Takeshi and the traits of a Natural Hitman (Katekyou Hitman Reborn)
Takeshi had idle thoughts.
He never liked them.
Ranking and leveling them - it was easy, it made him feel better. When ranking them - it was less real, more of a fun hobby or game then anything invasive.
The first level ones, they were just - spirited, maybe. Not malicious but not kind either. Just observations, obvious ones he settled on a little faster then most people did.
"Kids never like you much, do they?""Ahh, Obaa-san let me help you with those bags, you're not as good at running these days as you used to be yeah?""Oh man, you forgot your anniversary, huh?"
He didn't hold back on voicing those - it unsettled people, but he wasn't wrong - not exactly. Level ones - those were where he was handed the same puzzle pieces everyone else was, and he just happened to piece them together quicker. That's all there was to it.
Level two - they were cutting ones, usually mean ones. Sometimes - rarely, so very rarely - they were kind. Kindness though - it still shook, still cut, still diced - it was just a lot more polite about it.
Those were where it got personal. Level two thoughts - that's where he startled to really freak people out. He saved those - he chased them down and put them in a jar for safe keeping, for when he knew someone well enough that something he observed the moment he met them can finally be said without a wary glance being thrown his way. For when it's seen as endearing that he pays attention that much and said something so earth shattering after so long, and not eerie he said it at all.
"Tsuna you're..a really nice guy, aren't you?"
They never seem like much, but they have an impact. In the right situation, in the right tone, in the right hands - it could devastate, it could inspire, it could topple, it could fuel - but most of all it's always striking. Sometimes - they don't realize it, the recipient, but it can shift an entire mind. Effecting your core so thoroughly, burying itself deep in your heart without you so much as noticing - that's where it gets scary, in Takeshi's opinion.
Level three though, those he never voices. The ones he chases and doesn't jar for later - but instead cages, keeps locked in his head. Always variants of the same phrase.
"I could kill you."
It's not - it's not dark. Not some evil piece of Takeshi surfacing - it's just Takeshi. Takeshi, looking at an angry math teacher belittling his grades and not feeling fear - but just an amused cursory "I could crush you, without so much of a breath."
It scares him, because of how normal it is. How Takeshi doesn't have some evil beast inside him feeding him poisoned words, nothing so linear he could hate - it's just him. Him and his strange confidence that if someone ticked him off just enough, he could kill them.
Idle thoughts - they aren't intrusions. Takeshi's are no different. They're just him, Takeshi.
It frightens him - because they always feel natural, correct, even. He looks and thinks with confidence "They'd never even suspect it was me." the same way a more normal person may think "It's going to rain today."
It's unnatural, it's not normal, it's unusual - but it's never obvious and he despises that.
4 years later, and when Reborn calm as you please informs him he has all the makings of a natural hitman, that he knew it the moment he first laid eyes on Takeshi over coffee one morning - Takeshi laughs as he realizes with some sort of strange accepting amusement, he was just Level Two'd by the worlds greatest hitman.
..Ah really, Natural Hitman indeed, it seems.