Reborn had, of course, read the reports of his future student before he ever stepped in Namimori. Tsuna's grades were atrocious and he skipped more school than the rest of the delinquents combined, clearly a case similar to Dino.

He thought he knew what to expect. He was sadly mistaken.

.

.

Things started going downhill from the moment Reborn stepped inside the Sawada household and found out that his student was not there.

"He goes out adventuring sometimes," Nana told him with a beaming smile. "Three days ago he told me he wanted to defeat the mountain boss and left. My Tsu-kun is so bold and courageous!"

Reborn blinked and hesitantly agreed to wait.

.

.

Tsuna did, in fact, return - five days later. He was covered in dirt and scratches, grinned in a good-natured manner and carried a wild boar casually slung over his shoulder. It was tied to a pole and twice his height.

"I'm home, mama!"

"Welcome back, Tsu-kun!" Nana chirped, apparently not in the least surprised about the souvenir.

"I'm hungry, can you cook this guy for me?" Tsuna asked, then blinked and noticed Reborn. "Eh? Who's the baby?"

"Oh, he's your new tutor!" Nana said, beaming at her son. "Tsu-kun is very strong and manly, but all your adventures are bad for your grades!"

"Eeeeeh? I don't need a tutor. School is boring," Tsuna said and dug a finger up his nose.

Nana shook her head and ruffled at Tsuna's hair. "Mou, Tsu-kun! You have to think about your future!"

"I already know what I want to do in the future," Tsuna said, but the topic was dropped and buried when Nana ushered her son to take a shower.

Reborn stood in the hallway, apparently forgotten, and watched at the retreating back of his student. He felt unusually out of his depth. Certainly, he could tell that Tsuna was Iemitsu's son - that casual confidence had to have been inherited from him - but where had all that flippant disrespect come from?

.

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It didn't really get any better from there. Reborn had planned to wake Tsuna up via shooting rubber bullets or electrocuting him, but Tsuna had somehow avoided the former in his sleep and while the latter had woken him, Tsuna had followed his initial pained scream with a confused 'Eeeeh, morning already?" and "Huh, how come I'm charred?'

Tsuna had then proceeded to eat the second half of the roasted boar for breakfast (how) before he had finally noticed Reborn and asked who he was, having apparently forgotten overnight. Insult to injury, his name had been deemed 'too difficult' and Tsuna kept calling him 'curlyburn', no matter how many times Reborn kicked him in the head.

On the way to school, Reborn finally told Tsuna of his future career as the tenth boss of Vongola. He'd expected resistance, of course; he did have a certain measure of his student by now.

However, he had still only scratched the surface of Tsuna's obstinacy.

"No thanks. I'm going to become the pirate king," Tsuna said, once more digging his nose with his pinkie.

Reborn managed to make it look like he hadn't just almost fallen off the wall.

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By the time they made it to school, Reborn had recovered sufficiently to feel pleased that his student seemed to be friends with half of the student population. In particular, Yamamoto Takeshi and Sasagawa Ryohei not only greeted him enthusiastically, but demanded to know what Tsuna had been doing on his adventure and why they hadn't been invited.

The tale (with the occasional exclamation of 'EXTREME!') was sadly cut short when Hibari arrived to put an end to the crowding and promptly attacked Tsuna for truancy and various other offences that Reborn was sure Tsuna had been blissfully unaware of committing and wouldn't have cared if he hadn't.

Tsuna only laughed at the sight of Hibari lunging at him and went with it, cracking his knuckles.

Severe structural damage had been dealt before the match ended in a draw. Oddly enough, Hibari seemed pleased rather than mortally offended (either for the state of his beloved Namimori or the lack of conclusion to the fight).

"I want a rematch tomorrow," he said in a tone that was almost approving. "You crowd more than the entire herbivore population of this school combined, but you're also the only proper carnivore around here."

Tsuna laughed.

.

.

Two weeks later, Tsuna had shown no sign of accepting Reborn's authority or giving up on his profession of choice as pirate royalty. Reborn decided that something had to be done, and called in Gokudera Hayato from Italy.

