A/N
If you read this and think "I've read this before" it's because I split and edited my last chapter. This is better, promise. More details at the end.
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"Class, we have a new transfer student from America. Kan-san, if you would introduce yourself please?"
I glanced around the room, analyzing the crowd from behind my thick glasses and the bangs I'd cut l the night before. The students that had perked up at the words "transfer" and "America" quickly settled back into boredom after giving me a cursory glance up and down. I smiled.
It seemed my disguise was working.
Last night I went over the uniform and thought good and hard about what to do to make me as uninteresting as possible. Why you ask? Because it is not my job to be friends with Tsuna, it is my job to protect him. As he has evidently gained himself the reputation of a loser, I doubt very much that being his friend will make protecting him easy. Hence a disguise. Transfer students of any kind at any time are notorious for piquing interest, and that is exactly what I'd like to dissuade. I'm not here to be friends with anyone. I'm here to see if they need to be shot.
I started with the basics: look like everyone else, then take it a step further. It's the same principle that's used in any covert agency; you want to blend in and be forgettable. So all the kids are used to seeing dark hair? Good, I keep my black coloring. But shoulder length waves are fairly popular right now, and even though mine are natural, they need to be changed. Rather than leave them styled, I'll chop thick-ass, unflattering bangs and put the rest in braided tails. The humidity should add frizz so that, voila! I look like a frumpy, unattractive girl with an old-fashioned style. The sharper angles to my face look awkward and unpleasantly irregular with half my profile obscured by a low bangs and thick, heavy framed round glasses.
Pleasing ugliness. I like.
I altered the uniform as well, choosing to wear opaque black tights under a navy skirt lengthened to hit the knee exactly. The white shirt I left I left alone, but by covering it with a baggier vest and looser version of the bow, I easily achieved a conservative, sloppy look that instantly encouraged people to look elsewhere. The most remarkable thing about the outfit was how short it made my legs and how long it made my torso. I might have felt insecure if I wasn't so satisfied with the result. The outfit readily invited the assumption that I was soft spoken, nerdy, unathletic, old fashioned, and uninteresting. Seeing the class react exactly as I'd hoped was extremely pleasing, but as I scanned the crowd on my way to my seat, I paused.
There was one exception to the rule.
It seemed my target was not inclined to look away after a cursory glance, and even after I gave a stuttered introduction and stumbled into my chair diagonally behind him, Tsuna kept glancing at me. I frowned for a moment, eyes sharp behind the lenses. I only knew the boy through reports and my own extrapolations, but it seemed he was Iemtisu's son after all.
Interesting…Well Mr. Tenth-to-be, let's see what you're made of.
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Yamamoto Takeshi glanced sideways at the new girl. She had a massive cowlick jutting from her head drawing eyes from around the room. Snorting a little to himself, he slumped into his desk. Guess that's American fashion, huh?
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My first impression of the lion cub was not good. Tsuna was not a good student, receiving a collective score of 50 on the six tests handed back today. The teachers made no attempt to hide their disappointment, and things did not get better as the day went on. He was constantly fumbling with books, pencils and squeaking "Hiiiiieeee!" whenever anyone really looked at him. Spineless, he got bullied into buying snacks for people during break, and clumsy, he bumped into a teacher and sent papers flying down the hall. He didn't appear to have any friends or any motivation to try and make friends, isolating himself from the rest of the class and cringing away from confrontation.
That was my first impression.
Carefully packing my bags well after the other students had bolted, I snapped it shut thoughtfully. This was an odd school. There was disciplinary committee one of the giggly girls had warned me about, and from what I'd seen of the head beast, there was a reason to fear him. There was not, however, a reason for Tsuna to be so off kilter. How in the world did the son of the Chief External Advisor end up as a, for lack of a better word, wuss? It was almost fascinating to watch him fail, repeatedly.
Walking across the dusty courtyard to the gate, I paused and watched as the baseball players ran laps and chanted work out calls. Several of my classmates were in this bunch, and as the sport was considered the national pastime, I suspected Tsuna sucked at this as well. One of the taller players waved at me. I stared.
That was not supposed to happen. Eyes narrowed, I followed his figure as the happy grin dropped momentarily before resurging, laughter bubbling up as his teammates slapped his back. Interesting.
Ignoring the rest of the lineup, and the stares of several girls boring into my back, I walked out the gate, adjusting my glasses on the way.
