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Reborn adopted a solemn look and began to read.

Dear Vongola Tenth Boss,

I have heard of your development from your home tutor there. As the highest ranking
member of the Vongola Family, I'm giving you this order. The time has come for you
to take the next step.

Within the next twelve hours, you are to capture Rokudo Mukuro and his gang of
escaped convicts. You are also to rescue the hostage at the same time.

Best of luck,
Ninth Boss

P.S. If you are successful, I will send you one hundred years worth of tomatoes at daybreak.

Tsuna rolled his eyes. That had to be a trollish addition by Reborn.

By the way, if you refuse your mission, you'll be a traitor, and you will have to die.

He turned around without a word and headed home.

. . .

He had spent his "formative" years—meaning, the years since he woke up yet again at age five and before Reborn ever came anywhere near Namimori—working on a number of things.

Languages, of course. If he ever did manage to make it to adulthood and had to step into the role of Vongola Decimo, live in Italy, and deal with bosses from various countries, it only made sense for him to be able to speak their native languages fluently, and not have to rely on someone who might not translate well enough.

He also spent time trying to figure out how not to be so susceptible to illusions. It was not as if he could find a handy Mist local to Namimori and ask for their help. It was one thing to be prepared when he ended up inevitably confronting Mukuro again, as he had already scouted Kokuyo Healthy Land to keep the theatre's composition fresh in his mind.

A lot of time was spent on physical conditioning. He found he was pretty much hopeless when it came to using a weapon. He tried knives, swords, whips, tonfa—whatever he could get his hands on. He was hopelessly inept with anything but his fists and his flames.

He groaned. Odds were he'd end up with those damnable mittens again. Having that as the last thing he'd seen (dynamite aside) before dying horribly again…

In preparation for the expected events of his future he had started early with Takeshi and Ryohei, though finding out that Ryohei was a girl this time around was something of a shock. Instead of Ryohei, it was Rei. She was also Tsuna's age, whereas Kyoko (still female!) was the older one.

That had taken some getting used to.

Dealing with a sword-obsessed Takeshi was far easier in comparison. This version had skipped baseball entirely and taken after his father more directly. He was not, however, in the kendo club.

Rei was still a Sun and Takeshi a Rain. Kyoya was still a Cloud and still fiercely territorial with regard to Namimori. He was also just as psychotic about "crowding" and "herbivores" and keeping the peace.

His mother… Well. Tsuna was starting to think of her like a robot. Japan as a country had developed some very, uh, potentially perverted technology. There were times when he wondered if Nana had secretly been replaced by one of those robots along the way, one sophisticated enough to be considered more of an android.

One thing he had driven himself to learn was ways to use his command of what he decided to call Earth Flames to subtle effect. He was a lot better now keeping his thoughts private from Reborn, but the chibi was still frighteningly observant and intelligent. He would have to be subtle to get his use of Earth Flames past the radar, so to speak.

. . .

"I will defeat you."

Leon exploded in response. So to speak. He was like some alien life form hovering in the approximate center of the theatre, with spikes extruding from his body mass holding him up, braced against the walls, floor, and ceiling.

Dog boy loped forward under Mukuro's control and sliced through Leon's main mass. As expected, certain items were ejected. Mittens came to land on his upturned face—or would have had he not been expecting them.

He shot a disbelieving look at Reborn for the sake of looking clueless and slipped them onto his hands. There was a bullet inside, though a part of him wondered why. He also wondered why Leon could not have fashioned him rings or bracelets or anything that wasn't so damn embarrassing.

Ken came after him again with the trident head and he blocked it with one hand. Force meeting force saw him sent backward and Ken forced to stop.

"He repelled the attack…?"

Tsuna let the bullet slide out of his right mitten and held it so that Reborn could easily see it, but not so much for Mukuro's puppet bodies.

Reborn hummed and darted forward, snatching the bullet away. "How interesting!" he chirped. "Never seen a bullet like this before. We'll just have to shoot it and see what happens."

He very much doubted that after having gone through the explanation of Dino's experience with Leon, twice now.

"Not going to happen, yo," said a possessed Hayato. Dynamite went flying in a high arc.

He chose to live through the attack, subtly using Earth Flames to alter the trajectories and provide a buffer around him. Long enough for Reborn to shoot him, anyway, just as the dynamite went off.

"You got him with the bombs," Bianchi said.

"My my, he's seriously injured now," Ken added.

He truly thought for a time that the bullet was ineffective against someone who not only had control of his flames, but was also far more knowledgeable than Reborn might have expected. The pain was unwelcome, but that would pass, one way or the other.

