21Disclaimer: Sarkura looks around nervously at the readers. I-I-I don't own Katekyo Hitman Reborn!
Previously on Dimension Traveler: Tsuna meets Gokudera with a bang! Nera meets herself again and they both fan-girl over Giotto-Sama... whatever that means. Oh and Nera leaves her dream more determined than ever to kick a stalker's butt.
Target 4: Expel Crisis
Nera hummed to self as she pulled her hair into two curled pigtails with hairbands which had blue flowers attached, her fringe was swept to the side. It was secured with a pink heart shaped clip which framed her face nicely and her backup metal framed glasses; she winked at herself in the mirror. 'I guess It's time to enjoy things instead of worrying.' She was thankful it was the summer uniform that she had to wear- since it was faster to put on.
Mama called out from the kitchen. "Nera Roselle Nightingale! Don't scare Mama and Papa like yesterday- you got that!"
"Okay!" She giggled. 'Looks like Papa is not home.'
Her Mama huffed, still in all her moe glory and frilly pink apron. "Here's your bento box. Have a good day at school."
"Thanks Mama, I'm leaving now."
"Take care."
Then Nera was running her normal route to school in a chipper manner- not that she showed it. Her hair was bouncing along with her every step. Behind her was Masumune who surprisingly was also late ran faster to catch up with Nera. His uniform seemed to be hastily put on and his hair in disarray only indicated that he had woken up not long ago.
"Hey where was you yesterday?" He raised an eyebrow at her as he asked in between his intakes of breath.
Nera gave him a blank look that contradicted her 'cute' look. "I was sick."
He quickly backed away from Nera like she was some kind of disease. "Ew. I'm keeping away then."
Even when she had anticipated the stupid boy's reaction, in a dark tone Nera muttered in English. "Yeah, thanks a lot- you bastard," and of course Masumune heard her but had no clue what it meant; it was pretty obvious she wasn't happy by the sarcastic sounding remark.
Masumune called out to her as she decided to increase her speed and out raced him to the school. Nera ignored the boy and dashed to her locker to throw her outdoor shoes in and grabbed her indoor shoes to quickly get to class. She slumped down in her seat exhausted, excited whispers from the girls in the class didn't surprise her having seen the new transfer boy- Gokudera Hayato at the lockers, admittedly he was cute but he wasn't Nera's type.
'Not today, not ever. Sorry Gokudera. My best friend- Meiya has dibs on you. And she can be scary as hell when she wants to be.'
Speaking of best friends, Nera didn't go into detail about Meiya did she? I'm sorry to say Meiya is a little eccentric than you thought if you ever met her- you know, with her endless list of boyfriends you will never finish even if you had eternity.
The bell signalling that it was homeroom rang, her teacher called her to the front after telling his students any news that he needed to inform the students. She sweatdropped at her teacher whom had tears in his eyes as he announced that he the kendo club refused her. The captain being the most against the idea of her... joining the kendo club.
'Not surprising. I would kick his ass and take his title from him. Mahahaha...' Her smile became more vibrant at the thought and shrugged maybe she could join the music club? 'I haven't played my violin in a long time, I didn't get to practice much either which sucks.'
"Sensei... Is it possible if I could join the music club instead?" Nera asked in a curious manner.
Her homeroom teacher piped up at the question. "Of course! I am the teacher in charge of the club, which instrument would you like to play?" He frowned a little and muttered a few words to himself.
"Violin if possible or viola."
"Ah, I see. Come see me at the end of the day, there are a few things problems with joining the music club which need to be solved before you can join fully." Another bell signaled the start of their first class. "See you later knighttogayo-san."
She replied in a bland tone. "Ciao Sensei." Nera was glad it was too faint to hear but almost slapped herself for her personality slip-up hopefully Reborn had not heard her say goodbye in Italian and briskly went to her desk. It was an old habit she thought she had dropped, apparently not so. Why had it surfaced after so long?
'If it comes to it, I'll blame Reborn for his failed attempted at saying chaos. My habit of saying Ciao has got nothing to do with mafia! Lalala!'