Now, time to organize. What did we learn today? Well:
One: Sawada Tsunayoshi is called Dame-Tsuna by everyone, including the staff (seems slightly unprofessional)
Two: Sawada Tsunayoshi is a complete outcast at school (makes sense given his cowardice)
Three: Sawada Tsunayoshi has a crush on Sasagawa Kyoko (need more information on the girl)
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During the second day of my enrollment at Namimori-chu, things were starting to shift. I may not have drawn much interest from my classmates, but scum always rises to the surface and demands attention. I was now the target of those on the lowest level of the pecking order once it became clear the popular students wouldn't claim me as their own. And here is where things became far more interesting.
You might have expected someone as spineless as Tsuna to take part in the mild hazing and bullying that was occurring, but the boy just sat silently and kept away. Those big eyes often furrowed when a particularly nasty comment was made, but he kept on as he had the first day and seemed the same as ever. He wasn't helping, but he also wasn't frantically trying to claw his way up the social ladder.
Interesting… he's not motivated, but he's also not cruel or weak willed. A truly weak minded individual would mimic and spread the torture they'd experienced, choosing to drown someone else to elevate themselves in society. So. What does that tell us?
One: Sawada Tsunayoshi is not a cruel boy (just a regular old coward)
Two: Sawada Tsunayoshi is not inclined to follow the pack (his resistance is in the form of non-action)
Three: Sawada Tsunayoshi is not interested in power (doesn't try to inflict revenge)
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On my way out of the building, a nasty spurt of giggles registered, and I glanced to the side. There, hiding rather poorly behind the last row of shoe lockers, were four girls. Of the four, only one was watching my quietly, curled hair falling stylishly about her shoulders. Crossing out the door, I couldn't help the equally nasty smile that briefly broke over my face. Dear little children, be careful of how far you go.
Once I passed the gates, I peeled off the note one of the four (Miwako-chan. One of the gigglers) had slapped on my back in the morning. Written in black marker were the words "Hit me! It's how I say hello!" Too bad for them, no one had desired to come close after my foot had landed in the toilet. One person had had their fun, but the rest of the day the smell of sewage kept any would-be "greeters" away. I would find a way to thank Kana-chan.
The baseball players were out again. I felt eyes following my back.
Was it that same boy? Curious. Unpleasantly curious.
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On the third day the bullying escalated. Someone stole my shoes, another took my notebooks, and still others muttered and insulted me, assuming I couldn't understand. This seemed rather foolish, but as I said, scum rises and demands attention, no matter how foolish it may seem. Evidently no one taught these people that insults work best when they are explicit enough that the target realizes they are the butt without being so obvious as to allow the target to fight back. Then again, there was a kind of pleasure in laughing at someone and knowing they were oblivious. It was far less daring and much more likely to have consequences once the heel of the joke realized what was happening, but they were young. I would teach them, in time.
That was the thing I clung to as the idiocy escalated. I am not naturally a passive target, but the promise of victory following a thorough study of my tormentors made me smile. They were a fast growing knot of children tied together in a mutual hatred of "the foreigner," though I had yet to give them real reason to hate me.
Patience, I would deliver a cause soon enough.
I had discovered a few nice idiosyncrasies to play on, and already I was sowing fear rather than unadulterated disdain. With little earbuds present and running under my shirt to the V-player 24/7, I was picking up almost 100% of the conversation around me, aided by the very low level vocabulary utilized by most of the students. It is remarkable what people will say when they think no one is listening, and I had plenty of information to go off of on all my classmates after the first two days. Evidently a good number of them believed, even if half-heartedly, in the occult, and this promised an interesting outlet for my growing irritation.
The children were paving the road to their own disaster.
You see, half the reason I was in this school was to look after Tsuna physically, and already I was doing a very nice job. If the children that normally tormented him were halved by my presence alone, that was quite an achievement. Of course Reborn and I would eventually bring that number to zero, but an immediate 50% drop wasn't bad at all, and we were only on Day 3.
The other side of my job consisted in information gathering. How many students attended Namimori altogether? Where did they live? What did their parents do? What was their relationship to Tsuna? What were they afraid of? What did they know?
Then there was the staff. How many teachers altogether? What was their background? Where did they get their degree? Where was their family? How did they relate to Tsuna? What did they fear? Could they be used? By whom? What were the their limits?
