#daemon's fate

Throwing himself on his bed in his room, Tsuna covered his eyes with his right arm. He doesn't really want to see anything right now. Everything that happened downstairs had done nothing but set him off. He hated that name. Hated it so much. It reminded him of so many things, of blood, of bullying and crying. The word alone was enough to make him want to hide to lock himself in his room. But even as he thinks that he knows that's not something he should fall back into. He's someone different now.

He's not Dame-Tsuna anymore, he has familiars. Two of them now, so he isn't lonely anymore. He's different. Older, better than he used to be. He isn't weak. That was his past. He was just Tsuna now. Not Dame-Tsuna.

Yet still, just the thought of the word was enough to make him want to punch something.

The word, that horrible nickname was, coming back to haunt him, in the one place he thought he was safe. He thought he had buried that past, and moved on from it, but Reborn still keeps bringing it up and throwing it at him and he hates him for it. Reborn was everything he never wanted in his life. Reborn was chaos, a connection to his father, and bloodshed. Reborn was darkness playing at civility and he thought he could just walk into the house and destroy any semblance of Tsuna's life and its okay.

It's not okay.

This whole mess is not going to go away.

When Tsuna told Reborn he wasn't going to be a mafia boss, he meant it. Tsuna doesn't care what some far-flung old man wants, or even what his father wants. This is his life, and no one else gets to have a say in it. He's done doing that. He has the scars to prove it.

Wiping the tears from his eyes, Tsuna pushes himself up from his bed and leans against his bedroom wall. He would not cry more over this. Crying was worthless. He just needed the calm to return. Taking a deep breath, he started going through his breathing exercises. He started counting backward from a hundred in Japanese and when that wasn't enough, through Italian, and French and then through any other languages he knew. He was a little unsteady, and it took longer then he would have like to calm himself but eventually, his emotions settled.

Tsubird was nuzzling him, cooing softly through his hair while he worked himself out of his breakdown and Natsu rubbed his mane on his arm as he purred. Their strength helping him come back to the present, instead of staying in the past. Patting them both on the head, he smiled softly.

He was okay.

Everything was okay.

He just had a bad dinner.

And that's okay.

Tomorrow is a new day.

XXxxxxXX

Downstairs, Dino and Romario didn't have that same feeling as Nana started to chew out Reborn.

"I don't think you should treat Tsu-kun like that." She says but there's no warmth in her eyes and her fingers are rather tight around her chopsticks. "After all you are a guest, and guests should be polite." She tells him coldness setting in her eyes. It had taken everyone in the room completely off guard, that the sweet mild-manner housewife of only minutes before is now staring down Reborn, the greatest hitman in the world and lecturing him.

Reborn is staring at her, somewhat in surprise. He didn't think Nana could even get angry, and yet she is. Iemitsu noted that his wife was sweet and he had never seen her angry, and yet in the back of his mind, he just assumed she couldn't be angry. Perhaps he should have had his argument with Tsuna in his room after dinner, or done something else. But still, he figures he might as well as say something. The last thing he needed for Nana to get in the way of his tutoring. It would make his job substantially harder if Nana completely evicted him from the house.

What a mess.

"And a polite guest should apologize." She says turning sharply in Reborn's direction. If she seems more dangerous than she did five minutes ago, well Dino thinks its a trick of the light, even as she stabs hard enough through her meat and plate. It has to be. And yet, the room seems colder, darker, and it's causing him to shake. Nana must have left the AC on or something. Even poor Enzo on his shoulder is starting to get cold. Patting his daemon, he barely looks up in time to see Nana stand and glower down at Reborn.

"So I suggest you go and do that," Nana says walking away with her broken plate and a flash of a red liquid as she went past him. He was probably seeing things. Maybe Nana liked her meat a little rare or something. Nana was a civilian, after all, there was little she could do that was threatening, after all, so she was safe, and...

He swallowed weakly.

Why couldn't he get his hands to stop shaking?

XXxxxXX

Contrary to what Nana wanted Reborn did not apologize to Tsuna.

In fact, unlike Reborn's normal routine, he wasn't in the Sawada Residence that night. Nor at breakfast.

