Mafia X Vampire

Chapter 8: Shadows of the past - Tsuna

Hey guys, Naintarlow checking in.

Cover: Tsuna is shown in a fancy suit, standing back to back with Dino who has his whip out. Dino has a huge smile on his face while Tsuna shows no emotion.

Reborn was nothing but a through and very annoying bastard, was the sole thought running through Tsuna's head as he tiredly leaned back on his chair, the faint light coming from the laptop before him illuminating his exhausted face. For the past two days, Tsuna's almost every free moment went into looking into the mystery his old mentor handed to him, without any real progress. The memory card, that Reborn hid in the charm he got from Kyoko was unfortunately encrypted, and knowing him, it was so heavily encrypted he wouldn't able to do anything with it even if he had a rudimentary understanding of the subject.

That was so typical of the strongest hitman in the world, that Tsuna was not even sure why he expected anything else. He had a few people in mind who he was sure could crack this code in a second, problem was all of them belonged to the mafia and he was leery of contacting any of them. Add to that he was not sure who to trust, and he found himself without a lot of options.

Loud knocks snapped him out of his thought. Looking in the direction of his door, he noticed that the sun came up while he was busy trying to play detective. Another all-nighter then, he thought to himself with a groan as he stood up and went to open the door. He blinked in surprise when he came to face to face with an entirely too cheery Tsukune, clad in his workout clothes.

"Good morning Tsuna-san. I'm ready for training." the black-haired teen declared full of energy. Tsuna only blinked sleepily at him, not really registering what he was talking about.

"Ah, there will no training today." he said after letting out a huge yawn. He honestly was no in the mood to tortu-train Tsukune and he doubted he would complain much about getting a free day out of nowhere. He knew he wouldn't.

"What do you mean there is no training?" he asked back, confused. So much for not complaining.

"It means I'm not in the mood to train you." was the answer to that, while Tsuna tried his hardest not to snap at the teen. Back in the day, he wouldn't have looked in the mouth of a gift like no training for a whole day.

"What should I do then?"

"No idea. I'm going back to sleep." with that he closed the door, leaving a shocked Tsukune behind.

Instead of sleeping like he told Tsukune, Tsuna only braced himself against the closed doors, putting a hand on his face. Even if he felt like it, training would be pointless for his student. He was already at the ninth bullet count, so, for now, he chose to only train the body, while he figured out what to do. The sad truth was that if he used the tenth bullet, Tsukune will undoubtedly catch the skull disease and the only way to cure it was to use its opposite the angel disease. And that meant contact with the mafia, which he would rather avoid at the moment.

The mafia. It always invoked contradicting emotions within him. It was a scary, dark organization stained by the blood of innocents and criminals alike. It produced scary and ruthless people like Mukuro, Squalo, or Xanxus. The scramble for the rings, the fight in the future against Byakugan. He had to endure and survive all of these deathly situations because of the mafia because it was decided he would be the next head of the powerful Vongola Famiglia. At least that's what he thought.

On the other hand, by being involved in the mafia, he acquired his first friends. Gokudera his self-proclaimed and surprisingly reliable right hand, Yamamoto, Irie and so many more. Even if he stated countless times he will not be Decimo, he couldn't help but stay in that world, where he started to feel more than a failure. Yet, now that he was free of that dark world, he still looked back as if expecting answers of how to go forward. When things got tough he still fell back into his old mindset.