Numbers were always easy: at three classes per grade, with an average of 30 students per class, and only three years altogether, Namimori-chu served 270 individuals minimum. Add to that a few extra students who were held back, transferred in, or failed to graduate and you had yourself a school wide total of 311 children. There were 21 full time teachers, one principal and vice principal, six teachers working part time, and weekend cleaning staff made up of two older ladies. Otherwise the students were responsible for upkeep of the school.
This amounted altogether in a total of 342 people that I needed to have profiles on by the end of the week, and already I had extensive analysis of the five regular children inclined to bully me and of course, Tsuna. Using myself as bait had turned out to be an extremely efficient strategy to uncover the dynamics of this school, and by the end of the day, every single person Tsuna came in contact with was in my book. Every single one of his tormentors was listed out with references to physical, mental and emotional weak points, their friends, their basic habits, and the social security numbers and family listings I'd filched from the school.
The central three included:
1) Muto Ayase
2) Hamaki Miwako
3) Ichinori Yuri
With a side group consisting of:
4) Shinki Kaito
5) Manabe Kana
6) Kyuso Haruki
7) Sanae Tora
Reborn would be pleased.
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Day four unveiled new rigors to the hazing, though the children were still not bold enough to order me around or outright attack me. I began to focus on the popular ones in class, mainly because of a certain baseball player, Yamamoto Takeshi. Starting player for the baseball team, tall and naturally well-coordinated, he had a cheerful personality and air headed friendliness that made him fantastically popular. Girls from other classes visited ours throughout the day to fawn and flirt, and now on my fourth day I had noticed a pattern.
The girls that seemed most interested in Mr. Yamamoto were also the ones that seemed hell bent to ice my social life, non-existent as it was. Hamaki Miwako was in love with him, and so to (apparently) were Manabe Kana and Ichinori Yuri, though the latter of the three was far more private in her affections. Nevertheless, the inclination was there. Evidently I had stepped on the land mine of Yamamoto's fanbase, completely unwitting on my part and therefore ultimately the fault of the boy in question. How annoying. What was even more irritating was the fact that Mr. Perfect had such a good position in the class that to unseat him would be nigh impossible.
R.I.P Reborn's plans to make Tsuna class president.
In any case, Yamamoto was an irritation that kept garnering me unwanted attention, and in contrast to the reigning belief that the boy was an idiot, he was not in fact oblivious or unaware of how he came across. No, if one was meticulous and knew the signs, it was plain to see that the baseball idol was playing a game of smoke and mirrors. He adjusted in minute ways to guide the energy of the class and it was possible to hear him redirect conversation, indicate who should speak next, even declare when to leave the room all from facial expression and body language. The boy controlled and calmed any potential arguments without so much as a flinch and the skill with which he flipped the energy in the room was remarkable. If it was real, it would be concerning.
Why the skepticism? Because it was only the first few days of class. What did I know? I was new, and it was very possible to see things that weren't there, especially when managing hostiles and hoping for talent in my target. I'll say it now, there was none. Tsuna may have been the least remarkable person in the entire school, and in that sense I had to wonder what exactly his father had done to achieve such a feat. He should've been popular, given Iemitsu's general cool headedness and charisma, but he'd apparently inherited nothing of his father's. I might have wondered about his legitimacy if I was sent by someone else, but there it was. Four days in and Yamamoto Takeshi seemed like a far better waste of time then Tsuna.
To be far, at first I thought I might be hoping the attention dedicated to the boy was empty fervor, the typical pattern of a school idol built on good looks and athleticism. You'd be surprised how often popularity shields an individual of little substance and even less intelligence. I've learned to never assume people are as impressive as people say as very often the projection of greatness does not bear any relation to a concrete source. Unfortunately (or fortunately? Can't tell just yet) Yamamoto's fame was warranted, though for different reasons.
I will admit I was pleased my energy wasn't spent on nothing. I needed a boost after cataloging and parsing out Tsuna's learning scores for my end of the week report. It was dismal. Yamamoto made for a good mental puzzle.
He was everything his classmates said when it came to baseball, at least for a civilian, (his baseball was average for the Academy team) but he was not at all the fool they laughed with in the classroom. Following great care and scrutiny it became clear that those little changes and directions given to control the conversation were not thoughtless or by chance. He was doing it on purpose. There was a specific tell I began to see, though I could not confirm it in a mere four days: his smile became closed eyed when he was unhappy with the topic at hand.
