Day like it's going out of style, having made a huge batch the day before.

The blush on Tsuna's cheeks is adorable, as is Lambo's proclamation that Sorellona's chocolate is the most delicious. Hayato splutters out his thanks while Takeshi laughs and returns the gesture with one of the chocolates his admirers threw at him.

Ryohei extremely thanks her and Kyoya hnns in acknowledgement. Bianchi treasures her "gift of love," as does Fuuta, who has long since adopted her as his Sorellona along with I-Pin. Even Reborn, ever the gentleman, accepts the gift with a nod of thanks.

Snowballs

They have a fantastic snowball fight not long afterwards. It's silly and crazy and for a second, it's almost as if Noriko is back in the earliest days of the Vongola, by Giotto's side, debating with G., laughing with Ugetsu, playing with Lampo, competing with Knuckle, and -

Kyoya ends up 'winning,' seeing as he comes in at the last second and scoops up the turbo Leon.

Alaude always hated losing, no matter what sort of game or activity it was.

Noriko carefully refrains from thinking of the blue-haired man who turned every event into a befuddling, hilarious disarray.

Dojo

Ryohei recruits them all to defend a dojo's board. Well, attempts to, anyway. He tries.

Kyoya almost sends the boxer to the hospital entirely because of principle.

Takeshi laughs apologetically and says he has baseball practice to go to.

Hayato dashes off, muttering about how it's time to restock his dynamite.

Lambo...bursts into tears and denies for the snacks Nana has promised to make.

Noriko listens to the situation and decides it's a spectacular day to get a haircut.

Later, when she hears about the whole wreck with I-Pin and a gang of hoodlums from an exasperated Tsuna, she nods and congratulates herself for having the foresight to avoid the matter entirely.

Truce

Noriko and Reborn have an unspoken, unwritten, unacknowledged truce.

It's for Tsuna, of course. Because of Tsuna.

They don't trust each other. They would be stupid to.

To Reborn, Noriko is a complete unknown. She's an influence, a powerful one that he holds no control over but heavily impacts Tsuna and his potential Guardians.

To Noriko, Reborn is the tutor who seeks to drag Tsuna into the bloody world of the Mafia, the cursed baby who doesn't even seem to care that he'll ruin Tsuna.

But they both want Tsuna to triumph.

And so Reborn and Noriko will play nice...for now.