After homeroom her first class was science with that teacher whom Nera could not quite place why she didn't like. Nera gave a sidewards glance at Tsuna whom was freaking out- probably because he knew he scored low again, not that he had once got a score above 30. Nera looked out to the scenery bored (dully noted that Reborn was napping on the tree branch) as the students got up to collect their test papers, Nezu-sensei's voice droned on dully.
"Kawada."
"Here."
"Kurihara."
"Here."
"Kondo."
"Here."
A inaudible soft sigh left Nera. 'Queue Nezu-sensei's failure to pronounce my surname.'
"Night..."
'How convinent that Sawada is the name after me in the alphabet.'
Nezu-sensei flicked her paper around his finger so that everyone could see her score. "Here." Thinking nothing of her teacher's actions, Nera got up to retrieve her test paper.
You must be thinking a nerd like Nera would be getting full marks... Nope, her average was about 80 points; it was rather bad considering she was doing a 14 year old child's work and her actual age has increased from 17 to her late twenties. 'Japanese is still hard for me to gasp! Even worse is music which I have to sing in Japanese.' The exception of her average marks was for English and Maths she of course got 100 in them. Memories of her English teacher and Maths teacher flashed though her mind, good times, they were funny.
"Nezu-sensei," she called his attention quietly standing in front of him, "could you not flash my test score to everyone?" She gave him a sweet smile.
Nezu seemed oblivious to Nera's annoyed tone and scoffed at the mention of Tsuna. "Of course. I'll be more careful next time," by now Nera was suspicious that the teacher had just been waiting for her to point it out or it was for something else...
"Sawada," Tsuna the poor little bunny rabbit went to go get his own paper.
"Yes."
Nera could feel the atmosphere change slightly.
"Pfft," just as soon as Tsuna reached out to take his paper, the teacher pulled it away. Nezu sneered at Tsuna, looking down on him. "This is just hypothetically speaking, but let's just say there's a sole student that scores in the 20 point range and painfully lowers the class average..."
Tsuna began to panic slightly, not knowing where the teacher was going with his sentence. "Um...?"
Nezu pushed his glasses back into place with a smirk. "...According to me, who's come though an elite course that kind of person will just be baggage and a burden on the education-conscious society." A shocked look of understanding emerged on Tsuna's face. Nezu just wanted to mock Tsuna's failure as an academic student. "Is there a reason for that kind of trash to live especially when someone younger than them got higher on the same test paper?"
'Wait, say what?'
Nezu let the test paper flop down, showing everyone his test score.
'Did that bastard suggest for a student to commit suicide?'
"Uwaaah!" Tsuna yelled.
The mood of the class turned sour to Nera's tastes, but she did nothing after all the scary Gokudera will appear soon.
'I won't do anything now of course.' Nera's smile turned dark. 'I guess sensei won't mind it if his name is written down on my little black death note.'
"I saw it!" A boy laughed.
Another one grinned like an idiot. "He's still no-good-Tsuna."
Then another one joined in with a mocking surprise. "Whoa! 26 Points." Tsuna walked back to his seat quickly making sure that the test paper was covered securely, you could see his expression saying that Nezu was an asshole. Definitely though fear and hurt Tsuna felt his heart had dropped down into his stomach as he saw the expression on Nera's face.
Laughing along with his other and more promising students, Nezu-sensei called the next student. "Next, Suzuki."
'Nezu really was a pathetic who could only bully children.'
Nera had eventually turned her dark smile into a fake smile as the door slam and Gokudera strolled in with his hands in his pocket. Every person in the class turned around to look, Tsuna muttered his name gloomily not too sure what was about to happen. She turned around to see Nezu hit the table which made a loud noise, the annoying teacher glared at the late student with arrogance. "Hey, you're late! What are you doing coming in at this time."
Gokudera stopped and stood for a second before glaring at Nezu. "Aah!" He said in that gangster like tone, it wasn't arrogant sounding just really pissed off.
Nezu visibly flinched. "Uh..."
