Tsuna had never been able to figure out how Reborn managed to show up at the most inconvenient times. It was as though, somewhere in the world, there was a large, red light that buzzed and whirled every time he was in a situation that would effectively mortify him if someone else were to see.

An example of this might be the way he had managed to accidentally blindfold one of his eyes with his shirt and tangle his trousers around his ankles. It wasn't until after he had tripped, landed awkwardly on the side of his bed and found it impossible to wriggle back to his feet that Reborn had popped into view, just inside his peripheral sight, with a sly comment about the possibility of training clumsiness out of test subjects. Of course, once Tsuna had made his opinion of the infant quite clear, Reborn had sat down with a Leon-tea cup – still empty to show his oh-so-suave attitude and indifference towards his pitiful student's state. It had taken Tsuna a full six minutes of intense cursing, slight yelling and violent thrashing to finally struggle into a sitting position from which he could glare angrily at the hitman. Of course the expression's impact was diminished slightly by the way Reborn simply smiled in response and continued bouncing the Leon-paddle ball against the board; not affected in the slightest.

Another time that made Tsuna flush in a mixture of anger and embarrassment was the time that Reborn had decided to begin a lecture about keeping his guard up mid-way through his morning…routine. He had jumped a foot in the air and made the mistake of starting to turn around when he realized what the results would end up being. Even though he managed to save himself an even larger mess, the damage had been done and Tsuna had been blushing a fiery red as he ran a sanitized washcloth over the floor around the toilet. Reborn even had the nerve to stand over…well next to him as he went, talking about how this was a perfect example of how the combination of clumsiness, lack of vigilance and simple-mindedness was going to be the death of Tsuna one day. Of course, the brunette had bit his tongue to stop himself from pointing out that he doubted even the most ruthless of enemies would attack him mid-way through a piss.

All in all, Reborn's methods were becoming slowly more and more merciless as the years went on. After many a discussion with Yamamoto about the kid, the star baseball player insisted that Reborn was just a little enthusiastic about doing his job. Even after Tsuna had described the…toilet incident (and when Yamamoto had finally stopped rolling on the ground, clutching his stomach with laughter) the swordsman simply shrugged and mentioned that the baby might've actually had a point. It wasn't until later that day that Tsuna realized Yamamoto had been serious.

Of course, the results garnered from Gokudera and his conversation had been slightly less mortifying yet involved quite a bit more yelling and desperate no-more-dynamite-for-the-love-of-god-please's. When the explosives expert had found out that Tsuna had been left flailing about for a quarter of an hour, half naked and embarrassed, he'd gotten that dark gleam in his eye that threatened the life of anyone who even looked at Tsuna for quite a while afterwards. Of course it was then that Tsuna finally asked what had been bugging him.

"How do you think he does it?"

Gokudera looked at him thoughtfully for a long moment before his head shot up in satisfaction and he sighed in an 'ohh, I get it now' kind of way.

"What is it?" Tsuna asked, "Do you have an idea?"

Gokudera nodded enthusiastically before leaning in closely to Tsuna and beckoning him forward so that they could whisper and still hear each other.

"I fear that if Reborn overhears this and I'm right, I may not live until morning. Tenth, please, take everything that I'm about to say on hundred percent seriously or you may be at risk as well."

"Okay," Tsuna agreed hesitantly, unsure of whether his right hand actually had a feasible idea or he was just caught up in another one of those elaborate suspicions about U.M.A's and the like.

"I think…" Gokudera took a deep steadying breath before continuing fearfully, "I believe that Reborn-san may dabble in black magic."

There was a very, very long silence as Tsuna attempted to work out what the hell Gokudera was on about and the silverette stared at him with all seriousness, until finally, Tsuna asked the one thing he could think of.

"Wait, what?"