It went down about as well as could be expected. Tsuna shrugged off all of Hayato's attempts at annoying or frightening him with his usual cheerful air. When questioned about it, he blinked at Reborn and said "Even if you spit on me, or pour sake on me, I won't get mad over small things like that. But if anyone tries to hurt my friends, I won't forgive them."

Then, the moment was over, and Tsuna's carefree grin returned.

After he recovered from his surprise, Reborn gave a small, pleased, startled smile. Well. That had been unexpected, but certainly not unwelcome.

.

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Later that afternoon, Hayato confronted Tsuna behind the school, determined to see through that annoying cheerful facade. That never happened, because Tsuna took one look at his weapon of choice, deemed him 'an interesting guy' and asked if he wanted to join Tsuna's crew. Hayato was momentarily torn between delight and utter astonishment (they were mafia, not pirates), before he decided that Tsuna was messing with him and settled for anger.

Unfortunately, hands shaking in rage are not the best idea when handling dynamite.

Hayato could feel time stretching as he stared at the explosives at his feet. There was no time to get away.

He had no time to feel true horror either, before he found himself yanked away and sitting on a tree branch, next to Tsuna who still held his waist and whistled appreciatively at the explosion that tore off a part of the school wall.

Then, Tsuna turned to him and grinned brightly. "Aah, that was close! Are you all right?"

Right then and there, Hayato swore eternal loyalty.

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It was a relief to find that Tsuna actually did accept him as a teacher when it came to combat training. His student had the attention span of a goldfish when he was required to think too much, to the point where Reborn was sure some sort of foul play had to have been involved in getting him to somehow pass his classes, but the same did not apply to fighting. Tsuna was not only in excellent shape, but his hyper intuition was sharper than even the Ninth's and had the reflexes of someone far older and more experienced.

Really, all Reborn had to do was introduce him to his Dying Will flames. That turned out to be a slight challenge, when Leon's bullets failed to initiate the state - Tsuna merely smiled like the sun and apologised to his shocked friends for dying before his time.

He didn't die, but the flames did not burst into existence either.

In the end, Reborn managed. Tsuna had the raw talent, and all Reborn ultimately had to do was find the right motivation.

Considering what he had seen of Tsuna, he thought that the need to rescue his friends would be a suitable option. He hadn't been wrong.

Reborn sighed in relief at the sight of the flames, still raw and uncontrolled, but also intense and strong. Combat would not be a problem.

Of course, that was when Tsuna managed to accidentally demolish the bridge he'd been fighting on and almost drowned, claiming he couldn't swim. Doubly irritating was that this was not actually the case, and he had swum the entire width of the river fifty-five times in apparent astonishment before Reborn succeeded in convincing him to return home for dinner and let Lambo and I-Pin dry off.

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From the very start Reborn had held a sick sort of curiosity at the idea of pitting Bianchi and Tsuna against each other. Both were headstrong to the point of denying reality, and conflict was inevitable as long as Bianchi's face caused Hayato pain and Tsuna refused to give up Reborn (as one of his 'precious comrades', he honestly had no idea when and how that had happened).

Three days passed as Tsuna dodged poison and Bianchi dodged Tsuna's fists before a truce was formed: the moment Hayato managed to tell Tsuna Bianchi didn't mean to make him ill, he dropped all animosity and invited her to his crew.

Bianchi interpreted this as meaning that Tsuna was her ally in love, and he failed to correct her when she said as much, more interested in lunch now that the strife was over and done with.

Reborn felt oddly cheated. There was no way this particular misunderstanding would ever be resolved, not when Tsuna didn't really pay any attention and Bianchi didn't notice he didn't.

.

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In the course of several months, Reborn had discovered that there was simply no way to make Tsuna do what he didn't want to do, no matter what kind of torture he inflicted on his pupil. It was, therefore, something of a relief that Tsuna was perfectly willing and capable of leading people, and not very hung up on the whole crime side of things.

Still, he had made absolutely no progress in convincing Tsuna to give up becoming pirate. He had already been accepted in the crew himself (...), but Tsuna still referred to himself as captain rather than boss. To Reborn's irritation, the rest of his prospective guardians (including Hayato and excluding Hibari) had taken to the title as well.

In the end, the solution turned out to be simple.

"You know, there's much more adventure and freedom in the mafia," he said to Tsuna on their trip home from school. "All the interesting guys are there. Pirates in our world only do boring stuff."