Then the recriminations set in. He could see in his mind's eye the various people in his life complaining about aspects of himself, rebuking him. But there were also people cheering him on, like Haru, Rei, and Kyoko. Even Lancia.

"My rebukes don't have to be spoken out loud, right?" Reborn said.

"Oho… At a time like this, you still have spirit in your eyes? But, it's still time to end the show," Barcode boy said before surging forward. "If you die here, it'll be no problem for me in the long run."

Tsuna reached up to grab the trident head in his mittened hand, and watched with some awe as that same mitten transformed into a gauntlet. A strange sense of calm overcame him. Emotions were muted, anxiety was washed away, and he was fairly certain he had Dying Will Flames burning on his forehead again. This time, however, he was in control of his actions.

"Mukuro, even if I'm dying, I will not give up," he said as he rose to his feet.

"That aura on your forehead… I see, you were hit by that bullet after all. But you seemed to be a lot more fired up during the fight with Lancia earlier."

Reborn piped in with, "The Rebuke Bullet brings out the calm fighting will in Tsuna. It's a completely new bullet—different from the Dying Will Bullet—with a totally new hidden power."

'What is it about mafiosi and the need to explain everything in the middle of a fight?' he wondered.

Barcode scoffed. "All I see is a person who's lost his fighting will or a spirit which has sunk into despair. Either way, you are not a match for my skills."

His intuition let him know that Dog was leaping at him from behind, so he slammed a hand back into the quickly approaching face and launched the blond back.

"Not so fast," Barcode said. His yo-yos came out again and launched countless poisoned needles.

His intuition said no, to the needles and to the figure. Instead, it directed him off to the side. He bolted toward thin air and punched. The real Barcode went flying.

"Impossible," Hayato muttered.

"He couldn't see through the illusions of the State of Hell before…"

Reborn went off on another lecture for some reason, but Tsuna didn't bother to pay attention.

Hayato and Bianchi went for him, hoping to beat him down, into submission. He let them wear themselves out trying to land a hit on him, and listened. He was going to have to see if his intuition could be trained or strengthened outside of fights. But he listened, so he knew exactly where to land a hit of his own on each body, though the non-calm part of him was seriously contemplating breaking their damn legs.

"Striking to cause nerve paralysis comes from his intuition, too," Reborn lectured.

"Will you keep an eye on them?" he asked Reborn, then gazed around with intuitive senses. He knew Mukuro had to be hiding somewhere, if only because he refused to believe that with bullets like the ones Reborn favored around, the one Mukuro had used had actually killed him.

A suddenly visible Mukuro scoffed. "Your sense for battle has improved markedly, I'll give you that. But you're pushing your luck if you think that is all it takes. Out of the six battle skills I possess," Mukuro said, readying his staff, "there's one more I haven't shown you, remember?"

"The fifth path," Reborn said in a bored tone, "the state of humans."

"Exactly. This world we live in is the state of humans. Because I hate this world, I hate this skill the most. If possible," Mukuro said, reaching up with one hand to press fingers against his red eye, "I would rather not have used it."

Mukuro pressed his fingers into the eye socket; fluids began to leak out. "The state of humans truly is the ugliest state. Because, it is also the most dangerous skill." His hand dropped back to his staff, revealing that the eye was whole, though the kanji visible within in had changed to "five" and there was rather a lot of blood staining that side of the boy's face.

"Beware of that black aura," Reborn cautioned.

Mukuro charged forward.

As fights went it was interesting for Tsuna. He was gaining actual experience against someone aiming to kill him for not being very cooperative. He learned that the mittens would, when in gauntlet form and passed through the flame at his forehead, also burst into flame, and allow him to fly.

After that it was short work dealing with Mukuro. True, a part of him wanted to just end his opponent, but the letter from the Ninth had said capture. The others were too damaged to worry much about. Though what he was supposed to do with them once they were all down…

He shattered Mukuro's trident and, because it was there and annoying him, used his Sky Flames to burn away the black aura the other boy was sporting (Reborn called it purifying). That bit about Mukuro wanting to use his body as a vehicle to possess mafia and civilian leaders the world around so he could bathe the world in blood was … ambitious.

The story of Estraneo was revolting, but not unexpected at that point. Most people didn't go off the deep end without a good reason to.

Right about the time the Vongola medical personnel that Reborn called in arrived, so did the Vindice, and that … was new.

Chains, collars, tall people with bandaged skin, enveloping cloaks, and top hats.

Tsuna wondered if those bandages covering their faces were illusion or not, because how else could they see clearly enough to capture the escapees?

The other thing he learned, after seeing Fūta, Bianchi, Hayato, Takeshi, and Kyoya on gurneys, was that the aftereffects of the Rebuke Bullet were extraordinarily painful.

