"Ngh..." Noelle was sprawled face down on the couch, every one of her muscles screaming in agony after the day's training from hell. No matter how much she got used to being pushed past her physical limits, her trainers would find new and creative ways to surpass those limits.
The blonde understood the need to train her; she was going to be the Guardian Angel of Tsunayoshi Sawada, the future tenth Vongola boss, Juudaime, Decimo, and whatever else he was called. Because after Reborn tells him the news of being the one and only sole candidate of the tenth generation Vongola boss, his life pretty much gets thrown into turmoil from either the baby hitman's insane training sessions or other mafiosos chasing after him. Thus, he needed a Guardian Angel who was well versed in fighting.
But would it seriously kill them not to push her so hard that she can't move for the rest of the day or would they lose their title of sadist trainer if they allowed her breaks during intervals?
Noelle tried to push herself off the couch in her room only to succeed in falling on the white plush carpeted floor with a loud thud.
"Sarah and Feliciano are evil." Her words and groan being muffled by the carpet.
The two aforementioned were her tutors in weapons usage and physical combat respectively over the years since she had arrived. They were nice enough outside the training room, but in the battle field they really knew how to hand it to Noelle as proved by the bruises she had earned every single day since they began teaching her.
Sarah was a black belt in martial arts who was skilled in the art of wielding a bo. After a lot of debate on what type of weapon Noelle would wield when it came to fighting, it was decided that she should be taught in the art of bojutsu since she was entering an educational environment. Plus it was highly doubtful that she'd be able to sneak in with guns without getting arrested.
Not that Noelle was eager to use the very weapon that had killed her in the first place.
"Besides," Sarah had said when Noelle had been sulking unhappily about the decision, "the weapon combined with your super strength is deadly in itself!"
Much to Noelle's displeasure, she still maintained the inhuman strength she had inherited from her father who had inherited it from his. Many of the Serafin had considered her lucky to be able to surpass most people in terms of physical strength but Noelle usually found herself facing the downside of being able to easily break a table with one punch.
How many times through out the years had she broken cups, plates and cracked tables? How many times had she smashed the cutting boards and cracked the counters whenever she tried to help out in making the meals in her house? It had gotten so bad that her mom had actually banned her from the kitchen infinitely until she could rein in her strength.
But even she had to admit that her strength would probably be a valuable asset in the world that was Katekyo Hitman Reborn. The only thing she had to learn now was how to not break everything she touched.
Looking up from the floor, she saw her mechanical alarm clock stating that the time was nine-thirty at night.
Groaning, the girl forced herself up to walk over to her bed only to collapse on top of it. It smelled strongly of her favorite vanilla scent and as much as she wanted to bury her head into the sheets and inhale it, she forced herself to set the clock of her alarm for eight am.
The good thing about Noelle's harsh training schedule was that they didn't force her to wake her up at some godforsaken time early in the morning (such as the crack of dawn). Unfortunately, she was also NOT a morning person so eight am was still pretty early for her.
As she placed the clock back on to the top of the white mini book shelf that was next to her bed, the now twelve year old girl caught a glimpse of a bruise that was beginning to darken on her arm.
It was a newly made bruise that Feliciano had dealt her just an hour ago when they had been parrying blows for the day's training session. Though he was twenty (he had been thirty two when he had died), the man really knew his combat and had taken it upon himself to teach her how to defend and fight barehanded.
Even in his former life, he had been part of the mafia then. Though he missed his old famiglia, he stated that the mafia workings in this world were much more exciting than his previous one.
Clumsily reaching up for the light switch that was near her bed, Noelle flicked it off. She didn't bother getting changed; her muscles felt like jelly and it had taken a lot of effort on her part to move from her place on the floor to the bed. As she closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep, she was unaware of her door being opened by someone who had been waiting for her to drift off into slumberland.