"Eeeeeh? Really?" Tsuna screeched, his jaw dropping.

"Of course. The Vongola is the most inter -"

"Then, I'm going to become the king of mafia," Tsuna interrupted in a matter-of-fact voice, all but ignoring Reborn as he was wont to do.

"...You should first become Vongola Decimo, then, because you can't become mafia king if you aren't already the boss of an old famiglia," Reborn lied swiftly and with no remorse. It was a downright ridiculous story, of course, as there was no such thing as mafia king, but sacrifices had to be made in the name of herding Tsuna.

"Okay! Then I will become the boss of Vongola!" Tsuna yelled at the sky, throwing his arms high and laughing.

Reborn was unable to prevent himself from smiling.

.

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Dino spent approximately thirty seconds trying to impress his junior pupil before Tsuna's obvious disregard to Reborn's authority and the lack of retribution for it rendered him speechless. He then bowed to Tsuna in awe and blurted out his adamant admiration. Tsuna deemed him 'an interesting guy' and invited Dino to join his crew. Reborn showed considerable restraint and strangled neither of them.

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While Reborn hadn't been paying attention, Shamal had somehow joined Tsuna's fledgling famiglia as well. When asked about it, he mumbled something about pretty women and royalty, but Reborn never did manage to hear the full story. Tsuna only blinked at him and said that Shamal was 'like Sanji' and therefore easy to understand.

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Reborn had succeeded in his mission to the extent that Tsuna did now seem to acknowledge his future as the boss of Vongola, but his main goal still appeared to be becoming the mafia king and he still referred to his famiglia as 'crew'. He had even named an ecstatic Hayato his first mate. (Hayato had promptly fainted at the perceived honour.)

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To Reborn's silent despair, Lambo from ten years in the future showed up one evening after an accident involving Tsuna's dinner and Hayato's dynamite. He wore an elaborate coat and golden earrings and proceeded to call Tsuna 'captain', which was just about the only thing anyone understood as he spoke with the most cliché pirate lingo Reborn had ever had the misfortune of hearing. There was no way real pirates had ever said things like 'Ahoy, me Hearties!' or 'Batten down the hatches, that hornswaggle comes to take you to Davy Jones' Locker! Run a shot across the bow or we will all be feeding the fishes!'

Lambo thankfully disappeared in a puff of pink smoke after that, and Reborn confiscated the ten year bazooka. He did not want a repeat of that.

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The first time Reborn truly saw Tsuna's frightening side was when some hapless yakuza, blissfully unaware of just how much they were in over their head, tried to bully Lambo for accidentally blowing up the western wall of their building.

All of Tsuna's usual cheerfulness dropped in favour of cool anger, his face twisting in a way Reborn hadn't thought Tsuna would be capable of. The effect was startling, all of a sudden Tsuna looked frightening. Even Reborn decided to take a step back. Tsuna was not yet strong enough to hurt him even if he tried, but he preferred not having to feel that cold aura.

Then, unexpectedly, there was a pulse of chill in the air and yakuza started dropping to the ground in dead faint, frothing at the mouth. When Tsuna went to retrieve a crying Lambo, Reborn poked at one of the gangsters in the face. They really had fainted.

Interesting.

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Reborn was sitting in the plane before he managed to fully process the fact that Tsuna had decided to take his entire crew on an 'adventure'.

The whole thing had started with a bored Tsuna, a careless remark from Takeshi and Ryohei egging everyone on. By the time Reborn heard of the situation, there was no changing Tsuna's mind and the only option had been to follow him and make sure he didn't get himself arrested.

From the comments of Takeshi and Ryohei, this sort of thing had happened before and they had spent quite a bit of time getting dragged along with Tsuna's whims. Reborn didn't even want to know what had happened with the giant squid.

Trouble seemed to follow Tsuna like a bad rash and the first week of the sudden field trip was a nightmare of property damage and wild parties. By the end of it they had run into several skirmishes over gang turf, one drug operation and a miniature mob war, of all things. Reborn now understood why Hibari had deigned to come along, even as it meant that he occasionally had to tolerate the company of the others (which never ended well).

