Other chapters won't come up quite so quickly, and the story will (loosely) follow Anime canon. Fair warning.

Hou-ou
(the Japanese pronunciation of fenghuang)
Vaguely comparable to phoenix (only vaguely), hou-ou are immortal birds that symbolize balance and the colors of the male's tail represent the virtues of benevolence/charity, honesty/hard work/loyalty/altruism (yes, that's all encompassed in one word), knowledge, integrity, and what boils down to 'good manners'/politeness. The bird is a symbol of the Royal house and as a whole and has connections to fire, sun, justice, and fidelity; among other things. Basically, and all around positive bird that definitely has to do with a good ruler.

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The ridiculousness of the unicorn aside, Reborn had not expected his student to continue attracting new creatures out of myth. Apparently he was somewhat lacking in his foresight.

When things started going wrong with Rokudo Mukuro possessing people and Tsuna not wanting to hurt them; on having a multicolored glowing bird with an armored back, a snakelike neck, and five peacock-shaped tail-feathers of five different colors all capped off by a quite beautiful crest pop up out of nowhere; all he could do was groan and hide his face in his hands.

On the bright side, Mukuro was so startled that he lost hold of his possession and Tsuna managed to smash his knife.

When the Vindice showed up to take Mukuro and his subordinates, Tsuna stepping in (terrifyingly politely, at that) with what was unmistakably a hou-ou hovering behind him had them leaving Ken, Chikusa, and Mukuro himself under Tsuna's care while releasing Lancia entirely.

There was just something wrong with that—but he was sure the Vindice knew what the bird meant as well as he did, and the fact that it was obviously lending its support to Tsuna's request had even the enforcers of the Mafia world backing down.

Tsuna wasn't saying anything for the serial killers, though. The ones that actively enjoyed killing went with the Vindice with Tsuna's blessing on the arrests, which meant that Mukuro—for all his apparent psychosis—was not inherently evil.

Not if a hou-ou was willing to support Tsuna's claim.

Still. This was not how Reborn had envisioned Tsuna finding a Mist.

(The bird hung around constantly for three days after that, making sure that all of Tsuna's Elements and Dino and his men saw it. It was ridiculous.)

Tsuna, of course, decided to take it in stride. Mukuro had settled quite a bit, and Tsuna's unique brand of rehabilitation therapy had the mass-murderer that was probably going to end up as his Mist Guardian showing a great deal more care towards his underlings.

(The fact that he ended up saving a girl that looked a lot like she could be his sister from being hit by a car two weeks later and then brought her home to Tsuna after finding out she'd been badly neglected really said a lot about either Tsuna's ability to judge character or his ability to change character. Or both. Probably both.)

Tsuna sighed, eyed his growing family, and started looking for sources of income.

(Three weeks after that, he'd somehow overthrown the Momokyokai by accident and ended up with all their businesses under his control. A bit of tearful exasperation and judicious use of Gokudera's math skills and Mukuro's experience in handling violent underlings later, and Tsuna had a steady source of income as well as a safe place for his ever-growing Family to stay. It was only another week and a half before the Momokyokai had all fallen in love with their new boss—including the old boss—and were all but squabbling over ways to make him happy. This apparently included taking over all other Yakuza groups in Namimori and the surrounding area and a complete devotion to protecting anyone and anything that Tsuna cared about, especially his friends and family. The next kidnapping attempt on Fuuta had been beaten down with impressive brutality, considering Hibari hadn't been on the scene.)

Reborn looked at everything his student was accomplishing (more than half of it without even trying) and found himself torn between pride and exasperation.

At this rate, Tsuna was going to have an empire rivalling Vongola's before he even got officially recognized as heir.

(The fact that the hou-ou had taken to showing up periodically just like the unicorn only made things worse.

Or maybe better. Reborn wasn't sure yet.)

xxxx

Tsuna huffed in exasperation, stuffing his (completed) homework in his bag and turning on the paperwork that accumulated on the boss' desk. Which was unfortunately his desk. And since he was now the boss of every group the Momokyokai had zealously gone out and conquered for him, he'd given up on the ridiculousness of everything and just gone along with it. Also, Tsuna had decreed all the former scattered groups as one and put up a renaming contest. Somehow, as Yakuza pride was apparently trumped by what was really starting to look like a cult devoted to Tsuna himself, none of them complained.

There had been a near-unanimous call to name the new group after Tsuna himself, and he'd refused to have his name in it so they'd compromised on Sora, for Sky.

They even took to his policies of 'if you're going to be illegal, it's going to be the kind of illegal Hibari says is okay' remarkably well, which probably had something to do with Tsuna putting Hibari in charge of discipline and Ryohei in charge of training.