'If I have to live through this bullshit again,' he thought, 'I am doing everything I can to avoid being shot.'

. . .

He knew something was wrong when he trotted downstairs to check to see if dinner was ready. The kitchen table was groaning under the weight of far too many dishes and his mother was making yet more of them.

Reborn was happily seated at the table, indulging, and I-Pin and Lambo rushed to join him in partaking of the offered bounty.

"Daddy's coming back after two years," his mother trilled when she finally paid enough attention to the other people in the room to answer his question about what was going on.

"Is that something to be surprised about?" Bianchi asked.

His eyes narrowed. "He's finally been found?"

"Found?" His mother tossed a confused look his way. "What are you talking about?"

"He disappeared, didn't he?"

"My goodness, Tsuna! Then where do you think the funding for your school and this house come from?"

"Insurance?" he said quite reasonably.

Nana blinked. "I've kept in touch with him all this time," she said dreamily. "Tsuna's daddy is digging up oil in a foreign country. He's a man of dirt."

"You said he disappeared."

"Oh? That's because Daddy said, before he left, 'I'm going, Nana. You like men who're romantic, right? Then tell Tsuna that I disappeared and became a star in the sky or something. That way, it sounds more romantic.'"

'My father is a moron,' he decided, 'and my mother…' He grabbed a plate of food, hashi, and a napkin, and booked it upstairs to be away from the mayhem.

The next morning he went into school for the half day, then headed for the shopping district with his companions. He would call them friends, but he had lived too many years already and died too many times to feel all that comfortable thinking of them with any sense of genuine closeness.

He was having a nice talk with Kyoko about Lambo and I-Pin when he heard an explosion or something similar. A crash? He looked around a bit wildly and saw something impact a nearby building.

A few seconds later, just as he had gotten to his feet, a body crashed into him and sent him to the pavement.

"I'm sorry," said the—he appeared to be a boy around Tsuna's age, and had blue flames dancing on his forehead.

'So a Rain like Takeshi.'

"Thou art—!"

'And someone's been learning from the wrong source.'

"Tsuna!"

"Are you okay, Tsuna!?"

Even Kyoko got in on it with, "Tsuna-kun, are you okay?"

He had just gotten up when he heard, "Vooooiii!" He looked toward the voice to see a tall man, with long silver hair. He was dressed in black and had a long sword strapped to one hand.

"What's this? Outsiders parading around?"

'You're in my country, asshole.'

"I'll slice up any trash who gets in the way," Leather-Fetish promised menacingly.

. . .

'So, that happened,' he thought in bemusement. Takeshi and Hayato had been shown just how far behind they were in terms of training when faced with someone the calibre of Leather-Fetish—Superbi Squalo. Basil (or more properly, Basilicum) was far better trained than those two, but even he was not good enough to do more than delay things.

It was strange to be called Tsuna-sama. Or had he said Tsuna-dono? Tsuna shook his head and shrugged.

Dino had arrived, along with his men, to save the day and, after Squalo got away with the rings Basil had tried to give to Tsuna, handed over the real set.

He left the hospital Dino had set up in something of a pother. All this mafia stuff was encroaching on his life more and more. The shopping district had taken some heavy damage during the confrontation, and now he had—

He stopped dead. There was a veritable forest of clothing hanging outside his house, drying in the sun, all sized for an adult male, and quite a few of them looked like jumpsuits. There was a whole lot of orange.

Bianchi was quick to tell him that, "Papà is back. Mamma went out to buy more food. Papà quickly devoured enough to feed twenty people, after all."

To add to his quickly deteriorating day, he realized that the children were all drunk on sake or, as "Papà" would put it, "magic water". As for his father, that man was passed out in the living room, surrounded by empty booze bottles and beer cans, empty dishes, and was clothed only in his underthings.

Tsuna turned away in disgust and snatched up two of the children. It was a bit of a struggle getting up the stairs, but he managed (judicious use of Earth Flames helped lighten the load) and put the two to bed. He then tracked down Fūta and slid him into a bed as well, then hid in his own room.

The next morning he was woken at four o'clock by a moron who wanted to go "catch breakfast".

"I have school. I'll pass."

Iemitsu sulked off and Tsuna fell back to sleep, only to wake up later to Lambo's goofy laugh which, for some reason kept getting softer then louder then softer then louder…

'Oh,' he thought muzzily. 'I bet Dad is playing with Lambo.' He only woke up properly when he heard a cry of pain, and then his father promising to make it better with more "magic water". He fell out of bed and dashed downstairs, dramatically whooshing the sliding glass door open.

"You can't make Lambo-kun drink sake!"