Dino noticed this after he retreated to bed, but it was more evident at the breakfast table, where instead of Tsuna putting out the dishes, Nana did so with a loud clatter. Her smile was still cold and although she made note of Reborn absence from the residence, that didn't stop her from trying to interrogate Dino at the breakfast table. Tsuna was no help to him, simply picking up his own breakfast plate from his mother and retreating to his room.

The only back-up Dino had was his right-hand man who was sitting behind him, but even that wasn't enough to stop his hands from shaking again.

Dino knew Nana was a civilian, but something about her was causing every single one of his senses to tell him to run. Something about her was dangerous even though he knew better and it was creeping him the hell out. If he could get his legs to stop shaking he might have excused himself, but something about the look in her eyes freezes him in place.

He ignored the voice in the back of his mind that says it because he's afraid of turning his back to her.

Instead, he simply goes through breakfast trying to eat as quickly as possible and answer as truthfully as he could.

Don't lie, the voice tells him. Or she'll know.

Shallowing his food, Dino goes over what he knows about the Sawada Residence, trying fruitlessly to remember if Nana's profile had sent up any flags when he completed the background check, but even he combs through what he knows, nothing about her past remotely sound dangerous. Her last job before she had been married had been a secretary for god sake. Why was he so scared?

And why is the room still so cold?

He shouldn't be cold, he's wearing his jacket.

And he's got to get out of here—

"Please stop Kaa-san," Another voice says cutting through Dino's fear. "Dino-nii isn't responsible for Reborn," Tsuna tells her appearing from behind him. Dino hadn't even noticed his younger brother was back in the room. How had he managed that? Had he really been that distracted by Nana?

Glancing sideways at Romario he sends him look, wondering if perhaps his right hand had managed to sense Tsuna, but received a denial. Neither Mafioso had sensed, or seen Tsuna enter the room. Perhaps Tsuna was more gifted then even Reborn knew. Tapping into the power of a daemon was something most people only gained after they reached adulthood. For Tsuna to be already able to use his daemon's traits was promising.

"I wanted to be sure," Nana said, patting Tsuna on the head. "Reborn has yet to apologize after all...and it wouldn't do if something happened to him before he talked to you."  She said turning back to her plate.

And yet, something about she said that made goosebumps appear on Dino's skin. Was this really the same person who had warmly welcomed him into the house the day before? Her whole presence was like a completely different person.

"Are you alright?" Tsuna says coming up to Dino. He leans forward, tilting his head, looking concerned. "Kaa-san can be a little...intense when she's upset."  Natsu is sitting on his right shoulder, while Tsubird is perched on Tsune's head. Both are looking at him rather concerned, for once in complete agreement.

It makes Dino smile.

"Thanks."

"Any time," Tsuna replies. "Any time."

XXxxxXX

Finishing off, his report. Reborn hit 'send'.

He'd deal his student in a bit.

For now, he needed to get the Ninth up to speed.

XXxxxxXX

So I have feelings about bullying. Lots of them, that may or may not be seen here. Tsuna has been through some pretty terrible experiences and Reborn is just adding to Tsuna's grief. I get that KHR is supposed to be comedic, but I take issue with the fact that anyone thinks bullying is okay. It's not. Reborn needs to get his head out of his ass and listen to his student. No means no.

Also, a short chapter is short, and I regret how tiny it is. More than a chapter, this is probably more of an interlude.

Next Chapter | Previous Chapter

The rest of the conversation was much tamer in comparison, but Reborn was far from pleased. Dino wasn't paying much attention anymore, going from shock to fear and back again. Normally Reborn would have snapped him out of it, but considering the situation was as mind-blowing as it was he let Dino have a few minutes. He needed to figure a few things out. The file he was given on his new student was falling to pieces the longer he was in Tsuna's presence. Now, normally he would have blamed this on poor skills and perhaps low-quality information people, but if Tsuna's hyper intuition was anywhere as good as the ninth's this was less about the people Iemitsu had put on his son's guard and more on the fact that Tsuna's latent skills were better than a civilian and better than a low-ranking mafia minion.

