In which Hibari is a douchebag. And so is Reborn.

Disclaimer: I do not own KHR or its characters.


The next day, Tsuna went to school like nothing had happened. It wasn't as if he had to start a band, right? And so what if the demon baby had threatened to kill him if he didn't?

He might have been caught up in the infant's threatening aura yesterday, but now that he had gotten out of the house without any harm to himself, he was in full control of his senses.

For one thing, murder was illegal. For another thing, no matter how dense his mother was, she would notice if her son was killed by some demon hitman baby thing.

He could barely believe that she had let the baby live in the house so easily. She hadn't even asked if Tsuna had gotten someone knocked up. Was he really that unpopular? Not that it mattered. The only girl he liked was Sasagawa Kyoko. However, there was no way the sweet, beautiful idol of his school would ever be interested in him romantically.

Still, he had all the time in the world since the baby wasn't going to kill him anytime soon.

"Don't think that you're safe because murder is illegal. I have my ways."

Tsuna screamed and fell back on the sidewalk. Reborn sat on a nearby fence, seemingly having come out of nowhere.

"And if you don't form that band, I will kill you. Or someone else will because no matter how useless you are, you're still Vongola." The baby fixed his fedora with a glint in his eye. "And being Vongola means you'll have a lot of enemies."

"A-alright, if you say so?" said Tsuna with a note of uncertainty. He got to his feet and patted down his uniform before glancing around to see if anyone had seen that. He was almost immediately assaulted with a pistol to his already bruised face.

"I do say so, and you should listen," Reborn urged grimly. "But moving on, you should hurry or you'll be late for school again."

Reminded by the baby's words, Tsuna looked down at his watch. "If I'm late, Hibari's going to give me a second beating!" the boy exclaimed, running for his life. Reborn watched him go, marveling at how the preteen could be so slow despite how desperately he was pumping his legs. They'd have to work on that later on.

Yamamoto Takeshi rushed by the baby, a good deal faster than Tsuna.

The baseball player backed up a little and looked into the deep black abyss of Reborn's eyes. "Are you lost, lil' guy?" he asked with a friendly smile.

Reborn smiled back. "Yes I am. Nice to meet you. I'm Reborn, Sawada Tsunayoshi's tutor."

If Yamamoto thought the idea of a baby tutoring Tsuna a bit strange, nothing in his demeanor showed it. "Oh! Tsuna? I go to school with him. Want me to take you to him?" he offered.

"Good idea," said Reborn, hopping onto the baseball player's shoulder without breaking a sweat. It never hurt to hitch a ride once in a while.


"Herbivore, I'm going to bite you to death."

The cool steel gaze of the prefect locked onto Tsuna the moment he stepped onto the school grounds. The tonfas were out and Hibari was already shifting into a battle stance.

It wasn't because Tsuna was late. It couldn't be. His watch said there was still some time left before school started so he wasn't late for once.

"W-wait! I'm not late!" Tsuna cried out, taking a step back. The looming sight of the school stayed in his field of vision, beyond Hibari's shoulder. It was so close, yet so far.

"You're not," Hibari conceded, and the tonfas lowered by a millimeter.

Tsuna breathed a sigh of relief and went to walk around Hibari so he could just go to homeroom.

"However, I still owe you a second beating," the prefect continued, sidestepping into Tsuna's path. The brunette squeaked in fear, wondering why this had to happen to him.

Hibari answered his silent question. "The one last time was for causing a disturbance. This one is for butchering the school anthem."

And Tsuna took his second beating lying down with his injuries from last time still stinging. He never knew just how seriously the prefect took the school anthem. After showing the sobbing brunette, Hibari tucked his tonfas back into his jacket sleeves and walked off casually. Tsuna stayed down just in case the prefect changed his mind.

"Hey Tsuna! I found your tutor and he's been telling me a lot of things about the band you're trying to start! What are you doing on the ground?"

A hand grabbed his shoulder and rolled him onto his back. He found himself looking up at Reborn's face, with Yamamoto's cheery countenance in the background.

"It was Hibari, wasn't it?" Yamamoto asked as Tsuna pulled himself upright.

Tsuna looked at his dusty uniform, and patted himself down, moving awkwardly because of the aches and pains in his body. "Yeah."

For a fleeting moment, Yamamoto's eyes sharpened uncharacteristically. It was so quick Tsuna wondered if it had simply been a trick of the light. The baseball player went on to say in a lighthearted voice, "You know how you can get back at him? You could write a better school anthem with that band of yours!"

"No, I don't want to get back at Hibari," Tsuna said, his eyes going to Reborn. It was the stupid baby's fault in the first place that he had even gotten beaten up. He was the one he should get back at, if he even felt like avenging his dignity.

"I think this Yamamoto guy's got a good idea," Reborn interjected. "The way you kids sang the current anthem would make your voices unforgivable even to the pope. A more contemporary song would make the kids want to sing decently."

"Wait, Hibari would never allow thi-"

"Well, that's settled then! You'll write a better school anthem!" Yamamoto clapped Tsuna on the back as they walked, driving the breath out of the preteen with an "oomph". However, despite the show of friendliness, the baseball player's voice was wistful. "I wish I were a part of your band. This seems like a lot of fun..."

"Why don't you join then? We'll need a drummer," Reborn offered.

Tsuna straightened, his eyes going wide. Everything was playing into the baby's hands, like everyone else was simply a puppet for his evil elaborate plan! There was no way Yamamoto could join! The man had baseball practice! He had games coming up; he couldn't waste his time on a stupid little band. And Tsuna couldn't even write songs or sing or play any instruments. The last instrument he had played was in elementary school, and even then, the music teacher would yell at him for producing such awful screeching noises from his recorder. There was no way this plan would work.

"Su-"

"NO!"

Two sets of eyes turned to focus on Tsuna. The boy felt uncomfortable under the heavy gaze of the baby and the quizzical eyes of the baseball player.

Determined, he worked up the courage to speak without stuttering. "Yamamoto has baseball."

"Oh right, I do!" Yamamoto exclaimed. For some reason the baseball player sounded slightly disappointed. Why would he? Tsuna thought the idea of some upstart middle school band would be a horrible thing to be a part of, and Yamamoto had gained much of his popularity from his skill with baseball.

"A-and we're going to be late, so let's stop talking about silly things so early in the morning, okay?" Tsuna turned to Reborn to tell the baby to go home, but he was already gone.

Sighing to himself, Tsuna ran off into the school building, while Yamamoto lagged behind. The brunette glanced back once to see what was taking him so long.

The solitary figure of the baseball idol looked almost sad in the distance.