Yamamoto, determined not to be left out after the first assassination attempt Tsuna, went to his father for swordsmanship lessons.

(Tsuna was fairly sure that Mukuro was taking to his new position as head of internal security way too enthusiastically. The poor would-be assassin hadn't stood a chance. The fact that Mukuro had handed the guy over to sweet-looking little Chrome and she'd proceeded to reduce him to terrified gibbering confessions—an irate Triad who disliked that Tsuna wasn't paying exorbitant tithes to the so-called 'overlord' of the general area being the one who'd put out the hit—without ever laying a finger on him just went to show that Tsuna's Mists were cruel. Or possibly just overprotective.)

As he thumbed through his paperwork—Gokudera was in charge of finance overall, and Reborn had been willing to advise on candidates for bringing in delegated local reports, so there was less of it than there could have been—one of the Sora brought a letter.

It was really quite a nice envelope and bore a distinctive seal. He eyed it for a moment, then shrugged and opened it, "Thank you for bringing this, Kuro-san. Would you mind waiting a moment?"

The man went starry-eyed (he was definitely in the cult), "Of course, Juudaime-sama!"

And that, Tsuna blamed Gokudera for. The whole group had picked it up from him, and while they had yet to realize why, being too blinded by worshipful devotion, they still called him 'Tenth'. Tsuna was half convinced that most of them thought he was some kind of deity for that—foxes especially were believed to reach godhood if they gained ten tails.

At the very least, it wasn't discouraging his growing cult. Then again, the fact that he could light himself up with vibrant orange-gold fire didn't do much to discourage the worship, either, and the not-so-mythological creatures that popped up in his presence only made it worse.

He shook off the thoughts and read the letter—a meeting request from a group calling itself the First Triad. He considered this, then tilted the letter towards the corner of the room he could sense Reborn watching from.

A grumpy sound preceded his tutor hopping up on his desk to read the notice.

The flicker of his eyes was enough. "I suppose I should arrange a neutral location, then?"

Reborn nodded.

"Any suggestions?"

"Tokyo. Rent out the penthouse in one of the nicer hotels, or a restaurant in Ginza. You haven't conquered Tokyo, yet, so it should qualify as neutral territory."

"… and the fact that you can say that so casually says so much about my life. But I'd rather a natural location to meet, then a possible shift to somewhere we can eat."

Reborn considered that, interest in his eyes. "Well. If you feel like being daring, you could go to China."

"Hm," Tsuna turned the idea over in his mind, then nodded slightly. "I-pin may want to come, but her mentor seemed to want her away from assassin groups, and I don't know what Family she officially belongs to. Hibari should probably stay; someone needs to keep things in line. Gokudera will have to come with me, and Yamamoto. Mukuro will want to, and Chrome can take over for him while we're gone. I assume you have a suitable neutral location in mind?"

Reborn nodded, "The area is known as the 'Blessed Forest', and is reserved for… underground families. It's a neutral meeting place, and it has a town nearby with a restaurant that is generally heralded as one of the best in all of China. It is considered polite, however, to get all business talk done in the clearing. Before eating, in the case of neutrals or enemies, and after in the case of allies."

"How much Chinese do I need to know, and what dialect?"

"You're decent with Mandarin, now," Reborn pointed out. "I-pin being here has helped in that respect, and the First Triad is from that area. You should be fine. I will, naturally, accompany you."

"… I-pin's from that family, isn't she?"

"She was," Reborn conceded, slightly emphasizing the tense. "She was apprenticed out to Fon, who is in a similar position with the Triads as I am with the Vongola. He's technically neutral, but favored. As they actually apprenticed her to him, she is no longer considered part of the group and is instead contracted from without on a mercenary basis. Fon has entrusted her to your care, and so she is your ward, and they don't actually have claim even by their laws."

Still, Tsuna wanted to keep her away from anyone who would ask a five-year-old to kill. He rubbed a hand over his face and wrote a polite letter in grass-script (thank you, I-pin) suggesting the meeting place and citing available times. He had a passport, of course, and he could make sure the others did, too. That was one good thing about the ridiculous number of contracts, contacts, and worshippers he'd gotten.

He wrote out an address as given by Reborn and handed the sealed letter (he was using a personal seal of an elegantly simple dragon curled in on itself that he'd irritably burned out of a piece of steel with his own Flames. Intriguingly, it left a faint glow of his imprinted Flames on any wax he used) to Kuro. "Please see to it that this gets mailed out today, Kuro-san," he instructed, smiling.

Kuro looked overjoyed at the assignment, to the point that Tsuna was envisioning a wagging puppy-tail. He had a cult of Gokudera-ardent devotees. How was this his life?

(The return message was acceptance of place and one of the listed times. Tsuna sent back a polite agreement and arranged the trip.)

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