(Reborn P.O.V.)
He adjusted the finishing touches on his little hideaway in Namimori. It was a bit difficult to get the entire campus under surveillance on such short notice, especially since he was not allowed to have any minions working for him in Namimori.
The treaties were incredibly clear on who could and who could not be in this city. He was stepping on some toes by being here already, but most people did not question him when he broke the rules. Part of the perk of being who he was.
Sadly, he could not get some expendables to do work for him. Reborn could get away with breaking treaties, but no-name grunts did not have the same privilege.
So he had to install all of the surveillance by himself. Thankfully, Verde came through with some easy-to-install gadgets, and it only took a minor amount of threats to get that mad idiot to comply. Progress really.
He let out a small chuckle as he remembered lowering his fellow Arcobaleno into a pool of sharks to get him to fall in line. Verde should really learn to just give him what he wants instead of forcing Reborn to get creative. He doubted that man would ever give in so meekly. He had far too much pride in himself even in the face of the natural disaster Reborn was.
He checked over the surveillance and let out a snort at what his pupil was currently doing. He was sitting at his desk chatting with the girl who sat near him. The boy was a bundle of nerves and seemed almost afraid of overstepping.
Such a strange sight for the beast of a man Tsunayoshi was turning out to be. Then again, almost everything about his student was odd.
When he first got the report about Tsuna and his capabilities, he was frustrated beyond belief. Little to no athletic ability, as smart as a particularly dull pebble, and the boy did not even have the courage to face a small dog.
A loser through and through.
That was what he expected when he strolled into the Sawada residence this morning, but instead he found a killer.
A man willing to break every bone in his body if it meant accomplishing his goals, bloodlust that seemed to seep into the ground around him in sheer malice, and the vital instincts to aim for vital blows with every strike.
A born hitman.
It was raw. The boy was relying on his instincts to guide him in everything, his stance unstable and his guard nonexistent. His body was far more impressive than Reborn expected, but a far cry from the potential lying dormant in his student. But the building blocks for a true gem were just sitting there.
He assumed that the boy hid behind the meek loser act to hide his unnatural urges. It would be difficult dealing with a psychopath, but the fact that he hid himself instead of following through on those thoughts implied a high-functioning one instead of a madman. Something Reborn could roll with. The high-functioning type knew when to advance and when to retreat, and if Reborn told him rules to abide by, he would follow them because there was no other choice.
It was not like Reborn would instill a grand moral code in his student. He was just here to prepare Tsunayoshi to inherit the Vongola Empire. It did not matter to him if the heir was a sinner or a saint as long as they were capable. It was not like Reborn could throw stones at sinners. His hands might as well be permanently crimson with the amount of blood staining them.
Except that the boy was not the killer he thought he was either. No, he fought with the Yakuza boy with none of the bloodlust, none of the sheer destructive wrath his student held in him. Bloodlust that raw could not be hidden by the clearly inexperienced Tsunayoshi, meaning he never even thought about killing Hibari for a single second.
Tsuna's current clumsy chatting was further proof that his student was not the murderous killer Reborn thought he was. So the loser act was not a protective measure to stop eyes from seeing the truth lying beneath the surface.
So why did his student act like that?
It did not make sense for that to just be the boy's personality. Even now he could see a quiet confidence in his bumbling chatter, the certainty that he could face the world falling around him with the same deadly conviction he displayed earlier.
A personality like that was also in direct opposition to the flames he displayed in his Dying Will state as well.
Flames were the very essence of a being, the soul flickering to the surface underneath the mortal frame. The boy could manifest his flames with just the valve being opened, no ring or weapon to enhance his capabilities. No, he was capable of physically manifesting those flames with just a small push.
Meaning the purity of his flames was off the charts, not as monstrous as Reborn's own flames but the boy was still young. With flames of such purity, they would have guided the boy into a form far different from those reports.
A disposition that drew in others, a charm so dangerously tempting that even a smile would have others falling in line. The mix of Sky and Storm would have created a Charming Bad Boy who would have the whole school fearful of him but desperately wanting his attention.
Xanxus had the same mix and was not even close to the purity Reborn had seen in Tsuna's flames, but Xanxus managed to charm the entire Varia organization to follow him in a mad pursuit of killing the main Vongola family line. That was how charming Xanxus was to those who followed him, so Tsuna should have been a better version of the infamous Mad Dog, one who could actually inherit the Vongola's greatest treasure.
Yet the reports told a different story, and it was not a story he could dismiss as people not understanding the boy. Nearly everyone who had ever met the boy described the same thing: teachers, friends, enemies, even the boy's own family described a hopeless boy who let the world crush him.
So either the whole world was as blind as a bat, or there was something else going on here. Curiosity hummed beneath the surface, and Reborn wanted to pry, to dig until he found what he wanted, but he held himself back.
His job was to prepare the Vongola heir. If he pried further, he might make an enemy of the future head or discover things he was not meant to know. He owed Nono too much to tread on this with his usual force, so he needed things to reveal themselves naturally.
He was hoping his student would share his secrets on his own volition, but it would take longer to satisfy his curiosity. However, it was the plan he was going with for now.
He could tell his student was hiding quite a lot. That ability that he was throwing around in their fights was one of them. It could be excused as a simple technique to increase speed, but it was more than that.
It was a minor time manipulation.
The speed and force behind his punches did not match from natural speed, and the strange way he moved in certain positions told him that. Something to accelerate his own time in opposition to the world around him. That opposition appeared to put incredible strain on his body, considering the state he was in at the end of their fight.
A good ability and one that would serve his student for the rest of his time. He should be surprised that his student could affect time, but this world was filled with strange and confounding things that could not simply be explained by Flames.
Luce had future vision in her position as the sky of the Arcobaleno. The Vongola had something special about them as well. Reborn had seen the Vongola Rings, and while they were not as impressive as the Pacifiers, they possessed a quality that was only surpassed by the Pacifiers.
So a similar talent blooming in the most talented heir of the Vongola Family was plausible.
Did he think that was one hundred percent accurate? No. There was clearly something strange going on with Tsuna, but he could only hope the boy would tell him what those strange things were.
Strangeness like the sudden change in his eyes. Reborn watched from his cameras as Tsuna looked at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. The boy had snuck away and did that strange gesture he saw him doing after their battle. After he did that gesture, his eyes started to change into what they are now.
It was not too noticeable, but with Reborn seeing the whole process happening, it was clear something had changed.
He cursed silently as he really wanted his curiosity settled right this instant, but it appeared that was not happening.