Everyone started to chatter about Gokudera, Tsuna looked away a little pale and paled more when Gokudera walked nearer to him. Suddenly he bowed respectfully towards Tsuna. "Good Morning Juudaime!" That got the students talking again, this time with a more fearful atmosphere. Tsuna shifted in his seat uncomfortably trying to deny the existence of his right hand man.
Neru had a cocky grin on again and pushed his glasses up from slipping, "this is just hypothetically speaking but lets just say there's a student who carelessly comes to class late." He let his glass go and pushed his shoulders out to make himself seem larger. "Without question he hangs out with loser trash." It is here that Nera rolled her eyes. "Because like-minded people gravitate towards each other."
It seemed like Gokudera was not going to have any bullshit. "Old man..." He grab Nezu roughly his glare at full blast. "I won't forgive any insults towards the Juudaime, Sawada-san!" the entire class seemed unsure of what to do and many was becoming nervous.
Gokudera grinned like a little child at Tsuna- poor Tsuna but really he should man up.
"Tenth should I drop this guy?" Tsuna tried to hide under his arms pretending nothing was happening to him.
'Sigh I should do something before Gokudera chokes the guy to death.' Nera stood up making sure her chair made the loudest scraping noise it could make. "Gokudera-san drop him."
He glared at Nera, "I only take orders from the Juudaime."
Her face held no emotion, showing nothing as she looked him in the eye. "You're causing Sawada-sempai trouble." Tsuna was still hiding behind his arms, Gokudera looked at Tsuna and let go in shock, before anyone could do anything Nezu yelled half frightened and terrified.
"Gokudera, Dame-Tsuna, Night! Principle's Office!"
The three of them walked to the Office after Nezu had turned a dark red from shouting and breathing heavily, on the way to the office Nera was smiling at Tsuna as if there was nothing wrong at all that they was being sent to someone who could potentially expel them- well actually it was more like expel Tsuna and Gokudera.
"Sawada-sempai." Nera quietly whispered.
"Y-Yes?"
"Stop freaking out so much," she smirked. "It's not like they will expel you..."
Of course Nera was being sarcastic and Tsuna knew it; Gokudera caught on instantly and butted in rudely, "this is your fault stupid girl. If I had not let go and make that dumb teacher pass out then we wouldn't be here." Her smirk disappeared and in its place was a frown.
"If you didn't resort to violence, we wouldn't be here."
'Continue like that and you will cause more trouble for your boss.' Nera ignored the boy with disinterest, it was no fun to tease the soon to be mafia boss when Gokudera was around. Nera put the thought away as the they entered the neat and spacious office, Nezu thundered in a second later exploding with rage.
"You guys are expelled-"
The principle looked at him in shock not quite understanding the situation at hand. "Calm down Nezu-kun."
Nezu-sensei glared the the two. "How can I stay calm?" He pointed at Nera. "I was physically assaulted, if not for Nera I would have passed out from being oxygen deprived!"
The nagging feeling she had when she first saw her science teacher made her remember a small detail she forgot. 'He's the guy who makes fun of Tuna-fish... UNFORGIVABLE!'
The annoying (Nera's new opinion) teacher yelled again, "Sawada Tsunayoshi and Gokudera Hayato should be immediately expelled with joint responsibility!"
"But to expel them would be hasty, this is the first time I've seen them being called to my office." Nera looked at the Principle as he spoke softly. "I'll give them a probational period." Nezu-sensei was still livid, ready to retort.
"Sensei, please give them a chance." Nera begged. Nezu-sensei just looked betrayed.
'I'll give you hell when all of this is over. Haha... Oh, the fun I will have!'
In her mind she yelled her ultimate cutesy attack! 'Sad kitty trembling eyes!' She saw Nezu hesitate, the principle was already in tears. 'Not good enough huh? How about I crank up the attack level? Bahaha, feel more guilty!' She hugged Tsuna, her face carefully hidden to hide her evil grin.
Tsuna looked at her startled and probably turned white as a ghost at the sight of Nera's evil smile. "N-Nightogayo-san?" And without warning Nera burst out wailing; she trembled, hiccuped and tightened her grip to make a point that she was still upset, it was amusing to say the least at Tsuna's failed attempt to clumsily calm her down by rubbing her back and petting her head like she was some kind of pet. I suppose it didn't help that Tsuna was scared of Nera if he did one wrong move.
