Author's Note: Sorry for the long wait. I know, I know, another short chapter, but at least this one's longer than the last one? I blame Reborn for the delay, he's hard to write. I'm not entirely happy with the ending of this chapter, and might go back and change it later on. Thanks so much to everyone who's reviewed!

Sasagawa Ryohei lived an ordinary life among ordinary people with a normal everyday happiness. He graduated high school like all of his classmates did filled with hopes and dreams, went to college, then on to a series of jobs one after another. He had dreams (top honours in the boxing world, a boxing club to call his own and a loving family) and worked hard for it in the only way he knew how, with extreme passion and dying will.

Despite the admonishments of his girlfriend and his sister to slow down, to rest once in awhile, he continued to put his all into everything he does, every day and every second of his life. He doesn't know how to live otherwise.

Ryohei doesn't know there could be anything more than the normal life he is living. Even if sometimes it feels like there could be something more, just barely beyond his reach, but what of it? This everyday happiness is all he knows.

But today, on another ordinary day, on an ordinary street, Ryohei meets someone extraordinary.

Tsuna smiled as he raised a hand in goodbye as he jogged out of the club. The club was well managed and his fellow patrons seemed happy to be there. Ryohei, despite being the owner, showed him around and assigned himself as Tsuna's trainer. He was looking forward to it.

Ryohei hasn't changed. He was as he remembered in his other life, one of unending enthusiasm for life. It gave him hope that the rest of his friends were living similarly happy lives. (He didn't wish normality for them; he knew them far too well for that to ever happen.)

As Tsuna slowed down from his jog to a walk, a fond nostalgic expression on his face as he thought back on both good and bad times with his Famiglia, he almost missed a very familiar sound coming from the park just around the corner.

The sound of Leon in his gun-form being fired. Tsuna could never mistake the unique sound of the Dying Will bullet exiting the one of a kind gun that was Leon. He had heard it all to often, especially when he had been younger and Reborn felt that a certain kind of motivation was needed for self-improvement. The home tutor's methods were spartan to the extreme, but they worked. He was no doctor, but he knew exactly how far and how fast he could push a person's body. Tsuna himself had been Reborn's best example of his methods; he went from a thin, weaker-than-average fourteen year old to being able to outfight and out last someone twice his age and physical body.

Automatically Tsuna's body turned towards the park, then froze on the edge of the curb, jumping back out of the way automatically when an overly aggressive cyclist made a sharp turn that would have rammed right into him if he hadn't avoided it.

This is a stupid idea. You know what Reborn is like. He is going to kill you for for any number of things that he finds suspicious before you can even start to think of a believable explanation. And 'I died of old age and woke up decades younger in an alternate reality' is NOT a believable explanation, no matter how true it is!

But it's Reborn. Someone who's been a part of of his life for so long that it was there was a hole inside of him after he was gone. And even after all this time, Reborn was still the first one he looked to for advice and reassurance.

Before he knew it Tsuna found himself in the park and as he suspected, that same teenager that he had lent his jacket to all those weeks ago was collapsed underneath the shade of one of the trees. The teen's clothes were missing. Again. The instigator was nowhere to be seen, but Tsuna knew he was there, watching and observing.

It was too late now to back out, so he approached.

"This is getting to be a habit." He murmured, a reassuring smile on his face as he slipped off the windbreaker he was wearing and held it out towards the once again mostly naked teen.

Face reddening, the teen nodded, accepting the jacket.

"I...I still have your other jacket! I've washed it and everything!" The black haired adolescent blurted out in accented Japanese.

"Don't worry about it. I have others." Not really, as his wardrobe was distressingly bare compared to his old life and he hadn't had time or inclination to fix it but Tsuna could afford to buy another one. "I don't believe I've introduced myself. I'm Shinozaki Tsunayoshi. It's nice to meet you again."

"I'm Abato Mario, sir." The teen introduced himself with a nervous half-bow, before glancing nervously up at where he knew Reborn was watching. Tsuna noticed the look and was impressed. At the same age he wouldn't have known Reborn was there or even have thought to look for the spartan tutor. The teenager in front of him however was looking more and more uneasy with every second so Tsuna simply continued to project reassurance.

"I think, whatever exercise that you are doing so often, it is a good idea to bring a spare change of clothes with you. Just in case." Tsuna commented lightly, resisting the urge to look up at the place that Reborn was hidden.

Reborn of course, chose exactly then to drop down onto the teenager's head from above, causing the teen to stagger with the sudden weight on top of him.

"Ciasso."

Tsuna cocked his head slightly at Mario. "A sibling? Or a friend?"

"Neither." Came back the answer immediately from Reborn. "I'm Mario's tutor. And hitman of the Vongola Family. The name's Reborn."

"It's nice to meet you." Dipping his head in a bow, Tsuna introduced himself again. "I'm Shinozaki Tsunayoshi."

"And you. To reiterate, I'm definitely not Mario's friend." The emphasis on the word 'friend' told Tsuna all he needed to know about Reborn's feelings on that idea.

Mario on the other hand, was looking back and forth between them with increasing horror on his face. Tsuna was the first person he'd met in Japan that didn't look at him as if he was a weirdo, and he didn't need Reborn to traumatize him for life!

Unfortunately for Mario, Reborn plowed on. "You seem to have sense. Mario here will be the eleventh Boss of the Vongola and he could use someone like you. Would you like to join our Family?"

Now this really was a first for Tsuna, to be recruited. For as long as he could remember, he was the one doing the recruiting. He couldn't help but laugh, and shook his head. "I'm sorry, but I'm much too busy with my job. A game like this one that you are playing deserve someone's full attention. And I'm sure Abato-kun would prefer playmates closer to his own age, yes?"

Seeing that both Reborn and Tsuna was looking at him for an answer, the teenager could do nothing but nod his head up and down eagerly in response. He did NOT want this perfectly nice and normal man involved in the Mafia!

"Hn. Too bad. If you ever change your mind, let me know." Reborn's eyes was shadowed by his fedora and at that moment, not even Tsuna with his hyper-intuition could tell what Reborn's real thoughts were.

"I'll keep that in mind. For now, please excuse me, I need to head home. Enjoy your game." It was definitely time to retreat while he could. Now that he's come into contact with Reborn, Tsuna could tell that his quiet beginnings in this new world would start becoming less so very soon. And he needed to plan for that. So with that parting comment, Tsuna left the park with quick steps, feeling Reborn's eyes on his back every step of the way until he was out of sight.

Edited 9/3/2013: Minor edits that I missed the first time through. This will teach me not to update when I'm falling asleep on the keyboard.