"Hey, Tsuna~! You've been sleeping ever since Daddy came home," the man said with a sulky pout. "I thought you were avoiding me and that broke my heart."

'If only,' he thought, and grabbed Lambo and I-Pin, hustling them back inside. He barely had enough time to get ready for school as it was. The two kids were pushed into a bedroom to play and he continued on to his room so he could prepare.

He reached up to scratch an itch and his hand bumped into metal. Tsuna awkwardly looked down and saw that he was wearing a chain necklace, and one of the half-rings was threaded through it. "Did you put this one me?" he asked Reborn, who was cozily watching television.

"Not me. But it's yours just the same. That Vongola ring is the proof of the next Vongola boss."

"I'm not even fifteen yet, never mind an adult," he protested.

Reborn shrugged and had a sip of coffee. "That ring is the identifying proof of the rightful successor. Some malicious people are starting to target that."

"The guy from yesterday."

Reborn nodded. "The long-haired guy—his name is Superbi Squalo and he's a member of Vongola's so-called ultimate independent assassination team. The Varia is a group with a high level of loyalty and they've accomplished a lot of missions, but regardless, they're a team that works in the darkness, so they never come out in the open."

'Which contradicts what happened yesterday.'

"But one day they started to lose control. The day after that man appeared…"

"And when they realize the rings Leather-Fetish took were fake, they'll come here, right?"

Reborn nodded again, though he also gave Tsuna an odd look for the nickname. "Those fakes were pretty high quality, so I figure it will take around ten days for them to figure it out. So that gives us time to train, so you can take on the Varia."

Tsuna huffed and pulled on his school things, grabbed his bag, and took off.

"Feel free to talk to Daddy about anything~!" his father said as he rushed by.

'Yeah, right. I wouldn't trust you with a broken toy, never mind my thoughts or problems.'

Takeshi and Hayato were waiting for him halfway to school. They each also had a half-ring. Somehow, in trying to get the two to give them back, his, Dino's (funny how he kept popping up), and Reborn's words saw them enthusiastically agreeing to the upcoming fights. All because there would be danger.

'Great, my so-called guardians are adrenaline junkies and possibly suicidal.'

. . .

He was still a little peeved.

Bad enough that his father was part of the mafia (it made sense, considering his Vongola blood had to come from somewhere, and he was fairly certain his mother wasn't secretly off doing hits or gathering information or—well, in theory, she could have been the one keeping him safe all this time by taking out assassins come to murder him, but…) and the External Advisor to the Vongola.

It was terrible that Lambo had been shoved into the Lightning Guardian role and nearly killed, all because he had the Ten Year Bazooka and Iemitsu was certain that alone would win the day. More fool he, then.

It was decent that Hayato actually listened to him and broke off the battle for the Storm Ring and had somewhere learned that his own life held as much value as anyone else's, but it was sickening that his father had drafted in Mukuro, of all people, as his Mist Guardian, via a nice young girl who hero-worshiped the boy and was only cooperating because Mukuro said to.

So sure, no worries there that his Mist(s) wouldn't suddenly turn on him and stab him in the kidney or something. Sure, sure. He wasn't even the least bit concerned over whether a double-cross was in the planning.

The most interesting thing from that battle (aside from Mukuro kicking Mammon's infant ass) was when Mammon said, "I denounce you and your reincarnation cycle rubbish! Humans will repeat the same life many times in infinite cycles."

It made him wonder if he was stuck in exactly that, because he seemed to recall that reincarnates lost all memory of their past lives and began anew. But he was remembering everything.

Reborn had been teaching him, with Basil's help, how to figure out (and presumably master) the Vongola technique called Zero Point Breakthrough. How constantly being pitted against Basil in a nearly no-holds-barred sparring match was supposed to accomplish that was beyond him. Something about how he was supposed to go from a neutral state to plus and minus, like a pendulum or something.

True, he could think of some potential uses for it, such as figuring out how to absorb Basil's flames when he attacked, and being able to freeze a person… But it still seemed like a very situational technique, and it took a long damn time to swing to the point where it could be unleashed.

He heaved a sigh and gazed out over the battlefield for the Cloud Ring. The field was fenced in with barbed wire straight out of a prisoner of war camp, with motion-sensitive Gatling gun emplacements (presumably to make things more "exciting"), and land mines.

Xanxus thought the whole thing was a hoot judging by the way he laughed.

The Cervello started the fight.

Gola Mosca launched itself forward on jets of flame (real flame, not dying will flames, because a machine didn't have a will), raised one "hand" and launched missiles.

Kyoya seemed to wait forever, until the last possible second, and then struck with his tonfa. Tsuna exploded right about then and rained down bits of flesh over the general area, victim to a missile Kyoya had diverted from his person.