Tsuna had also somehow made friends with the entirety of Giglio Nero famiglia and several bemused members of the Italian police force. (And while this was exactly the kind of thing a mafia boss had to be able to do, somehow the manner Tsuna went about it made Reborn want to bash his head against something).

It was during their second week when they ran into Mukuro. His smile was almost more disturbing than the things he said and the power he exuded, but none of that managed to bother Tsuna, who took one look at his illusions and invited him to join his crew.

"You want me to join you," Mukuro said in a deadpan voice. "I've cut a bloody path through mafia, I intend to possess you and take over the world, and you want me to join you?"

Tsuna stuck a finger up his nose. "You can't take over the world, the king of mafia will be me," he said firmly, a hint of threat to his voice.

Mukuro looked like he had just realised they were not, in fact, having the same conversation. "King... of mafia?"

"Yeah. I originally wanted to be pirate king, but curlyburns said that all pirates around here are boring, so I'm going to be mafia king instead. But first I have to be boss of Vongola, so you can't have that either."

Mukuro's disbelief was thick enough to cut through. "And when you're mafia king, what will you do then?"

Tsuna cocked his head to the side and thought for a while. It looked painful.

"I'm going to turn the mafia into pirates. And then we will party and go on adventures."

His face unreadable, Mukuro looked from Tsuna to Reborn (who looked like he was in considerable pain, to anyone who could tell), as if trying to figure out if they were pulling his leg. Then he smiled, red eye glowing ominously.

"You know, Tsunayoshi, I do believe I will join your, ah, 'crew'."

(This, he had to see. Maybe the human realm was worthwhile after all, and if not, well, he would be in a prime position to take over the Vongola.)

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.

Reborn had not felt such regret since the time he had been cursed with the rainbow.

When they returned to the others, Hayato had scowled and refused to let Mukuro anywhere near Tsuna, Takeshi had laughed, Ryohei had thought Mukuro was very extreme, Lambo and I-Pin had not paid attention beyond some screams about pineapples, Haru and Kyoko had tried to feed the three criminals properly, Shamal had been nowhere to see and Bianchi had ignored everyone but Reborn. Dino had looked worried, but accepted Tsuna's decision.

The real problem had been the fact that Hibari and Mukuro had chafed at each other the moment they'd shared breathing space. The inevitable brawl had dragged everyone else into it, destroyed half of the block and brought forth the true cause of Reborn's regret.

Apparently, their newest recruits were wanted by the Vindice, who had swept in amidst the usual ominous swirls of mist and tried to arrest Mukuro and his two minions.

Tsuna had disagreed. Forcefully.

Which had then lead to this stalemate, as the Vindice were entirely unused to blatant disregard towards their authority and did not immediately want to wage war against Vongola. Their would be victims were staring at Tsuna as if he had grown a second head, and the rest of Tsuna's friends/comrades/crew/whatever were in a mixed state of admiration and preparing for another fight.

Reborn was full of regret. Tsuna wanted to fight the Vindice. Over people he had known for a few hours.

Actually, both of his students looked willing to throw down if it came to it. Either he had been a little too successful at his efforts of pounding a spine into Dino, or this was Tsuna's fault.

(Tsuna. Definitely Tsuna. This was all Tsuna's fault.)

In the end, the problem was resolved without bloodshed when the Vindice called out a baby with a clear pacifier, mumbled with each other for a few minutes and declared that they were willing to overlook Mukuro's offences if Tsuna kept an eye on him from there on and agreed to owe the Vindice a favour, collected sometime in future. No stipulations.

Before Reborn could edge in a single word, still stuck on the sight of the clear pacifier, Tsuna blinked and said "Oh, is that all you want? Sure."

This time, Reborn did bang his head against the wall. Just once.

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By the time they returned to home and found Fuuta de la Stella in Tsuna's kitchen, asking for sanctuary because Tsuna was the number one most likely person to take over the mafia and make them turn to piracy (and there was a hint of confusion in his voice), Reborn had collected himself and decided that there was simply no way but to go with the flow. He had been so used to being able to force his way through that running into the immovable object that was Tsuna had thrown him for a loop, but he was still the world's greatest hitman. He could adapt.

Not to mention, he had finally gotten some sort of a clue when it came to the curse. He did owe Tsuna for that, even if it had been entirely unintentional.

