Clear to cloudy

Target 26: Training begins!

Kotsu is laying in his bed in the evening after his loss, looking at his two rings. His cloud ring he got from Reborn and his sky ring he got from Primo. Two people who've had a major effect on his life recently. "Why would you choose me… I'm not strong like those other candidates… not even close…" He says clenching his fist angrily at the ceiling hoping it'll help somehow. It doesn't…

In another room of the resort Rinoka is sitting in the room her and Fumie share now. She's looking a little uncomfortable as Geraldino is sitting in the corner on a chair watching her with a kendo sword over his shoulder in case any intruders come. Fumie is sleeping on one of the two beds in the room, looking quite non-cute which is kind of her whole charm. Geraldino gets a little annoyed as he can almost look up Fumie's shirt from how she's laying. He tsks getting up going to the bed and tossing Fumie's blanket back over her making sure she's comfortable and she happily hugs it.

Geraldino tsks. "What an annoying girl…" He says looking over to Rinoka who seems to be drawing. "Aren't you going to sleep soon too? You can't sit up ALL night doing whatever you're doing…" He says only now realizing that he's been watching her for a few hours and he has no idea what she's doing. "What… ARE you doing anyway…?" He asks and Rinoka jumps a little every time he speaks as his voice is quite scary for someone like her.

"I-I-I'm… I'm drawing..." She says trying not to make a lot of noise due to perhaps waking Fumie if she does. Little does she know Fumie would likely sleep through Geraldino fighting an intruder in the room.

Geraldino smirks confidently. 'Heh… so you think you can draw huh? How cute…' He thinks to himself as he sits back down. 'I wonder how it looks… can't be anywhere NEAR what I can do…' He adds thinking he's amazing at drawing. That's what his mother told him when was very young after all. They hanged his drawings on the fridge and everything! He slowly gets up knowing that Rinoka is quite fidgety about people getting too close. He sneaks over to peek over his shoulder. 'Let's see here… tsh! HAHAHA! What the hell's THAT supposed to be!?' He thinks noting the almost blank paper. There're only a few lines so far. However little does he know she just switched papers from having finished one. However Geraldino is not impressed either way. Two hours for a bunch of lines that don't even seem to resemble anything. 'Well it might be a cat… that means she's missing the whiskers…' He thinks predicting her next stroke of the pencil however his eyes go wide. 'WHAT?! What is she doing!? This is all wrong!' she keeps throwing down line after line with almost scary precision not even looking like she's considering reaching for her eraser at any point. It soon starts taking form. It's a person. A boy in a rather… exposed position laying on a bed with his shirt up and such. 'That's… THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE! This is like the pictures on the internet! NO ONE can draw like that! This girl… she's something else…' He says looking at Rinoka going from not liking her in the slightest to having immense respect for her in every possible way. When he looks at her Rinoka realizes something's not right and quickly looks over her shoulder and the second Geraldino's frame even vaguely is within her eyesight she jumps in her seat quickly fumbling to hide the embarrassing drawing.

"W-w-w-w-w-w-what're you… what're you doing Geraldino-san!?" She yells her entire body going red and Geraldino just suddenly falls to his knees banging his head into the floor.

"Please teach me young master!" He yells and Rinoka looks almost shocked at his sudden change in attitude.

"W-w-w…" She tries but can't get the words out.

Geraldino raises his head. "Teach me your ways master! TEACH ME HOW TO DRAW LIKE YOU!" He declares and Rinoka has never felt so pressured before in her life.

She only draws as a hobby, she never thought she'd make a profession out of it let alone TEACH others! However she's almost too scared of Geraldino to deny him so she just nods. "O-O-okay G-Geraldino-san… I-I-I'll try…" She says shyly again and Geraldino stands and bows deeply.

"Thank you kindest master…" He says and Rinoka gulps. She's going to teach Geraldino of all people to draw…?

"B-b-b-but i-in return… I… need some advice… please… y-you know how to play that… g-game right…?" She asks poking her fingers together almost frightened to ask.

"I do master. Why do you ask?" Rinoka slowly holds her hand forward revealing the one and only cloud ring in the shape of the Vongola insignia on it. "What?! You were chosen!? By Primo himself?!"

Rinoka slowly nods. "Y-y-yes… R-Reborn came to my house and gave me this letter…" she says fishing out the letter from her notebook which as it turns out is filled with Yaoi-pictures she's draw over the last few years. Geraldino grabs it just to make sure.

"Dear Rinoka. You may not know me, but you know Kotsukiba or Kotsu as you might call him. He needs your help and it's my job to make sure he gets it. I'm giving you the cloud ring. This makes you two bound by destiny and you will be by his side in his toughest battles. It may seem scary, but I think, no, I KNOW you can handle it. You're stronger than you think. Your truly Neo Vongola Primo," He reads and hands it back to her. He then sits on the floor. "I see… what would you like to know then master?"

