Mafia X Vampire

Chapter 10 The calm before the storm

Hey, everyone, Naintarlow checking in.

Cover: Someone holding up a photo of the newspaper club, with everyone present on it but there is a crosshair drawn around Tsuna's head

"Why aren't we going to our usual training place?" Tsukune asked with a tired yawn as he dragged himself after Tsuna who didn't seem like he would stop anytime soon.

It was about a week since the incident with Ishigami and him almost dying, something he tried not to think about much. He felt marginally better, though he still woke up some days completely exhausted but it may have been because of Tsuma's insane training. For some reason, the enigmatic teen decided to amp up the difficulty setting on his training, much to his dismay.

After the whole debacle with the skulls that screamed out his deepest embarrassments, he felt relieved that things were getting back to the normal routine. Well, almost everything. Though there was a little awkwardness between him and Moka after her oblivious rejection, he soon came to peace with that and their friendship remained as strong as ever. Even Kurumu being extra clingy and spending a lot more time with him was something he quickly accepted as normal.

What he found strange that there appeared some kind of distance between Moka and Tsuna. It wasn't obvious at first glance, he was pretty sure not even Kurumu or their other friends noticed it but it was there.

Only thanks to all the attention he paid to Moka that he noticed and even then he almost dismissed it because it sounded ridiculous. But it was there, subtle differences in their interactions. How Moka looked away, not meeting Tsuna's eyes, how she no longer visited them during his morning training, how they tended to descend into awkward silences, and how she stepped away from him whenever he stepped close to her. Tsuna bare all of it silently, the only sign of it affecting him was the way his shoulders dropped and the closed look in his eyes.

As their friend Tsukune was of course was worried about whatever was going on between them but the one time he tried to bring up the subject with his friend, Tsuna gave him a look that immediately destroyed any further thoughts of prying into their business. Still, he hoped things got better between them soon.

"Until now we mostly focused on your physical conditioning so you could survive until I can use the dying will bullet on you and for you to be able to handle the strain that comes with constant usage." Tsuna explained after a long silence, drawing Tsukune away from his musings.

"I remember feeling a little exhausted but not anything bad." he objected with a thoughtful frown. "And didn't you say the dying will releases external limiters and grants invincibility?" he asked trying to remember the explanation he got at the start of the year.

"That's true for the basic bullet but there more complex ones that are more demanding. Ones you are nowhere near ready for." he waved away his objections, giving a friendly greeting to the few students who were up at this hour."Now that you recovered from the skulls disease, we can begin training in earnest." as he caught Tsukune's sour look, he couldn't help but laugh."Get over it, I had to go through this just like you. Except my tutor was, even more, a sadistic bastard. It's a necessary step to acclimate your body to the dying will flames, so you could properly utilize them."

"I really don't want to meet that tutor of yours." Tsukune said with a shudder. You poor boy, you don't even know the half of it."You still didn't explain where are we going." he reminded the brown-haired teen.

"As I said, now that you have reached a level of physical fitness of a little above the average human norm," as he told it matter-of-factly, Tsukune's shoulders dropped in dejection."It's time we focus more on you mastering the dying will flame."