Fuuta had become a fixture of the Sawada household with little more than 'Yeah, okay' from Tsuna, and for a while things went back to normal. For what that word was worth around Namimori, anyway.

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Superbi Squalo had initially felt insulted that this annoying brat had been chosen over Xanxus right up to the point where he tried to skewer one of the brat's friends and Tsuna moved almost faster than he could see. He found himself with a blade stuck in the concrete and Tsuna's foot pressing on his wrist. He revised his opinion to insulted and grudgingly impressed.

"Don't mess with my friends," Tsuna said and Squalo had a fleeting thought that the brat was actually mildly threatening when he frowned. But he hadn't spent all this time with Xanxus just to be intimidated by brats, even if they could outrun him.

He took the rings and jumped on the roof. "VOOOOI, what's going on here? They picked you to be the Vongola Decimo? You won't last a second against us!"

Tsuna blinked, apparently having lost all semblance of hostility the moment Squalo had retreated. "I want to become the king of mafia. I can't do that if I don't become the boss of Vongola," he said, with a straight face and an entirely serious tone. "If you get in my way, I'll just have to kick your ass."

Squalo stared. Then he looked at Reborn, who didn't seem to find anything amiss with the situation. "Don't think you can get rid of Tsuna so easily," he said. "There hasn't been a single time I've managed to stop him after he's made his mind."

Squalo made a 'tsch' noise and leaped off, still feeling vaguely uneasy and sort of like he had missed a step somewhere.

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When Iemitsu saw Tsuna for the first time in several years, he quickly found that his son had forgotten his entire existence. It took Tsuna several days to stop forgetting him overnight, and he was still referred to as 'hobo-ossan' rather than 'dad'. Reborn seemed to take sadistic joy out of his predicament, and Iemitsu had his suspicions as to why the rest of Tsuna's friends and underlings took to the nickname as well.

And while Reborn had somehow managed to get his son to agree to become the boss of Vongola (something Iemitsu was secretly very impressed about, he had never once gotten Tsuna to bend to his will), there was still the business of guardians and Tsuna would only ignore the whole thing if it was decided behind his back.

Reborn solved the issue simply by asking Tsuna, who ended up choosing the exact people Iemitsu had already thought of, apparently on instinct alone. Reborn was insufferably smug about it all.

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The week of the ring battles was more or less a comedy act, even with the Varia's steady efforts to change this.

Tsuna immediately hit it off with Lussuria and the battle had been delayed when Tsuna had decided that a dance was mandatory to celebrate his new friendship with 'Lucchan'. When Ryohei defeated Lussuria to the point of him needing medical care, Tsuna was more worried than the rest of Varia combined.

The Lambo of twenty years later showed up with not just a pirate coat and jewellery but also an eye patch, flamboyant hat and a magnificent pirate accent, to the horror and/or bafflement of the rest of the audience. It distracted Levi suitably long for Lambo to finish the battle in one hit and deliver a humiliating one-liner in a deadpan voice, presumably just to add insult to injury. Reborn assumed he should be glad Lambo had at least given up the pirate lingo.

Despite the very beginning where Tsuna dug his nose and referred to Belphegor's floating weapons as 'mystery knives', the battle of the storm did finally offer some genuine drama befitting of mafia when Hayato's explosives went off and Tsuna jumped in without a moment's hesitation to save his first mate. He returned safe and sound, if smoking a little, carrying Hayato over his shoulder and dragging Bel from the back of his coat. Reborn smiled. At least Tsuna had his priorities in place.

Of course it couldn't last, not with Tsuna. When Xanxus asked in a derisive voice whether Tsuna liked to play hero, the latter launched in an oddly passionate speech about heroes and how he wanted to eat all the meat instead of sharing it. Tension deflated like a popped balloon.

From there on, things progressed as could be expected. Tsuna spent the entire rain battle alternatively impressed by the swordplay or lamenting that the sharks weren't really all that big. He also tried to invite several members of the Varia for an after battle party and ignored them when they declined the offer aggressively. Having the experience of Tsuna the others lacked, Reborn took maybe a bit too much sadistic joy in seeing everyone scramble about.

By the time Mukuro's battle was due, the entirety of Varia seemed ready to blast Tsuna off the face of the earth, even if it meant they would lose the conflict by default.