Was there a discussion about the math test? The smile, a laugh, and suddenly the class was a joke and why bother discussing mean old Nezu? Was it his turn to clean? The smile a laugh, and suddenly people wanted to help him out, so he wouldn't be alone. Valentine's day would come around soon enough, and wasn't there anyone he was interested in? Same smile, same laugh, maybe a rub to the back of the head and the topic was dropped for another time. I was impressed.
Still, simply shifting conversations wasn't enough to be annoying, and it wasn't enough to make me study him carefully (though boredom would quickly do that. There's only so much one can plot while in the middle of basic English. What a bore). No, the thing that caught my interest was the bounce back from the smile, the barest hint of something a little darker, a little more serious, a little less cheery then what he projected. He was cultivating a false image on purpose. I wanted to know why. Is that surprising? Shouldn't be, given my lackluster time with Tsuna. Still, I think I can offer a better reason then boredom or personal interest.
Simply put, Yamamoto Takeshi was watching me.
Weird right?
It wasn't the kind of watching Tsuna did, the glance, assess, frown and ignore. Believe me, the lion cub had been doing plenty of that the past few days and it was enough that I wanted to put a neck brace on him to keep his head straight. No. The baseball brat was far cleverer in the way he cased the room, and every now and then his eyes would briefly settle on me or my reflection before moving on. This was coupled with the waving, watching and morning hello's I'd received when entering or exiting the school. It was odd, he seemed aware enough to avoid directly speaking to me near crowds, but he was also never totally alone when approaching me. Calculating, cautious, but of what exactly? At the moment my prerogative was to look harmless, bookish and a bit gloomy edging into haunted or spooky. I hadn't dialed up the grim and ghastly just yet, so what was the point of padding his interactions?
Very puzzling.
I would've written him off as insecure under his middle school fame and this would've been fine, except for one thing: he was looking for something. Yamamoto Takeshi did not glance and then ignore, he didn't approach or wave and then continue on, he was gradually analyzing and learning about me as he went. Leaving the school each day I had noted the exact moment his eyes hit my frame, pointedly going over my figure. There was nothing gratifying about a look like that, it wasn't for the purpose of admiring, it was to deconstruct, uncover, understand. There is a distinct difference between looking and watching. The person who watches canvasses the larger picture and doesn't see or follow anomalies to their root. The person who looks at people, however, does so with the intent to see, to discern what is really there, to analyze and define.
I did not want to be seen by anybody.
I did not want anyone trying to define my role in the class.
I especially did not want the person doing this to be a member of the group with power in the class.
Did I want to be seen by this boy?
Not. At. All.
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Day five rolled around, the last day in the week, and I spent my day half-heartedly avoiding various items being tossed at me while also planting and spreading a nice little rumor about my ability to see ghosts. My Halmonii said ghosts scared people and in my time working I'd heard and seen plenty of things to make up a good horror story. Combined with some research and cramming about Japanese lore and demons and I was ready to begin my counter attack. If I couldn't avoid recognition because of the baseball brat and the bullies, and if, as I suspected would be the case, Reborn wanted me to distract and normalize his incoming training, I needed to switch tracks and start making my own persona.
I decided to be an expert on the occult. It was already circulating that I'd been cast out from my last high school, from my last home because I'd landed a boy in the hospital after getting angry and cursing him. Conveniently, photos had appeared along with a chat room with two or three of my old "classmates." The central three were becoming antsy, Tsuna's five slightly concerned. I would wait. In the meantime, Yamamoto was still escaping explanation.
It turned out I was not his only object of interest, and my initial shock and delight quickly turned to anxiety and concern. Why? Because the other person Yamamoto watched was Tsuna. Yay.
It was subtle, but he seemed to almost constantly be aware of what the future tenth was doing, not in a way that displayed any sort of respect (which might have lessened my fears) but in a calculating weighing out of action and intent. Yamamoto looked at him the way he looked at me, though with far less curiosity. It was not like him or even to help him, but simply to determine what the clumsy cub was likely to do, what he was thinking underneath the cowardly spinelessness. Yamamoto had caught on to the slight inconsistencies in Tsuna's character, the lack of strength paired with an odd, unwavering resistance that seemed out of tune. Whether that perceptiveness was good I could not tell. For now, the baseball idol merely sat back and let things happen, but if he wasn't one of ours, was he working for someone else?
