Chapter 5 – Trouble in Cloud Nine

"Wake up Tezu-baka," Reborn said as he pulled the covers from Tezuka's sleepy form. The boy was still asleep. "You don't ever learn do you?" Reborn transformed Leon into a large hammer. With one good heave he smashed it down next to Tezuka's head. That did the job alright.

"I'm awake, I'm awake! Please don't kill me Reborn-sensei!" Tezuka immediately stood, bowed and went as fast as he could to the bathroom to freshen up for school.

Reborn frowned at Tezuka's formality with him. He remembered the day that he and Tezuka had met very clearly.

"I'm going to be your new home tutor, my name is Reborn, the number one hitman of the world," he said giving a smile.

"What are you doing here kid? Get out, I don't play with little children," Tezuka sneered.

"I'm the tutor that your father, Sawada Iemitsu has sent to train you to be the next boss of the Vongola Famiglia," when Reborn said that, the annoyance all but drained from the young blonde's face.

Reborn understood from Iemitsu that Tezuka was aware of his heritage and what was in store for him in the future. It made him happy that Tezuka chose to bow and say, "I'm very sorry Reborn-sensei, I didn't know!" But there was something in those blue eyes that made Reborn scoff.

Deceit.

That was it. Tezuka was acting very natural before he announced that he would train him to be the next Vongola boss, but now had an almost mechanical way of speaking, trying to sound perfect. Well, Reborn needed to get to know the boy better before he made his first assessment.

If only he knew how Tezuka was three months ago, he may have made a phone call to the homeland and told Nono what a person Tezuka really was. Now it was far too late for that.

Tezuka made friends with Gokudera, Yamamato and even with Sasagawa Ryohei. All three were excellent future guardians. He could only hope that Tezuka would grow into an excellent boss as well.

Tezuka listened to his every word, changed how he behaved around his future guardians, and even smiled more, but all that didn't make Reborn feel any easier. Somehow, whenever he advised Tezuka, he would get the vibe that the blond only nodded but never truly listened. Reborn had met many men with same such qualities in the past; all were rotting in the ground and their Famiglia were wretched for eternity. He wondered if that was the future for Vongola with Tezuka as its head.

Reborn wasn't a quitter though; he would stick out the promised three years with Tezuka. If he could manage to change the boy by then, something he hoped for, then all would be well. If not...Well, he'd deal with it by then.

"I'm going to eat your breakfast if you're not downstairs in five minutes," he said before descending the stairs.

Five minutes later breakfast was served. Iemitsu sat at the head of the table with Tezuka to one side and Reborn to the other. Iemitsu insisted that Reborn take the seat at the head of the table, but Reborn declined. Iemitsu was the head of the Sawada family after all

A feeling crept up as he looked over the table towards Tezuka. He couldn't help but think that the seat should be occupied by someone cheerful and happy, someone who was honest and just, someone completely different from Tezuka.

For some strange reason the image of Abel Tsunayoshi appeared in his mind. Tezuka never asked him for advice, but Tsuna did on that cold night three months ago. It felt good to give advice to the boy who seemed too familiar.

"Something wrong Reborn?" Iemitsu asked before he continued eating his eggs.

"No, nothing," he answered.

{Trouble in Cloud Nine}

"Senpai."

"Senpai."

"Oi Senpai!"

"SENPAIIII!"

"WHAT!?" Tsuna yelled back as he looked at Fran while feeling the need to choke him.

"You've been in your room all day for the past two weeks, let's go outside and throw water balloons at toddlers or something," Fran said bored as he walked further into Tsuna's workroom.

Tsuna's workroom looked like a laboratory and office at the say time. One side consisted of metal and white, the other looked like any other normal office. Fran wondered if his senpai suffered from schizophrenia considering the weird interior of the room.

"I've been working on something very important for the Famiglia. It's not like we can just conjure up the Vongola Rings, so in the meantime I've been doing this," Tsuna said as he removed his lab coat and threw it on a chair to his right.

Fran walked towards Tsuna.

"You're working on a gun?" Fran said as he eyed the weird colored weapon. It looked like a normal Glock model handgun save for its color deviating from the normal black and gray,"I never knew you liked purple senpai."

Tsuna groaned, "I never said I did, and for your information I don't really care Fran. I want to change the color but the stupid thing doesn't want to react with the dye molecules that I've added, look," he said as he took the purple gun by its grip before putting it carefully into a wide beaker. He then pulled out a vial filled with dark substance out of a cabinet below him, "this is concentrated nitrogen with a specially added base group which to date is the strongest coloring substance of the entire world, Baron acquired it for me in its rarest state. If you get this on your hands, you'll never be able to remove it," Tsuna was wearing plastic gloves, "look," Tsuna poured the contents of the vial into the large glass beaker.

Fran watched as the substance engulfed the purple gun. A moment later Tsuna pulled out the gun with metal pincers. The pincers colored dark blue while the gun was unaffected. It was still purple. Tsuna washed the gun with cleansing water before putting it on the metal lab table.

"So it's not a normal gun?" Fran asked lazily.

"No, this gun is capable of things that interest Baron very much."

"What does it do?" He asked curiously.

Tsuna looked with scrutinizing eyes at the gun, "it defies the laws of the world," and then he held the gun in front of his eyes before locking it into a save under the lab table.

"You're not going to give it to Baron are you senpai?"

"No," Tsuna answered as he removed the gloves from his hands before throwing them into a nearby trash bin. Tsuna then looked towards Fran with a small smile, "let's get going Fran, we need to look into something at the school."