0000
Noelle woke up feeling more refreshed than she ever had as she sat up in her bed and stretched her arms above her head. She stifled a yawn and rubbing her bleary eyes, peered at the clock on the top of her white book shelf.
"Huh?" The girl blinked.
That was strange; her alarm clock wasn't there. She was sure that she had set it to ring last night too.
Noelle hopped off the bed and bent down to look underneath it. Maybe she had accidentally knocked it off or something? But when she checked, it wasn't on the floor. She moved the shelf to see if it had fallen behind it (which she highly doubted but she checked anyways since alarm clocks didn't just up and walk away) only to find that not only was her clock not there, the cord was missing as well.
There was nothing plugged into the electric socket.
"Did someone take it?" That was the only conclusion Noelle came to. Someone obviously took it from her room when she was asleep last night, but the question was why?
It was another Serafin since there were no maids in the mansion and no one in their right mind would break into the mansion if they knew was good for them, that much Noelle knew, but why the heck would they walk off with her clock of all things?
Noelle paled when she remembered why she had set up the alarm clock in the first place. She had been late for her morning training session one time and after Sarah punished her for her tardiness, she had vowed never to be late for a training session ever again. Nothing was worth what she had to suffer that day just because she was ten minutes late.
Quickly getting dressed, she raced down to the kitchen where the only other clock that wasn't in anyone's room was out for everyone else to see. It took her a good five minutes to get there because the mansion was so damn big. Once she entered the kitchen and spotted the time, it took about every ounce of Noelle's self control not to drop onto the floor and start twitching.
The girl had guessed as much that it was past eight; what she didn't expect it to be was twelve thirty in the afternoon!
She was doomed.
Infinitely doomed.
Sarah was going to kill her.
Or at least make her training an even bigger hell than it already was.
"AUGH!" Noelle immediately made her way to the training room where Demon Teacher number one was probably waiting. It was better to get her punishment over with rather than try to avoid the woman like the plague; Stephen had made that fact clear with Heather surprisingly backing him up on that statement.
Once she got to the door, she pulled down the handle and yanked it open expecting to see a very angry trainer...
...only to be met with confetti exploding into her face.
"SURPRISE!" Various voices yelled from inside the room.
Noelle gawked as she saw streamers and balloons hung up all around the room that Sarah and Feliciano were usually beating their training into her. Right in the middle, surrounded by at least fifteen people, was a huge five layer chocolate cake.
"Uh... what is... um... why is there a cake in the middle of the training room?" She asked as her eyes gazed at it hungrily. She hadn't eaten breakfast yet and it was well past noon.
"Silly!" Sarah said in a cheerful tone that had Noelle flinching and inching away backwards in fear. "It's your thirteenth birthday!" She blew on the party horn she was holding and was that a party hat she was wearing?
"It's January 21st?" Noelle blinked. "Wait, IT IS?"
Where did the time go? Well, it was probably hard to keep track of days, weeks, and months when you were being tossed from one end of the room to the other as well as having multiple languages and math being burned into your brain altogether.
"That is the day you were born, is it not?" Feliciano chuckled. His amber eyes twinkled with amusement at his pupil's stunned surprise.
Noelle nodded in dumb shock. She was still trying to get over the fact that both her trainers were in the same room not beating her up for once. And they were both celebrating her BIRTHDAY.
"Come on!" Heather bounded away from the group and took Noelle by the arm as she dragged her towards the towering cake. "We've been waiting for you all morning! Yeesh, you weren't kidding when you said that you weren't a morning person. We've been ready for over an hour!"
"You planned this?" Noelle looked up incredulously at the girl who had been like a sister to her over the years she had been with the Serafin. "All of it?"
"Of course we did! In a few months you'll be leaving for Japan so we decided that we should celebrate your last birthday here in Casa Serafin!"
Before Noelle could ask about anything else on the topic, a boy who was sixteen years old and who went by the name of Arthur stated that there would be a time to explain all that after the party.
But for now, it was her birthday and she could bet damn well that they were going to celebrate it.