Nezu-sensei sighed like he was forgiving his students but really, his mind had settled on another way to get the two trouble students expelled. It was also as if he was trying to tell Nera that they owed him a way of proving themselves to not get expelled. "There's a 15 year old time capsule buried in the playground that couldn't be found." He smirked and turned to the principle. "You was going to ask the school staff dig for it. Let's have these guys do it. If they find it by today, then the incident today will be forgiven- but if they can't find it they'll be expelled immediately."
'I am really going to torture Nezu-sensei!~ Aha... It's going to be so much fun!'
Gokudera tugged Nera and left the office before Tsuna, Nezu or the principle noticed and followed Reborn whom was outside to a fire-box thing.
"Gokudera?" Nera was confused why had he pulled her along?
"Help me make up a plan with Reborn-san to help Judaime! Also Reborn-san wants to talk to you." Gokudera regarded Near curiously.
The door swung open as the three fitted inside the thing comfortably and began disusing various methods to find the time capsule. Meanwhile Tsuna was shoved out of the office none too carefully.
"That..." Tsuna paled, "that's outrageous." He went numb as he stalked down the hallway he exclaimed. "I don't want to be expelled!"
Nera spied Tsuna from her hiding place with a critical eye. 'Yeah that's only because school is the only place you can see your beloved sweetheart.' She thought sarcastically.
"If you don't want to get expelled that badly, then why are you going home with out digging up the time capsule?" A sadistic smile replaced Reborn's usual calm expression of indifference. "Loser."
Tsuna turned around stiffly. "Reborn right?" he stared at the fire cupboard, a small circle popped open showing a mini-Reborn. He jumped in surprise. "The hell- you're tiny!" His shock clearly on his face. "What- what the hell happened?" The mini-Reborn stuck his tongue out hitting Tsuna in the eye.
Tsuna immediately tended to his injuries eye crying. "My... My eye!" Nera was sat in the modified cupboard besides Gokudera and giggled at Tsuna in pain.
'Tsuna's getting bullied by Leon~'
Reborn opened the cupboard with a dramatic flare with a faint grin on his face, "Leon is a form memorising chameleon, you probably didn't notice him but he was on my head the whole time."
"I did notice!" Tsuna retorted at Reborn.
'Oh Tsuna, that kind of behavior directed at Reborn will not go unpunished later. I almost pity you.'
Gokudera decided to come out. "Juudaime, over here." Tsuna looked at him almost exhausted and did a double take.
"Reborn-san was instructing me on the basics of- I mean we was making a plan on how to find the capsule." He bowed down hands and knees. "More importantly, I'm very sorry! Nightingale... was right, I should have known you didn't want to be expelled," his eyes lit up with determination.
Tsuna stared at Gokudera dumbfounded. "Eh?"
"Let's dig up the capsule at any cost! I have a good idea in mind so leave it to me." He suddenly smiled as Tsuna had a thoughtful look on his face. "If we blow the ground up with dynamite, it'll be fast," somehow there was puppy ears and a wagging tail which appeared on Gokudera as he handed Tsuna a bundle of dynamite. "This is your share!"
Suddenly Tsuna looked shocked at Gokudera's plan. "Wha!" Nera suppressed her laughter, it was obvious to anyone who knew Gokudera that using dynamite to blow up the school grounds would be his first choice. "No, no. Dynamite isn't good." Despite that Tsuna still tried to protest against using explosives but by that time Gokudera was already halfway to the end of the hallway.
"Well, I'll see you there!"
Tsuna began panicking more. "Wait! I don't want it! Don't make things worse..." He slomped down to his knees. "It's no good Gokudera-kun!"
Amused chatter from the teacher's lounge perked Tsuna's interest, inside was Nezu and another random teacher. The random teacher half smiled, half pity as he replied to Nezu. "Man you are messed up Nezu-sensei. Telling them to dig up a time capsule that isn't buried."
An arrogant grin on Nezu's face spoke volumes of his corruption. "The principal is who's messed up. He forgot that 15 years ago there happened to be no time capsule buried."
