Tsuna wanted to cringe, but didn't. Honestly, he expected this to happen.

He was almost dead last in the school work, though to be fair he was at least still ahead of the monsters who had gotten in through pure luck or had been sent to the school for rehabilitation.

"Well at least you didn't get dead last?" said Moka, trying to look at the positive side.

"No, this was about what I expected. Sorry I couldn't get a better grade after all the tutoring you did," said Tsuna with a tired sigh.

"Tsuna, from what I saw you've never had anyone properly explain the homework to you at all," said Moka flatly. "Add on the strange headaches you kept getting until I broke it down to smaller pieces you could understand and it's not wonder you have such trouble getting decent grades."

Moka suspected there was an external reason why Tsuna had such trouble concentrating. Every time he started to get the hang of doing homework, he would get debilitating fevers that made it impossible for him to concentrate on the work and force him to stop for an hour. And when it passed, his ability to comprehend the homework they were given would be shot for the rest of the night.

Considering how consistently he kept getting these fevers unless she broke it down into very easy to understand pieces, she knew there had to be a reason he kept getting them. The only thing she couldn't understand was why anyone would put a seal on him and not bother to fix it when it became clear it was incorrectly applied.

Because the seal she suspected was on her friend was extremely sloppy, as if a complete amateur had read about it and hadn't bothered to practice applying it before putting it into use.

As the two of them went to get something to eat, Tsuna noticed two people observing them intently.

The first was the girl who got the top spot in the exams, a small girl who looked like a stereotypical magical girl complete with witch hat.

The other, who was a bit further away but staring at them...or more specifically Tsuna...was a girl who had a sucker in her mouth and pale hair.

Considering how much bullying he endured growing up, Tsuna had become almost supernaturally aware of people who were paying too much attention towards him from afar.

The second he saw the older, taller boys about to gang up on the possible witch, Tsuna didn't think twice. He remembered all too well the feeling of being picked on for being smaller than everyone. Though in Sendo-san's case, it was likely because she had skipped ahead several grades and was simply younger than everyone else.

He took a rock and threw it at the Class Rep who was harassing the younger girl.

"Who threw that!"

"L-Leave her alone! What has she ever done to deserve being harassed like this?" said Tsuna.

Yukari stared at him in disbelief, mostly because it was pretty clear that one of the most skittish students in the school was sticking up for her.

More importantly her idol, the vampire Akashiya Moka, was right there with him glaring at the jerk with open disapproval.

She couldn't help her reaction once things calmed down.

"Moka-san, I wuv you!" said Yukari, practically tackling the vampire and happily groping her chests. Tsuna's face turned red from shock.

The second he saw her wand though, he had to make a comment.

"Oh, are you a fan of Bishoujo Hikari too?" he blurted.

Without any friends, he spent most of his time watching anime online. He found the older magical warrior in the show to be really pretty and had a crush on her a few years ago. His mom found it adorable so she said nothing.

Yukari paused in her molesting of Moka to stare at him in shock.

"No way, you actually recognize it?!" she said with glee, before recalling that he was the one standing between her and Moka.

"It looks like an almost perfect replica of Ichigo's special attack weapon, except the colors are more tasteful and less pastel," said Tsuna.

Yukari couldn't help it, she had to ask.

"Who's your favorite?"

"Mint, the older warrior who shows up in season two during the battle with the mid-boss when Cherry's love interest is about to be kidnapped," admitted Tsuna.

"Mint is awesome!" said Yukari. Something about Tsuna made it hard for her to openly hate him...besides, how often would she find a GUY who would recognize her wand on sight and actually know the show that well?

Maybe she could tolerate his presence around the utter Goddess that was Moka.

The succubus, however, would have to go.

A little while later...

Kurumu looked ready to throttle that damn Sendo. The girl had apparently gotten it into her head that she was 'fated' to be with Moka and had learned to tolerate Tsuna's existence around the vampire, but clearly had a problem with her being around the two.

If it wasn't one thing, it was another and these childish pranks were really starting to piss her off.

So when a bunch of pathetic lizard men tried to convince her to help them get rid of the pest...well, Kurumu thought about how that would go down before snorting.

"Yeah right...she might piss me off, but I'm not about to go up against Moka when I know Tsuna will happily unleash her true form to protect the brat," said Kurumu flatly.

Tsuna clearly empathized with the witch, and Moka was so damn nice she'd have protected the girl anyway. And since Yukari had been mostly harassing Kurumu, odds were Tsuna would remove the rosary and free Moka's true form to protect the brat.

Hopefully something would give that girl a reality check before her antics made a check her powers couldn't cash out.

As Tsuna had put it when Kurumu demanded to know why he tolerated the witch brat, Yukari was likely an only child and was simply acting much like a bratty younger sister. Once she knew that they were willing to treat her as part of the group, she should settle down to tolerable levels. She was likely just lonely because she was in a school of older teens and never had friends growing up that understood her.