Rinoka gets off the chair and sits across from him. "I-I want to know what to do…?" she says and Geraldino looks at her ring.

"I see… I can try, but I gotta apologize beforehand. I'm NOT a very good teacher. Never have been, never will be. Don't say I didn't warn you," He says taking out his own blue ring. He puts it on his finger. "So to put it pretty blatantly… you gotta focus your willpower into your ring and the flame will light up like this," He says igniting his blue water-like flame.

"B-but that… that doesn't look like fire… Geraldino-san…" She tries and Geraldino snickers.

"I know… that's what makes me awesome. Now it's primo we're talking about so the likelihood your flame is something OTHER than cloud's pretty low… Now then give it a shot. Light it up," He says and Rinoka closes her eyes and puffs her cheek trying to light her ring up, but naturally it doesn't work.

She exhales heavily. "It didn't work…"

"It'll work! Trust me master! Even for someone as incredible as me it took a long time before I could light up mine properly!" he assures her. "Try again…" She gives it another shot.

-NII-

Meanwhile in another room Ren has been settled in with Hibari. It's quite strange for the young boy, sharing a room with his teacher instead of any of his friends. "Kyoya-sensei… don't tell me YOU play this game too…?" he says sounding almost almost annoyed and Hibari remains quiet a little sitting in a chair reading a book.

"Listen Ren. I've seen you socialize and simply walk around all the time, and this is the first time I've seen you bothered like this,"

Ren is a bit surprised that Hibari pays so close attention to his students. "I just… want my little brother to be safe. And the people he's begun playing with in this new section of the game don't play by the rules. They actually almost hurt us and they would've if you hadn't stepped in,"

"So you believe the game to be unfair? In that case why don't you try to correct it?"

Ren smiles a little laying backwards on his bed. "Nah… it's not my kind of game. It involves fighting and I'm not a fan of fighting. I'm glad my little brother's decided to stop playing it," He says smiling to himself however he suddenly feels Hibari slam his book shut. He stands up silently having quite the scary persona over him. "Um… Kyoya-sensei…?" He suddenly grabs his tonfa's from inside his sleeves where he keeps them and slams one of them down right after Ren.

The young boy manages to react by rolling backwards. "K-Kyoya-sensei!? W-what're you doing?" He tries but Hibari doesn't let up at all just speeding towards him and swinging his tonfas. Ren keeps dodging, which is something that he seems to be good at without a word of his reasoning. He suddenly stops.

"I don't train weaklings who simply abandon their duties like that. Only a true herbivore would do something like that," He says angrily before putting away his tonfas.

"I already said I don't want this duty as 'sun guardian' or whatever," He says holding up his still burning ring.

However Hibari doesn't listen. "Sleep. If that is your attitude then I have nothing to say to you," He says being surprisingly cold. He might seem cruel and intimidating at school but he is actually quite soft. He always helps people in trouble, cleaning the school by himself and everything. But always with the stoic pride of a lion and the attitude of a predator. However now… Ren feels he's a lot different. Purely cold with no hint of the kindness Ren's used to.

He lays back down on his bed. "Did I… say something wrong?" He thinks aloud.

Hibari walks down the hallway meeting the one and only Reborn on the way. However he simply walks straight past him. "Train him Hibari. He'll definitely learn. He's not dumb. In fact looking at his report cards he's one of your best students,"

"I'll do as you say infant, as a favor from one carnivore to another," He says before heading down the hallway.

Reborn looks down the hall to Ren's room. "I know it's a scary thought this 'game' we play Ren… but you've DEFINITELY lost the bigger picture…"

-NII-

The following day the entire class are set into groups to do the teambuilding exercises set up around the resort by Reborn during the night. However as Kotsu expected his group is quite rigged due to containing not just Ren and Tsugemora, but also Rinoka, Reishiro and Fumie, summing up to everyone he knows at school. Except Reishiro… he doesn't know much about him…

Everyone's quickly set to task with Kotsu being put in charge of his group, but still being quite depressed out his loss against NM-5 he quickly denies taking charge. In spite of more than half his group being assigned guardians, though he doesn't know about Rinoka yet. Luckily for him Ren takes charge and the group quickly solves the problems put in front of them with only Tsugemora complaining about Ren being in charge. Though luckily for Ren Kotsu silences him since he reeeeeally doesn't feel like dealing with Tsugemora right now.

-NII-

After the day of doing teambuilding and every one of Kotsu's schoolmates having a great time. Kotsu sits in his room still sulking by now having come full circle and thinking that it's pathetic that he's still sulking about it. At this point he's already decided to give up which also annoys him. However suddenly his door bursts open and he thinks he's under attack, however he suddenly sees Fumie walking in looking quite furious. "W-what's the matter Fumie?" He says giving her a weak smile and she stomps over grabbing his hand pulling him with her.

"You and I are going to go on a date! RIGHT NOW!" She says quite furious making Kotsu both confused and flustered.

"WE'RE GOING TO WHAT?!"