And the winner, by a landslide, is Yamamoto Takeshi! (With Hibari taking an honorable second place.)
WHY SO DIFFICULT, YAMAMOTO? My goodness. I spent several days forcing myself not to simply write "Yamamoto is awesome" ten times in a row and call it a chapter.
Thankfully, that is not what I ended up doing. At all.
PS: Reviewers? THANK YOU SO MUCH! (Should you ever want a PM, just ask, because I am…really, really bad about that otherwise.)
Yamamoto Takeshi
1.
Yamamoto's father has been valiantly attempting to teach him the way of the sword ever since the boy learned to walk. His inability to do so initially has nothing to do with Yamamoto's own reluctance to learn Shigure Souen Ryu.
Yamamoto's mother is the true baseball fanatic and long-time champion in their eternal battle of wills. Her first loss is not to her husband, but to illness, and for a few years Yamamoto is unsure whether his devotion to the sport is due to his hopes for the future or his desire to preserve the past.
The question is finally laid to rest when he is forced to deal with the fact that fate (and Reborn) has chosen to give him a very different future, and his equally valuable new family requires a far different set of skills.
Yamamoto has always been very big on family.
2.
Yamamoto is constantly baffled at other people's incredulity when he insists the entire mafia affair is just another game.
After all, some would claim that baseball's just a game and he was willing to give his life for it all the same.
(Honestly, calling it a game is the only way he's able to take it seriously.)
3.
Deep down, the thing that terrifies Yamamoto most is the realization that Reborn was completely accurate in his assessment. He really is a natural born assassin.
Because of this, when Byakuran takes over Yamamoto swears to himself that he will die before getting captured by the Millefiore family. He's heard about what happened to Uni, and will never allow it to happen to him.
Say what you will about the rest of the Vongola family, but Yamamoto's the only one with the perfect poker face. Tsuna would never see it coming.
4.
While Yamamoto has always liked Gokudera as a human being, he finds himself unable to respect the other boy until his loss at the Storm ring battle.
The whole reason Yamamoto first befriended Tsuna is because the Decimo-to-be taught him the value of his own life, and he doesn't believe that anyone who doesn't do the same is fit to be Tsuna's right hand man.
5.
Yamamoto would like to think his relationship with any one of his fellow Guardians is fairly decent, insofar as it exists, but he finds his ideal drinking buddy not in anyone from the Vongola family, but Dino Cavallone.
Although he found Dino to be a friendly enough guy during his impromptu visit to Italy all those years ago when Gokudera had his crisis of faith, it's actually because of Squalo that he gets to know the Cavallone boss better. The relationship between Dino and Yamamoto's hot-headed tutor is, apparently, a long, complicated, occasionally bizarre one involving a few years of shared classes and several hundred concussions, but whatever its true nature, it ensures that many of Yamamoto's training sessions take place alongside Hibari Kyouya's.
Inevitably, these training sessions deteriorate into furniture-shattering, wall-smashing, and (when they're in the same general area) angry-Xanxus-summoning battles between Squalo and Hibari, the latter of whom will never tolerate getting shouted down at, and the former of whom will never take an insult without brandishing a blade in someone's general direction.
As these epic confrontations take place, Dino and Yamamoto stand safely out of harm's way and pass the time by cheerfully discussing anything from the weather to the Vongola's latest plans for infiltrating a rival family. Yamamoto finds Dino's upbeat attitude to be not only delightfully similar to his own, but refreshing after spending his days surrounded by his (for the most part) dour, cynical, or downright sociopathic family members.
If it weren't for the issue of skill set, he'd wonder if he and Hibari had accidentally ended up with the wrong tutors.
6.
As amusing and bipolar as Yamamoto finds his relationship with Gokudera Hayato, when the Vongola has need for partnerships he just as often ends up working with one Sasagawa Ryohei.
The two of them are theoretically far more compatible, between their mutual energy and inability to decide between the requirements of their family and their passion for their civilian hobbies (although Yamamoto suspects Ryohei is far less conflicted, as his work skills and hobby are technically one in the same). Additionally, Rain's tranquility is the perfect complement to Sun's activation, each able to counter the other at a moment's notice.
As ridiculous as it may sound, it isn't until Byakuran's rise to power that either of them realizes that they honestly have to give up their respective sports, and Yamamoto's grateful to have someone who empathizes with the terrible loss he feels when they do.
(Then again, this is also the point in time when Ryohei finally stops asking him to join the boxing club.)
7.
Yamamoto walks away from his first assassination with a broken arm, three fractured ribs, two bullet wounds, and a nasty cut on his chin that forever leaves a scar. That's not even taking into account the concussion an angry Gokudera gives him afterwards and the damage to his eardrums once Squalo gets word of the affair and spends the entirety of Yamamoto's duration in the hospital screaming at him for his carelessness.
Despite all this, the only thing that actually bothers him about the incident is how incredibly easy it was.
8.
Yamamoto is unique among the Guardians in that he truly, genuinely likes people. Tsuna, Gokudera, and Lambo are all either too emotionally insecure or maladjusted to have functional social lives; Ryohei's manic enthusiasm puts him on a different plane of existence from ordinary people; Chrome has outright admitted to disliking interaction with anyone outside of the family; and Hibari and Mukuro are, quite frankly, outright insane, so it's up to Yamamoto to handle pretty much any situation involving civilians.
The only time he ever comes close to self-pity is when he realizes that, despite their collective inability to interact with average human beings, his fellow Guardians are still miles better at normality than pretty much any other member of their highly dysfunctional family.
9.
Superbi Squalo is a loud, violent, arrogant bloodthirsty maniac, and, Yamamoto is reluctant to admit, far better at teaching swordsmanship than Yamamoto's own father. Between his desperate need for a tutor and his conviction that deep down in Squalo's black soul there is a vaguely decent man fiercely dedicated to his both his craft and his boss, Yamamoto finds himself liking the Varia's Rain Guardian despite his many faults and greatly enjoys their spars.
He cannot, however, deny that he is slowly going deaf in his left ear.
10.
Yamamoto is literally the only Guardian with a real social life. Ryohei may have his sister and fanatical dedication to his boxing club, Hibari may have Namimori and his responsibilities to the Disciplinary Committee, and Lambo may, as he grows, become the most socially awkward Casanova on the planet, but Yamamoto has always had something of a second family in his baseball team, and even when Reborn declares him a member of the Vongola, he still spends as much time as he can with them.
When the time comes to choose between bat and blade, it isn't the skill that Yamamoto considers, but the family.
He will always appreciate everything his teammates have done for him, but when he was at his lowest and ready to jump, it was Tsuna who came running to catch him.
Somehow, despite the writer's block, Yamamoto's ended up being really long…
In other news, once again I ask for your help in who comes next between the Guardians, Haru, Kyoko, Bianchi, Reborn, Lal Mirch, and I-Pin.
Until next time!
(And please review. The parenthesis compels you. Ooooooh.)