I hadn't considered the possibility until I saw his eyes flash when Tsuna mentioned something about Nana. There was something there that did not belong in the eyes of a fourteen year old.
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Reborn assured me during break that there were no other undercover agents guarding Tsuna in his class. He promised, and I believed him. Some things could not be joked about in the field, and I knew the hitman would not set me up, would not prank me, not like this, not with a plant. That left two options. Either Yamamoto was someone else's spy, or he was what we call "true potential," i.e. a kid with innate abilities being honed without guidance or goals. These types were usually snapped up quickly, and if he really was a natural, Reborn would be very, very interested to know.
After all, we were here to guard Tsuna and prep him to lead. If he was really going to lead, if Reborn wasn't setting out to keep him a figurehead, he would need a full set of guardians. I managed to bump into him going into the locker rooms for gym, and a quick tap to his chest with a hand held reader gave me a 60% reliable test. After making it through the hissing swarm and the simple game of volleyball, I checked the results. Mr. Yamamoto Takeshi was reading rain flames at 100%. On this machine, that meant he was absolutely worth Reborn's time.
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Walking home in the sunny afternoon drenched and dripping water, I went over the little pad of notes I'd been keeping throughout the week. Thankfully was not made of delicate paper and had survived the bucket of cleaning water tossed on my head as I left after school. Be not concerned; immediately after there was a zap that killed the lights on the floor and a yelp from my assaulters. I'd stood and stared at the three main culprits until they moved away, no doubt feeling a sudden drop in temperature. A little lightning and strategically placed dry ice did wonders to fool the gullible.
I let them stew in their growing fear and anxiety, flipping through the bullet points calmly.
One: Sawada Tsunayoshi is perceptive of others (he knows when he's about to face something, or someone else is)
Two: Sawada Tsunayoshi pays attention in class (he has not once fallen asleep, though he has skipped out halfway through)
Three: Sawada Tsunayoshi understands he is being bullied.
This last point was very important. We could not assert a change if the boy did not acknowledge that a problem existed, and thankfully, Tsuna knew very well what was happening all around him. Oh he was boring to watch at times, but that was offset by moments of extremely entertaining drama. It was entertaining, and he was aware everyone thought so. That strange perception made me pause.
Tsuna really did have a good sense of when someone was about to jump him with something, and usually he was very good at making himself scarce. And yet, he had never once avoided Yamamoto. In fact, Tsuna rarely paid the boy any mind given how much time and energy Yamamoto paid him. If his perception was to be trusted, it might not be necessary to treat the baseball player as a threat. Maybe. I thought it over a good long while before adding my final comment for the day, hesitating at first and then with conviction.
Four: Yamamoto Takeshi is an intelligent liar
I'd leave Reborn to make the next move.
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A/N
Soooo, I did back edit, forgive me! I prostrate myself before you; please don't give up on my story! Or, you know, me. Here's what happened: I had my finals for uni. Then, and this is the more horrifying bit, my eight year long online journal got wiped. Everything for this story poof! gone. Luckily it's all in my head, and I've now transferred a good deal of stuff to paper;) Hah!
So that is why I have not posted things, it is also partially why the last chapter is now split and edited. There was important stuff I neglected to flesh out and I had to seriously think about what should go in after all my bits and pieces got deleted.
I want to give a shout out to sndlr! Thankies and hello!
Sent me some much needed encouragement during this strange time as well as a question I figured I should answer here: I am not planning to follow the anime timeline, and the main reason is that I want to tie in the darker stuff that happened in the manga. You'll notice if you've read the manga that I already started to tie in the Flood of Blood incident (with all that entails), and I think it'd be nice to flesh out plot points or characters that have a stronger presence in the manga. I don't think I can write a convincing or layered Iemtisu, for example, if I only go off the anime and I'd like to think Fuuta's ranking of Iemitsu and Nana as the most "loving married couple," has substance:)
I am using the anime as a reference though, so I hope that's not too disappointing! As always, please heart and review, I am working on the next chapter as you read this (if it's still 5/7/2020) and I hope to have it up 5/9/2020. Fingers crossed!
Stay healthy and sane: see you in a few!
- DumDeeDum