Nera deadpanned. 'No, that's completely wrong. The one who is at fault is you Nezu.'
Tsuna was shocked as Nezu continued. "Those bastards are expelled no matter what. Well, if they were ever to break the playground in half then I might rethink it."
"No way!" Tsuna exclaimed.
A sudden loud noise outside rattled the windows. 'Must be Gokudera.' The explosions set up by Gokudera drew the attension of everyone- students and teachers alike. Again, Nera had to muffle her laughter as Tsuna's soul left his body; the poor boy started to cry softly, muttering to himself. "Ahh... my school like is over. There isn't a time capsule either-we;re definitely going to be expelled for sure." Nera stared at the pathetic boy embarrassed. "It's goodby to Kyoko-chan."
'Seriously is Kyoko this, Kyoko that the only thing on his mind?' Nera had an urge to slap Tsuna senseless but willed it away, enjoying the look of Reborn pointing his trusty gun at Tsuna's forehead.
"Gokudera doesn't think so, there must be a way not to get expelled." Reborn smiled slightly.
Tsuna could only manage "Reborn," before he was shot with a dying will bullet; a few seconds later Dying Will Tsuna jumped out and yelled "REBORN! Split the playground with my dying will!" And the young teen was at the playground within more seconds next to Gokudera. Nera had climbed out of her hiding spot standing besides Reborn, tea and coffee in hand; the hitman adopted a more sadistic smile as he shot Tsuna with more bullets.
'Target practice much...'
When Reborn had finished Nera looked at the baby in the eye. "Originally I was going to avoid you but looks like I can't. Especially since you have seemed to have given back a book which I suspect is an old diary of mine."
"It is part of the Sun Acroballeno's duty." Reborn tipped his hat. "All I have is a vague description of a person called Nera and that I must return her book to her."
Nera sighed. "I don't know very much except for the fact..." She hesitated. "I am a dangerous existence who must live," a dry wiry grim line formed with Nera's lips. "I suppose it comes with the job... Say could you protect me? I'm not very strong and would rather not use some of my abilities to live."
Reborn gave her a strange look. "Don't you know? The entire trinity set is meant to protect you."
*FOUR*STAR*FISHES*
Down below where the broken playground lay in pieces was Gokudera holding old test papers belonging to Nezu-sensei... the entire school witnessed Nezu's lies and because of his fraudulent educational background was terminated from the school within the hour.
Tsuna sighed in relief. "Whew, I'm relieved we didn't get expelled."
"Oh come on Judaime, you were seriously worried," Gokudera spoke with confidence. "I'll trade my life in to prevent anything like that from happening."
Reborn cut in with a knowing look. "Isn't it freat to have such a reliable subordinate?"
Tsuna once again went into a panic. "I said I don't want a subordinate! Besides, if two losers stick together Kyoko-chan won't give an interest in me."
Gokudera turned around as he remembered something and showed Tsuna his perfect test results. "The tests in this school are a cinch huh."
Tsuna stared in complete shock as Reborn told him. "You need to learn Tsuna..."
*FOUR*STAR*FISHES*
Nera sat in her seat like nothing had happened, then the end of the day came too soon. She stayed behind in order to talk to her homeroom teacher and concluded that Nezu would be the topic of rumors and the likes for a good few weeks.
"Knighttogayo-san, I would like to aplogise that the music club is full... the only option I could give you is a substitute position so that if someone is ill during a performance, you fill in for them." He continued feeling more nervous that the little girl would refuse joining the music club. "You don't have to come to practice all the time," his confidence was fading fast. "We have a violin selection that you need need to buy and I can start teaching you how to use one."
Nera blinked. "I can't promise anything Sensei. I'll ask my mum if she has the money to spare to buy a violin for me. " She sweat-dropped at how much tears was dripping on the floor and promptly bid her farewells to get home.
She had a lot of questions for Rosslyn.
A/N: Yo~ As always I am grateful for the reviews favorites, and follows! Keep the criticisms and encouragement up! XD I have started to wonder if I should do some replies on the author notes as replying though PM is a little hard for me...