"Hai senpai," Fran said as Tsuna left without closing the door. Fran looked back to the small vault under the lab table. Fran was very curious, but he would never betray his senpai.

{Trouble in Cloud Nine}

The school was closed, which wasn't a surprise considering that it was seven p.m. The gates of the school were closed as well, but that wouldn't stop Tsuna.

"Lend me a hand Fran," Fran nodded before making a cuff with both his hands. Tsuna put one foot on it and then propelled himself upwards on top of the school's outside walls. Tsuna then lowered his hand to pull Fran up. Both of them were on the other side of the wall a moment later. When they turned to look at the school, someone's shadow formed on the ground.

"It isn't allowed to walk on school grounds at this time herbivores," Hibari had apparently waited for them. He had his tonfas out, "I will bite you both to death," Hibari walked forward arching his weapons. Tsuna wondered how Hibari knew they were coming. It was irrelevant now though.

"Hold on Hibari-san, we've just forgotten our school bags," the school prefect didn't seem to listen, he had bloodlust in his eyes.

The nightly visit to Namimori Middle School was very important. Logically speaking it would be unwise to fend off Hibari considering the Triad, but Tsuna and Fran needed the information that was stored in the school's storage servers. Their Famiglia's hacker with codename Lollypop had said that he could only provide them with the information regarding the Vongola Rings at eight p.m. Lollypop also said something about the Vongola's computer tech department having improved the school's security for an unknown reason; otherwise he would have just sent the information straight to Tsuna and Fran over their Famiglia's private network.

So Tsuna had no choice. "Hibari-san, we'll get our bags really quickly, will you just please let us through?"

"No, prepare to be bitten to death," Hibari was seconds away from Fran and Tsuna.

"Fran, get to the school and transfer the data on the hard drive that I've given you, I'll keep Hibari distracted."

"You sure senpai? I can help you know," Fran said lazily.

"Just go!" Tsuna said too harshly, but he knew that Fran wouldn't take it personally as they knew each other for far too long and understood when one meant something and didn't.

"Hai senpai," Fran ran towards the school, but looked at Hibari when passing him, "if you hurt senpai, I'll eat your skull."

"What makes you think I'll let you pass little herbivore?" Hibari ran with incredible speed towards Fran, raised one of his tonfa and slammed it down.

"Bad idea," Tsuna appeared in front of Hibari and caught the tonfa with his black knuckle brasses. Sparks flew as Tsuna punched Hibari's tonfa aside. An opening appeared, so Tsuna punched with his other hand, only to be blocked with Hibari's other tonfa. Hibari seemed to get more excited as they shared blows.

"For a herbivore you're interesting Abel Tsunayoshi," Hibari said as he ducked to evade a punch.

"Are you ready to stop now Hibari-san?" Tsuna asked as he jumped back, just in time to dodge a swipe.

"Don't think so herbivore," Hibari ran straight towards Tsuna.

Tsuna wanted to jump aside and try to give a hook, but suddenly his Hyper Intuition made him look to his right. There were thugs trying to get into the school. They wore hoodies.

Hibari noticed Tsuna not paying any attention to the fight anymore, when he realized why, he turned and grew very angry. "Herbivores!" He yelled to the ten newcomers, "Namimori Middle School is closed, I will bite you all to death for breaking the rules," his tone was deadly.

"Oh look Zani-san, it's the leader of the Disciplinary Committee," one of the thugs said to the albino with bandages on his face.

"He's no match for all of us," the albino smiled evilly as put on silver brasses on his knuckles while his crony friends held out metal bars, knives and all sorts of street weapons.

"Herbivore, it would be wise of you to be gone when I return from biting those delinquents to death," Hibari looked more annoyed and furious than before as he flicked his tonfas and walked towards the gang of ten.

Tsuna chose to stay and watch the fight. Fran should be retrieving the data right about now.

Five minutes later all ten, including the albino, Zani, who wanted to beat up Tsuna a few months back, lay in a pile with bruises and broken ribs.

"Still here Abel?" Hibari said as he smirked before standing in front of Tsuna.

"Correct, I wanted to see how you would fare against a gang with weapons. You seemed to have it all under control though."

"Most students are afraid to be bitten to death, why are you still here Abel?"

Tsuna wanted to smile, but held it in considering the person he was facing right, "how could I fear such a sweet and kind person like you Hibari-san?" Hibari scowled and flicked his tonfas again, ready to strike Tsuna. Tsuna sensed Fran waiting for him against the same wall that they used to hop over to the school's courtyard. Just as he was about to run towards the same wall, his Hyper Intuition flared again. He widened his eyes when he noticed a gun held against the back of Hibari's head. Hibari tensed only very slightly.

"Not so tough now are you, you bastard," Zani said as he spat out blood.

"Herbivore, have you not been bitten to death enough?" Hibari answered coldly. Tsuna noticed the prefect's body edging to duck and lash out. His Hyper Intuition told him that if Hibari did so, things would end badly.

Tsuna would have a hard time living if Hibari got injured, or worse, died, because he was distracted by him. He mentally sighed in frustration. He really didn't want to use his flames, but he had no choice, "Fiamma," Tsuna whispered as he shimmered away in bright and orange flames. Both Hibari and Zani flinched, the latter's eyes rolled back into his skull a second later.

"Where did you go Abel?" Hibari asked as he looked around at the empty courtyard save for the unconscious delinquents. Was it him, or did Abel Tsunayoshi have orange colored eyes?