Reborn resisted the incredibly strong urge to sigh. He needed to gain back control of the situation, and reassess his training plans.

"Snap out of your shock, Dame-Dino," Reborn said using a bullet to help illustrate his words."A boss is supposed to be above it all."

"But, but Tsuna is trusting me with his daemons! How am I supposed to react to that? " He said looking seconds away from having a nervous breakdown. "I just met him and already he—"

Tsuna reaches across the table, to serve Dino some more tea, looking like the entire conversation had nothing to do with him. It made Reborn want to shoot at him, but he resisted the urge considering how close his student's daemons were and how likely they were to bite him if he did anything to Tsuna while they were away from him. This whole meeting was a huge mess, and while normally he thrived in creating chaos his student was apparently better at deflecting it off him than he first appeared.

"Your tea is going to get cold, Dino-san," Tsuna prompted when no one said anything after a few minutes. He took another cookie from the bowl in the middle of the table and bit into it casually as he leveled a rather serious look at the people sitting across from him. "But something is on your mind?" He asks turning not to Dino like it first seemed but to Reborn himself.

Reborn frowns. "You said good instincts. Elaborate." He presses but both of his students, past and present can hear the unsaid command.

Tsuna tilts his head and turns to his daemons. His mouth opens but there no sound—he's likely commanding his daemons. But he still doesn't immediately answer Reborn and its annoying.

There are few people who would even dare ignore him, but he knows better than to lash out at his student and frowns instead. To his left, he sees Tsubird nuzzled Dino one more time before flying off to land on Tsuna's shoulder. It was a show of support Reborn couldn't overlook, especially because Natsu followed less than a minute later. Both tensed and regarded Reborn like he was an enemy as they took their places across the table directly in front of Reborn. Any warmth that had been there only minutes before was gone replaced with distrust and anger, and yet Tsuna just sits there sipping his tea.

The disharmony between the two aspects of Tsuna is mind-bending, but instead of focusing on the one aspect that he still can't understand, he turns to his current student waiting for answers.

"I just do." He said reaching out to both of his daemons, patting them casually. Likely trying to comfort them, though why he was trying to comfort his daemons rather than the other way was curious. Daemons were a person's true nature, and most everything they did was a reflection of the person's soul that spawned them. Tsuna was acting like they were separate beings from him, distinct with all their own mannerisms and feelings. It was an odd reaction. Perhaps it was a cultural difference? It was hard to tell.

Reborn wasn't friendly enough with anyone from the Japanese Yakuza to get a general read on what was socially common in Japan, and considering even Iemitsu as his best source hadn't been to Japan in years, he was lacking information on what was commonly accepted and what wasn't socially. Parts of Tsuna's attitude could be a result of his native upbringing but there was so much he didn't know about his student that it was difficult to see what was nature and what was problematic. In Italy, a reaction like that meant therapy. In Japan, it could be common. He was left to guess. Until he managed to get Tsuna to trust him, he wouldn't know for sure.

And then Nana called them down to dinner, and the moment was lost.

XXxxxxXX

"So did you managed to get along?" Nana asks them as they enter the kitchen and start taking their seats at the table.

Tsuna smiles again, mysteriously. Reborn starts to wonder if perhaps that's Tsuna's default expression, perhaps like Fon hiding his emotions behind a smile instead of a sleeve.

"Dino-nii was very kind," He tells her, taking the plates from her hands and starting to serve everyone. Neither Reborn or Dino miss the change of honorific but let it pass. If upstairs was any indication Tsuna only said what he wanted, regardless of what anyone demanded.

Setting the plates out, Tsuna moved around the table adding food here and there, seemingly at random. Apparently, this was something of a routine because Nana takes a seat at the far right of the table and doesn't argue with him.

"Natsu and Tsubird really like Dino-nii," Tsuna tells her as he pours some more espresso into Reborn's tiny cup.

Nana brights up so much at the statement, Reborn can nearly see the flowers that spring to life. Her own daemon is apparently just as proud because it hops off her shoulder and starts rubbing up against Tsuna's cheek, lovingly.