Considering the subsequent ass-kicking Moka gave those lizard-men for trying to kill the witch, Kurumu felt fairly justified in staying out of the mess.

Yukari looked far more contrite than Kurumu expected. She had come entirely too close to dying just now.

"I'm sorry I targeted you," she said quietly.

Tsuna kept Moka back, waiting for Kurumu's reply.

"You're just a kid. You were simply acting out because you're not used to being away from your parents," said Kurumu with some sympathy. "But if you pull half the crap you just did on me again, I won't hesitate to tan your ass red, got it?"

Yukari nodded.

Soon after Yukari made a proper apology to her classmates. Apparently they hadn't liked the Class Rep or his cronies much either, but they weren't about to challenge him over the way he treated the young witch.

Yukari had an unusually grim expression on her face. When Moka brought up the possibility of a seal on Tsuna, she had dug through the library to find any spells to see if he really did have one.

There was a seal alright...but it was much more serious than any that would EVER be applied to someone who had too much power or needed a reprimand for bad behavior.

"Well?" asked Moka.

"He has a forbidden class five soul seal on his powers. I've only heard about these, but I've never actually see one in person...these aren't supposed to be used except in EXTREME circumstances, and usually most monsters would simply kill or destroy the other party rather than bother with it. And the weird thing is that it's not even applied correctly. Whoever did this clearly only read the theory, but had no idea what they were doing when they used it," said Yukari flatly. "Considering how old the seal itself is, he couldn't have been older than four or five when it was used at the time."

"How bad is it?" asked Kurumu. Unlike Moka, she didn't have an education in the higher echelon of monster society, so she had no idea how serious this was.

"Let me put it this way...if we find out who applied the seal, we would be within rights to execute the culprit on the spot, no questions asked. It wouldn't matter what their status is in the monster or human world, even using this seal is considered a crime," said Moka. "To use it on a child would have practically all the S-class monsters ready to lynch the culprit regardless of what race."

Mostly because if they were that free about using a forbidden seal on a random child, there was nothing to stop them from using it on anyone else. It was forbidden for a reason.

"How do we get it off?" asked Tsuna unhappily.

He had a sneaking suspicion he knew who did this to him, or at least an idea of where to find the culprit. Suddenly his father's almost nonexistent presence in his life had a more ominous meaning.

"I have no idea. I mean the only thing I can think of would be a near death experience where you come close to actually dying for real," said Yukari stumped. "I can write to my parents and see what they say, but we might be out of our league here."

Tsuna...started writing to his mom. Considering everything that happened, he had the feeling his mom was a monster who had been hiding her real nature for whatever reason. It would explain how she got him into the school so easily and the comment about the headmaster being friends with his grandfather.

Well...that and the countless small signs his mother didn't fully understand human behaviors.

Like the weird ash bath she had introduced him to after he got his first broken arm when he was eight. He didn't know what that stuff was made of, but the weird ash always made his healing factor well above normal. A broken arm took less than a week to fully heal when he used it.

Come to think of it, he still had the bag of ash his mother put in his things. It was just that he hadn't needed it as much as he did back home because he had actual friends supporting him now.

Either way he had the feeling that writing to his mother would help in the long term.

In Namimori...

Nana looked at the letter her son sent, wondering what little adventures he was getting into with the two girls he had befriended.

Her son was so much more manly than that useless human she married. Honestly, she didn't know why she had been attracted to that waste of flesh Iemitsu to begin with.

So when she read the words "forbidden class five soul seal" and the fact that the witch said that it had been placed at least ten years ago...well, her mind immediately went to the odd visit with Iemitsu when he brought his boss with him.

That...that arrogant bastard! How dare he inflict such a seal on HER son!

However, she needed to be absolutely sure that was the seal on Tsuna before she could make her appeal to the Honorable Law Keepers of the underworld. If the young witch was mistaken, then her execution of that useless human husband of hers could easily spark a war between the Cosa Nostra and the Monster race.

They had come perilously close for years, and only the Truce kept them from all out war.

To that end, she made a call to her grandfather's friend...and the man who ran the school her son was at. If he could confirm the presence of the seal, then she had grounds to finally put an end to her farce of a marriage.

It took a few days, but the headmaster was able to discreetly examine her son on the grounds that he had heard about the witch-child researching that seal and wanted to instill a bit of fear into her about using it.

The news he gave was grim. Tsuna did have a class five forbidden seal on his soul, one that was heavily restricting his monster powers.

Nana saw red, and it was only the fact she was in a residential area with far too many humans that kept her from going apocalyptic.

How dare he. HOW DARE HE?

She didn't know what justification Iemitsu gave to himself over putting such a horrible seal on her baby, and to be honest, she didn't give a damn. The next time he came to visit her, he would be in for a very nasty surprise. And once she ripped out who placed that seal on her child, they would find out what it meant to piss off one of her bloodline.

All she had to do was submit the findings to the Honorable Law Keepers about the seal to keep the mafia from daring to raise a fuss about the truce.

She had some calls to make.