And they did. They celebrated all day long and well into the night.
0000
The next day Noelle got another day off from her training since practically everyone from her party the previous day was hung over from the amount of alcohol they had indulged in. Apparently, her birthday was also an excuse to break out the liquor and get drunk.
"Are they going to do this at my birthday, too?" Asked the most recent Serafin member along side her, Aaron. He had died when he was nineteen thanks to one of the idiot drunks he was driving home. He was killed when the drunk in the front passenger seat had grabbed the steering wheel which then veered into a railing and then over the edge of a cliff.
"I think so." Noelle deadpanned as she nudged an out cold Stephen with her foot.
Since she and Aaron were minors (Aaron was going to be the same age as her in July) they weren't allowed to drink anything other than the carbonated sodas that were there for their convenience even though the latter had argued that before he had died, he was legal to get drunk.
He still wasn't allow to drink any alcoholic beverages.
Finally in the evening when they had cleaned up everything and no one was moaning about their self-indulgence the night before was Noelle able to get her answers.
"You're leaving for Japan in the middle of March so that you have a few weeks to settle down before you start at Namimori." Tsukasa explained to her.
"But I thought that I would be going next year when I was fourteen?" Noelle cocked her head to the side in confusion as she fiddled with the silvery blue baton that Sarah had given to her for her birthday.
At least it, looked like a baton. While Noelle had looked at the object it with barely concealed disappointment, Sarah had taken the object from her and pressed a well hidden button that extended the baton's ends and turned it into a staff. It looked exactly like the wooden ones that the woman had been training her to use for years, except that it wasn't made of wood but the metal of Fortissirum that was unique to those in their famiglia.
Fortissirum was considered the strongest and most endurable metal in the world and only the members of the Serafin had it in their possession and had used the metal to forge all their weapons with.
"Well we thought so too but I come from Japan so I know how the schooling system there works and I decided to look into it. If you'd been born past the month of April, then you'd start out as a first year at Namimori Middle School when you are fourteen."
"...I don't get it." Was Tsukasa expecting her to do the math? Because even though she had improved on the worst subject to have ever existed, she still sucked at it.
"You're born before April 1st, thus making you thirteen when you attend as a first year."
"I still don't get it."
Tsukasa sighed. "The Japanese school year begins on April. That's all you need to know."
0000
"Are you sure you have everything? You checked twice, didn't you? You have map of the Namimori and the address of the apartment you're staying in with you in your bag?" Sarah asked for what had to be the twentieth time since they had gotten to the airport.
Noelle was unable to answer due to being paralyzed both mentally and physically. Was this seriously the same woman who kicked her butt everyday whenever they sparred together?
"I'm sure she does." Feliciano said, pulling Sarah back. "You've already asked her many times."
It was now the middle of March and the day that Noelle was leaving for Japan. Everything had been prepared for her in advance and her entrance into Namimori middle school had been already approved. Seeing her off at the airport were the Serafin members she had interacted with the most; Heather, Stephen, Tsukasa, Feliciano, Sarah and Aaron.
"Don't worry Aaron. You're leaving for your assignment soon too, mate!" Stephen ruffled the boy's hair when he saw the sulky expression on his face.
"Yeah, I guess so." Aaron muttered, looking away and glowering at nothing in particular.
"Well, it's time." Heather said, glancing up at the electronic listings of flights. "You should get ready to board. Don't forget to send us souvenirs and postcards. You have the address that you're supposed to send the postage too, right?"
Noelle hefted the backpack on her shoulders and nodded. It was the only carry on with her since all of her stuff had been sent to Namimori ahead of her already.
Giving Heather one last good bye hug, she gripped the ticket in her hand before going through the gate.
This was it.
She was finally going to Japan.
This is a little shorter than the previous chapter and I did a lot of time skipping, but I can finally say she goes to Namimori. The next chapter should probably be out next week since I got this out pretty fast, huh?