"Oh, that is so wonderful Tsu-kun!" She smiles and then turns to Dino. She pauses for a second, surprised before smiling again. Reborn figures she noticed the rather odd patch of green on Dino's shoulder.

"Your daemon is so cute, Dino-kun." She says changing tracks from whatever she had been going to say.

Dino blinks himself, having entirely forgotten the presence of his own daemon in the aftermath of Tsuna's. He turns to his right shoulder. "This is Enzo, he's a Sicilian pond turtle." He says beaming and looks back to Enzo petting him.

"A good daemon," Tsuna says, finally taking his own seat. He starts to separate some food into some smaller plates, presumably to feed his own daemons.  "I think it matches you."

Dino and Romario blink at the odd comment. Of course, the daemon matches Dino, its Dino's daemon. It wouldn't make sense otherwise if it didn't match him.

Reborn, on the other hand, frowns. That was a rather odd comment for his student to make.

What exactly is he trying to say?

Tsuna pauses in his motions and looking at the trio he must have seen something in their expressions because he starts to elaborate. "I'm not sure how much you know about the Daemonic Theory and Symbolism...? "

He waits for the trio to reply.

Romario shakes his head, and Reborn stays nothing.

Daemonic Theory and symbolism was a complicated, delicate, and exhaustive science that was used to explain the differences in character traits among Daemons and how it linked to personality, but it was an esoteric field that not many people went into to, mostly because it required a level of memorization that was left to dedicated scholars. Reborn himself only had a passing awareness of the science, knowing only very general things about Daemons and how it related to families. It helped his awareness and his study of people for work but not much more. His time was limited and it was probably the same with both Romario and Dino.

"Not much, I admit,"  Dino tells Tsuna, interrupting Reborn's thoughts. Dino rubs his head rather sheepishly, unknowingly answering for the group.

Tsuna nods but doesn't look surprised. "Turtles are known for their determination, endurance, and longevity. A person with a turtle daemon is a survivor, often as a result of overcoming a great challenge. A person with a turtle daemon is stability and protection for those around them." He pushes the small plates of food to his daemons and looks up to met Dino's eyes. "I think it's a good match, don't you think?"

"I think so too," Nana added in. "After all, he's your new brother, right?"

Tsuna nods and both of the Sawada's dig into the food, like Tsuna, did nothing special.

While across the table Dino is bright red. Next, to him, Romario is still in shock. Neither having seen that piece of information coming or the fact Tsuna himself would know about his particular daemon. Did his instincts forewarn him or did he know it naturally? Dino couldn't even begin to guess, but Reborn might. Glancing to his right, Reborn looks especially intrigued, and Dino tries not to shiver at the thought.

An interested Reborn was never a good thing.

He himself has only had that look directed at him two times, and both times were painful, to say the least. For Tsuna to have that same look directed at him, is scary. He wonders how exactly his new little brother will take Reborn's interest.

Reborn smirks and placing his cup of espresso on the table reaches for his chopsticks. He looks ready to eat, but his eyes are Tsuna.

He'd like to test this new found knowledge of Tsuna's.

"What about chameleons? Or Monkeys? Perhaps a centipede?" He says rapid firing questions.

Dino turns to Reborn in surprise.

In that particular combination, there's no way he isn't asking about the other Arcobaleno. Especially, because while he might not know which daemon and human combination pair Reborn is getting at with the monkey question, Dino knows centipede Daemons are incredibly rare. Lal Mich is the only mafioso that he knows high up enough in the mafia for Reborn to know and interact with so it's probably not much of a stretch to guess that Reborn likely means the Storm Arcobaleno as the daemon monkey pair, as the other possible one.

Tsuna slowly blinks at the questions, but answers regardless. "Centipede daemons are born of great difficulty, they face problems often in romance or socially. They are tough, sneaky, and constantly on the move. To have a centipede daemon as a partner is to be hardworking, stubborn and reach for greater heights. They are hard to know but the greatest supports... and monkeys." He hums for a second. "That's a little more difficult."

"Really? In what way?" Reborn said looking curious.

Tsuna looks to him meeting his stare dead on. "Monkey daemons are characterized by their relationships. Do you want general, or something more specific? "

"Acquaintances.. would probably be most accurate." Reborn hedges, looking pensive.