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At first Tsuna only seemed interested in whether or not Gola Mosca could poop, when he wasn't busy being overly excited at seeing a robot. Then, for seemingly no reason, he blinked, frowned a little and turned to his would-be tutor.

"Curlyburn, there's a person inside that thing," he said in an uncharacteristically serious voice. "And he's not doing too good. His voice is flickering. Can you call a doctor?"

"His... voice?" Reborn asked carefully.

"Everything that lives has a voice," Tsuna said and smiled guilelessly. "I can hear it."

The mystery of the 'voice' was solved when Hibari smashed the machine and Vongola Nono was recovered from the inside. Reborn was glad he'd decided to go with Tsuna's whim. Hyper intuition really was something.

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The sky battle gave off the distinct impression that Xanxus was taking it as much as a chance to let out some steam, all of it caused by Tsuna, as winning the title of Vongola Decimo. Reborn couldn't help feeling a little stab of sympathy, even if Xanxus had kidnapped the Ninth and caused all this trouble.

After two hours, several second degree burns, property destruction and eternal ice first created and then melted, Tsuna and Xanxus were laying on the ground, both exhausted. Tsuna grinned, apparently having lost all ill will towards Xanxus now that his future as the mafia king wasn't threatened.

Xanxus scowled, but there was a hint of resignation in his eyes. "If you think I'll ever become your subordinate, you're delusional. Trash."

Tsuna merely smiled. "There's no way I'd try to do that. We're equals, right?"

Xanxus took several seconds to recover from the shock, before he went and shocked everyone else by bursting into laughter.

"I suppose there are worse trash out there than you."

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It didn't take Tsuna even two weeks to find himself in a situation of mortal danger while wearing the Sky Vongola ring, and no one was quite sure as to how he managed to pass the test. Maybe Primo liked pirates.

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Reborn had barely managed to relay the new information about the clear pacifier to his fellow Arcobaleno when the man wearing the iron hat contacted them all in their dreams. In the morning, he woke up feeling angry and frustrated instead of rejuvenated. Even if he didn't mistrust every word out of the man's mouth by principle, the timing of it was too suspicious.

He jumped on Tsuna's bed and examined the sleeping face. Tsuna was drooling on his pillow and halfway sprawled on the ground.

Reborn sighed, just a little.

What had he really managed to teach Tsuna, in the end? The boy took care of his own people as if it was his second nature, was charming in an annoying sort of way, had excellent instincts both in and out of battle and knew how to lead people. And there was simply no way Tsuna could ever be coerced into any semblance of sophistication or to learn mathematics. Or forced into anything, period. He would be the mafia boss who wore his shirt open and didn't even know he owned an office.

Reborn had only lead Tsuna to his flames, and nudged him slightly off his original course in life (which was, sadly enough, probably also his greatest achievement to date). That was about it.

Would there be any point in asking Tsuna to fight for him? His student would, of course, and would also try to save Reborn and refuse to give up in the face of the impossible, even if he died in the process. Tsuna was someone who would only die with no regrets. But if Reborn didn't ask Tsuna, chances were he would run across the issue on his own and make an even bigger mess out of it.

He might as well do it, if only so he could try to bail Tsuna out if he did bite what he couldn't chew.

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The Representative Battle managed to fall apart in the most spectacular implosion Reborn had ever witnessed. The Vindice got involved in the whole affair not two days in, and tried to call in that favour Tsuna had promised them.

When Bermuda explained the full extent of the situation, Tsuna somehow managed to form some sort of a cohesive picture of it (to Reborn's considerable surprise), but predictably enough refused to even entertain the idea of sacrificing his tutor for the sake of killing Checkerface.

And somehow, it all worked out. The Vindice were defeated one by one and the mysterious Checkerface turned out to be one uncle Kawahira. The jars that were to replace the pacifiers had been taken away by Bermuda, and the curse broken (mostly).

When Reborn asked how Tsuna had arranged the whole thing, Tsuna blinked and smiled so wide it hurt to look at.

"I'm only good at fighting, so I asked Talbot-ossan to come up with something to save you while I took care of the bandage guys and the chessboard guy. There's no way I'd ever abandon my friend, Reborn."

