Training was not put off while Shamal worked on Natsume's wound.

No, Reborn simply used the time Natsume was out of commission to have a…private tutoring session…with everyone on the importance of teamwork and stress management that did not result in their Sky getting sliced open.

He spent the entire week Natsume was laid out to make sure his lessons stuck.

Even Hibari and Mukuro walked away from the very first day of training with Reborn with a healthy amount of respect for Natsume who had been putting up with this same Spartan Training for years. (By the end of that week they nearly walked up to Natsume and bowed in respect at the waist. Reborn's idea of training was insane and she'd survived since she was 13.)

Natsume was very confused when she joined in the training only to see Mukuro and Hibari working together. (Granted neither looked happy about it, but they weren't trying to decapitate each other which was a huge step in the right direction as far as she was concerned.)

No one would tell her exactly how that happened, but when she caught sight of the look on Reborn's face she decided she didn't want to know. Natsume did however receive multiple lectures on how she was never to leave the base without telling someone ever again even if she had to punch someone in the face or send a blast of Sky Flames in their path to get their attention.

She agreed when she saw how much it meant to her Guardians.

The next month was spent on teamwork drills. Reborn mixed and matched everyone until any one of them could work just as well with any of the others. In between that Reborn also worked with everyone on silent communication and stealth training once Natsume actually sat down to explain that noise would be a huge taboo in the presence of the zombies. This included more trust building and strength building when Reborn forced everyone to learn to carry everyone else while they were sleeping. (Of course certain people were better suited to carrying others, but everyone could at least move everyone else to safer ground if they couldn't physically carry the person)

This was done so that everyone would get used to actual dead weight as most people would unconsciously help someone who was carrying them if conscious. It also doubled as trust and situational awareness for both parties seeing as Reborn used the training rooms and Mukuro's excellent use of Mist Flames where possible to simulate actual threats for the carrying party and helped prevent the sleeping party from waking up. (Chrome was used when Mukuro went through the training) The first week of this exercise continually lead to everyone waking up until they learned to identify the Flame User who approached them even in their sleep and thus would not stir during the training unless disturbed. Situation awareness was also beat into all of them expanding on their awareness not just of themselves but of all the others as well.

Reborn was silently glad he had stocked the base with enough supplies to last ten people a full year. This meant the near 20 people in the base had at best six months before they had to move into the mess outside as long as nothing went wrong.

Reborn hadn't gotten by on 'maybes' and 'best case scenarios' though and treated every day he trained his students as if it was his last opportunity to do so before the real deal. This attitude led to all of his students treating their training in the same manner and thus they pushed themselves further then Reborn could have managed on his own.

The second month Reborn spent expanding on and adding to the skills his students could use offensively and defensively. Shamal was set considering his occupation though he practiced right alongside the others. Everyone was taught to use firearms and carried the weapons on their person even if some of the younger members had to have specially designed guns to do so. (Spanner and Shoichi were quite a pair when they put their minds up to something.) Shoichi, Spanner, and the three children mainly used firearms as their weapons though they did alter their guns so they stored and ran on the excess flames of their users and their companions. The guns were also silent in the sense that the most noise they actually made was equivalent to a soft flame crackle and thus could be used on the zombies without drawling more to their location with the noise a normal gun would make. Kyoko, Haru and Yamamoto all focused mostly on the swords that had served them so well while Chrome and Mukuro both used their tridents. Bianchi's Poison Cooking worked just fine considering it could and did melt through anything it touched, no exceptions. Ken tended to stick to his different Beast Transformations and Chikusa was very good with wires attached to gloves and various kill shots with knifes and daggers considering he was perfectly capable of severing the spine with a throw. Hibari and Ryohei stuck with tonfas and fists respectfully though Ryohei had taken to keeping multiple long stiletto-knifes on his person just in case. Gokudera- having been limited on what he could do with his explosions considering noise attracted their enemies- took to and was very dangerous with a crossbow that ran on his flames, while Natsume mostly stuck with her fists and flames but was also quite deadly with bladed fans. The teamwork drills, situation awareness training and stealth training continued as well and were expanded on where possible.

These lessons continued on even as Reborn expanded onto other areas never letting one area be left behind for another.

Reborn taught the others the art of Flame Communication as well. Flame users could flare their inner fires and so Reborn taught everyone how they needed to do so to communicate different things. It wasn't capable of full on conversation, but limited communication was possible and as they became more accustomed to the Flames of everyone else, their 'vocabulary' in the language would expand, not because Reborn would teach them more 'words' but because they would learn exactly how someone's Flames reacted in certain situations and would then learn to recognize what was happening to each other by how their Flames felt rather than any 'language' he taught them.

By the third month the drills were really showing themselves in the daily interactions. Three months in a confined space being forced to train, eat, sleep, and communicate with each other in new and various creative ways (Reborn) was a long time to be stuck together without learning to accept and change around the others.

Especially when Reborn was forcing the issue. There was no escape for anyone.

With the option of leaving out of the question (No one would ever quite manage to get rid of that image of Haru and Kyoko staggering into the Base with Natsume dripping blood out of their heads.) the only thing they could do (the only thing Reborn would allow them to do) was learn to adjust to close quarters living.

The fighting still happened, but it was more verbal then physical, and they made sure they never actually caused anyone injuries since none of them knew when they would be forced out of their safe haven and into the mess outside where they would need to stay in the best possible condition. All of them walked near silently and were usually aware of where everyone was because they could all sense each other through their Flames, and they practiced 'talking' with their Flames as often as they could manage.

Weapon maintenance was something they all took to doing together and they also discussed if they had seen anything they could improve on throughout the day.

By this point even Hibari could sit in the room almost in arm-reach of the others, having decided that these herbivores were being forced to grow fangs and become carnivores and therefore would eventually become his Pack.

(Hibari was not a 'lone wolf' exactly, more a wolf who had not found a pack up to his standards until Reborn came along and made a pack up to his standards.

Not that Hibari had realized any of that until it was sitting in front of him.)

Natsume had never been so glad for Reborn's training methods. She hadn't been sure how to make everyone work together well enough to survive when so many of the personalities of her Guardians clashed.

Reborn had fixed the issue for her using force, and Natsume had smoothed out the jagged edges of it all.

O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~

It has been a while and I lost the next chapter so we didn't follow the plan mentioned last chapter. Sorry about that- change of plans but NEW CHAPTER (as short as it is).