Tsuna figures that's probably normal in the mafia were relationships and bonds of trust are hard to come by. Criminality, let alone social criminality really isn't something he knows a lot of, even considering his recent studies under Reborn. For all he knows the relationship is complicated, Tsuna doesn't know, but thinking about what he knows about Reborn and what Monkey partners and their ties to life he can make a guess.

"Monkey daemons are known to be playful, they signify safety, bravery, and emotional intelligence. Among friends and family, they bond deeply but have difficulty seeing the situation from another angle. They are sensible and resourceful. Monkey daemon pairs are a source of profound wisdom if they allow themselves to move on from the past, and don't think too hard on the future." Tsuna says reaching for his tea.

He tries not to think too much on how he sounds. He had no idea that when he started learning about Daemonic Theory and Symbolism that he was signing himself up to be interrogated. Dino is looking at him like he's some sort of bomb waiting to go off, and Reborn looks incredibly evil. He knew not many people actually studied Daemonic Theory and Symbolism but this was starting to get a little ridiculous. He would have thought people in the mafia would be studying it if only to get some advantage out of being able to read other people. Yet, for some reason, Reborn seems surprised...? It a weird sensation to finally be able to read his tutor after nearly five weeks of trying and failing to get rid of the little murderer baby, but Tsuna can't really find it in himself to be too charitable considering the mess Reborn is causing him.

"And chameleon?" Reborn says inching slightly closer to his student as if to listen better.

"What about them?" Tsuna frowns and takes a large bite out of his food. What he knows about chameleons is his own business. If Reborn wants to know about his own daemon, he can go look it up. Tsuna isn't his minion.

Reborn pouts...? Or frowns?

It hard to say on such a small face, but Tsuna could care less.

"I thought you knew all about Daemonic Theory and Symbolism, Dame-Tsuna," Reborn says inching ever so close to sounding mocking.

The chopsticks break in Tsuna's hands. While on his sides his daemons start growling. Even Nana herself doesn't seem happy with how the conversation is progressing, as she frowning disapprovingly. Dino and Romario pausing in their motions, the tension starting to build. It like the two have forgotten about everyone else in the room but considering who Tsuna is picking a fight with Dino can't help but be a little awed. He'd never had the courage to talk back to Reborn as a student and yet somehow in the last few hours he's seen his little brother do that multiple times over and over again and yet nothing happened. At all.

If anyone else had tried to pull that kind of thing with Reborn in the mafia, they'd be sporting a few bullet holes, but Dino guesses that trying that same tactic on the heir of the Vongola Family is a different matter entirely. After all, his own family had some backup heirs if Dino couldn't take up the mantle. The Vongola doesn't really have that option anymore. Tsuna is all they got, and if Reborn is too rough with him, there was going to be problems. But still, the amount of pure courage Tsuna is packing is pretty impressive.

"I didn't say I knew everything," Tsuna says not even looking at Reborn anymore.

"Oh, I thought you knew...?"

"Whether I do or don't is none of your business—"

"Considering I'm your home tutor—"

"Means nothing." Tsuna hisses. His eyes are burning fury. He pushes his plate to the side and getting to his feet he lets his daemons perch on his shoulders. "You are nothing to me. I don't trust you. Ietmisu does, and maybe your boss does, but not me." He pushes his chair in, and places his plate in the sink leaves the kitchen. He almost runs up the stairs to his room, closing the door with a quick but sharp sound.

Apparently, Reborn underscored how bad his relationship with Tsuna was in his call.

Dino sighed.

Great.

XXxxxxXX

So this chapter was mainly to work through some issue plaguing Dino, Reborn and Tsuna.

Tsuna still doesn't trust Reborn at all and he has good reason to. Being near Reborn is causing him so much grief.

Reborn is still an arrogant little jerk who thinks throwing random variables at Tsuna is enough to changes things, but he's wrong. At its doing is showing him how much Tsuna and his pets hate him. Yes, Reborn is starting to notice that Tsuna is a little odd, but the extent of it is still beyond him right now, but he's starting to understand that maybe, maybe his methods aren't working.