Reborn stared at Tsuna's smiling face, wondering when it was that he also had started to follow Tsuna.

(It took him several minutes to realise that Tsuna had finally called him by name.)

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Daemon Spade observed Tsuna and wished he could bang his head against something hard. He had spent countless decades, even centuries, shaping and polishing Vongola into a power unrivalled by anyone and Tsuna was the epitome of what he saw as weakness, trying to make friends first and only fighting if provoked first. And yet, somehow, Vongola had never been greater or more influential.

Another thing to be considered was that if he tried to take over, he would have to actually deal with Tsuna. He stared at the idiot, who had fallen asleep under the table after finishing a week's worth of food. He was snoring and drooling on the floor.

Clearly not worth it. Tsuna probably wouldn't even appreciate the carefully arranged details of his plot.

Daemon sighed, exited the body of Julie Katou and disappeared off the plane of the living.

This caused much confusion at first, as Julie suddenly woke up and realised he had no idea what had happened during the last few weeks, which caused several old secrets to be brought up to the light. Tsuna remained ignorant of the whole thing, while the workload of his father suddenly doubled.

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The inheritance ceremony went off without a hitch, unless one were to count the massive and inevitable brawl that started with a tonfa to someone's face and ended with Lambo's grenade launcher.

Reborn still counted it all as a smashing success, having considerably lower standards than the Ninth and all of his guardians, who seemed to be suffering from mild heart attacks.

Reborn had also grown three inches in the last week and managed to trick his student into wearing a suit for the occasion, so perhaps he had ample reasons to feel accomplished.

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Three months after his initiation as the Vongola Decimo, Tsuna found himself bored and went off on an adventure. Unfortunately he had not thought to inform anyone else of this, and the only reason the people in Vongola headquarters did not tear the place apart in search of him was that he had gone to the kitchen to request a 'pirate bento' before he'd left.

Reborn had just about stopped caring by this point. Tsuna would do what he wanted, and had at least managed to gather people who could keep Vongola running without his constant input. He knew how to fight and how to survive in the wilderness. He would be fine.

It was at this moment that he remembered just what kind of things Tsuna could get into if left unsupervised, cursed like a sailor and left the building in a run, barely stopping to drag all of Tsuna's guardians with him.

Surprisingly enough, Tsuna had only gotten involved in a minor coup d'état of the Gesso famiglia and promptly made friends with the very suspicious new boss known as Byakuran. Predictably, Hibari hated the man's guts at sight. What was more surprising was that Mukuro agreed and the two of them got along for the first time in their lives. Everyone else was uncomfortable with the sight.

Byakuran merely smiled, somewhat less mysterious and even more creepy than Mukuro.

Now, let it be said that Byakuran had been intending to follow the instructions of his future self in achieving world domination. But Tsuna seemed more interesting.

The mafia world never did find out just what bullet they had inadvertedly dodged that day.

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When Tsuna did eventually (somehow) manage to become the king of mafia, Reborn merely shook his head in resignation and started looking up information about piracy. He had long since learned his lesson about trying to stop Tsuna, but it would be amusing to see the rest of the mafia try.

And, well, at least his body could handle a drink again. There would probably be rum involved.

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Author's Notes: I find this a bit clipped and not really achieving the full potential of the idea of Luffy reincarnated as Tsuna, but I have enough on my plate with other things and had to get this out of my head.

Besides, I mostly just wanted to write Reborn (who is the worst tyrant) clashing with Luffy (who never listens to anyone). The end result was that Reborn gave up trying to reshape Tsuna and learned how to redirect him. A little.

I have always thought that Hibari's references to carnivores and herbivores are more about will to fight and bloodlust than ability (though that certainly counts too). Luffy isn't malicious by nature, but he likes his fights and literally almost always eats meat. Hence the classification.

If I ever find the motivation, I might expand on the other adventures Tsuna would have in the course of becoming the mafia king. I merely thought that quite a few of original Tsuna's conflicts couldn't happen with Luffy in the helm. As if he'd ever dump his problems on his younger self, for one, so the future arc was out. (Byakuran might still go for the world domination at some point, mind. He's not one for actual loyalty in my mind.)

The Daemon Spade arc was all but dismissed because I simply didn't like it.