Dino is pretty much caught in the crossfire between Tsuna and Reborn. Reborn didn't really tell him anything about his new student. He's confused and pretty much in awe of Tsuna right now.

Also, Reborn and Dino don't really know that Tsuna told Nana about the mafia, or what Tsubird's real species is. They just guess he was some random red bird.

Extra Info: Romario's daemon was pretty much ignored, but it's a Convolvulus Hawkmoth.

Next Chapter | Previous Chapter

He is five weeks into his training of Tsuna, and Reborn sill cannot seem to do anything right. His student is constantly fidgeting around him, hyper-aware to a level that he no longer thinks is nerves but rather the awakening of Tsuna's hyper intuition. At night his student will move down to the living room to escape being in a room with Reborn, with one of his daemons on watch until about six a.m. than his student will come back upstairs and grab his clothes for school. When this first happened Reborn followed him, but Tsuna only repeated the same cycle in other rooms. He refused to spend even five minutes in the same area as the hitman in a vulnerable state until eventually Reborn was forced to give up after following him for nearly two weeks.

If nothing else, Reborn found himself doing everything wrong. Tsuna refused any kind of contact with him, going so far as to infect bodily harm to himself if it meant that Reborn did not touch him. His daemons were no different and alienated Leon, growling, and hissing if he got any closer than five feet to Tsuna.

On the other hand, if Reborn simply considered Tsuna's schooling, there had been an improvement. Instead of the F's and D's, Tsuna was now averaging a C plus in most of his classes including even P.E. which Tsuna was notoriously bad in. But still, socially Tsuna still. had. no. friends.

Reborn frowned.

The fact that he had made so little progress in training his student was starting to irritate him.

Time to shake things up.

XXxxxxXX

When Dino arrives at the house. He's surprised to see just how normal it is. He knows from the paperwork that Reborn sent him that the next head of the Vongola Family is a civilian but it isn't until he actually sees the house with its bright windows and open spaces that it really hits him that Sawada Tsunayoshi is a civilian.

He's been a mafia heir all his life and grown-up surrounded by people, and violence that when he knocks on the door to the Sawada Family home he can't quite shake the strangeness that he feels.

There are no guards. There are at least twelve ways to destroy this house. And maybe half a dozen ways to kill the family without entering the house---

The door opens just before he gets a chance to think anything further, and Dino finds himself face to face with the Vongola heir, Sawada Tsunayoshi.

"You're one of Reborn's friends," Tsuna says moving back from the doorway before Dino has a chance to answer. His daemons watch over the young Vongola's shoulder pensively, quietly in a way Dino's never seen before it occurs to him that something was wrong.

According to the paperwork that Dino's memorized Tsuna has no daemons, so how did---?

A kick to the face knocks that thought away.

"Think about it upstairs. You look stupid standing there gawking." Reborn tells him landing skillfully on Dino's shoulder.

Dino rubs his cheek and motions to the rest of his family to stay put while Romario and he entered. He follows Reborn upstairs to a small room and takes a seat at the low table while Romario sits carefully on the bed. Reborn is, of course, sitting in his own comfortable chair on the empty desk polishing a gun.

The room is neat but incredibly bland. Beyond the two sleeping places for Tsuna's daemon and the small desk, there's nothing else in the room. No books, no games, no magazines, nothing. If Dino didn't know better he'd think he was in a guest room rather than a teenager's room. Maybe he'd never grown up as a civilian teenager but he'd like to think Tsuna would have something he'd enjoy enough to place it in his room--

"The file is wrong." Reborn throws in after a moment of silence. "Tsuna is nothing like a normal teenager, and that file tells me nothing. Iemitsu is an idiot." He says re-holstering his spare gun and pulling his fedora down. "As far as the family's concerned Iemitsu Sawada is dead."

Dino whistles because that is just incredible.

"A falling out?"

"According to Nana the last time he visited was ten years ago. Tsuna didn't even recognize his picture when I showed him." Reborn tells them sliding the picture in question to Dino. "The CEDEF in the area are pathetically inadequate and substandard. If Iemitsu was trying his best he has failed. Miserably."

"Does the ninth know?"

"He will know soon enough. I've sent my report in."

Dino sighs feeling a headache coming on.

With the Vongola at its weakest point in years the fact there was so many things going wrong was sending up warning flags. How far was the rot in the Vongola? Did they have spies? Incompetent people? Was there a mole? Why didn't the CEDEF know? Or the ninth? Was there an outside party involved? What was going on?

Nothing was making sense.

A knock on the door made Dino jump as Tsunayoshi walked in with his two daemons. He was carrying a tray with snacks and drinks. He spares a look to the people in his room before he kneels at the table. He slides a small plate with some cookies to Reborn along with a cup of what looks like Espresso, before he turns to his guests and serves them. How Tsuna knows what to serve them Dino can only guess but he tentatively takes a bite of one of the cookies.

"They're sugar cookies," Tsuna tells them. "I've also given some to the men station outside. Mama says dinner will be ready soon." He takes a sip of his tea. "Reborn probably explained everything anyway..." He trails off, sharing a look with his daemons that leaves both Reborn and Dino equal parts confused and perplexed. There's an entire conversation going on between the trio and although Dino thinks he sees something like happiness in the small lion's eyes he can't be sure he didn't imagine whatever he saw.

Reborn sadly, is not amused at the play by play going on with his student and the parts of his soul. Tsuna's habit of talking to his daemons and ignoring the people around him was typically considered bad manners, and one habit Reborn was going to have to correct. If he showed this little respect in front of any of the other Dons there was going to be trouble. The mafia was build and bound by respect and Tsuna was going to have to change.

Tsuna turned back to the people in his room and smiling rather coyly nodded to his two daemons. "If you think so, I'm not going to stop you." He tells them before drinking his tea.

Neither Reborn nor Dino have any time to ponder what exactly Tsuna gave his daemons permission to do because seconds later the two daemons make it clear. Painfully so what they wanted.

Both daemons raced from Tsuna's side and to the absolute shock of everyone in the room, besides Tsuna, did something that proceeds to cause Reborn even more problems. They jump on Dino--not to attack, no if it was just that Reborn might have been able to do something about the situation, daemons can act out, no they decide to cuddle Dino. Purring and snuggling into his grasp like if he was Tsuna himself and the sight of which causes Reborn so much grief.

Daemons should not be anywhere near that friendly to anyone except their owner, and yet the fact that this happened is throwing Reborn into a fit because he doesn't understand why this is happening at all. Not even lifetime friends allowed other people to touch their daemons, being allowed to even interact with another person's daemon was something only considered acceptable within families, and married couples.

So why was this happening?

Reborn didn't know and it was annoying.

But at least he wasn't the only one caught completely off guard. Dino wasn't fairing any better.

He fidgeted, shifting on his cushion as he tried to figure how to get the daemons off of him without touching them. His eyes were going back and forth between the pair of daemons on his lap and the smiling face of Tsuna who didn't appear to be upset at all under the current circumstances, like having a piece of someone's soul in your lap wasn't something that special, but as if Tsuna wasn't done being surprising them, his next words destroy what little calm is barely being maintained in the room.

"You can touch them, you know. " Tsuna says without so much as a warning.

Romano nearly drops his drink behind him.

If what happened before was so shocking, this took the cake, the silverware and the table it was on. Because none of the other people in the room can even recall a time when the heir of a family, any family allowed anyone else to touch their daemons. To allow anyone to touch a person's daemons was to have complete trust in another person because it opened a person's to soul to another person. This was so completely beyond any of the people at the table that even Reborn needed a second to realign himself.

What was Tsuna thinking---?

"I have good instincts," Tsuna tells them, starting to snack on a cookie, smiling softly as he watches his daemon's be happy in Dino's presence.

All three seasoned mafia men freeze at the sentence.

Tsuna shouldn't have been able to activate his hyper intuition, especially since the Ninth put a seal on it. His flames and his hyper intuition should have been sealed until it was released through the power of a hyper dying will bullet or a life-threatening experience...

Reborn frowned.

What else didn't he know?

XXxxxxXX

Author’s Note: Here you go.

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