#but its actually so funny how the troupe of an eldritch being and a mortal share bodues and develop a love hate relationship happens a lot

[esperfraud]

This came to me in a vision.

Feel free to add your own favorite "eldritch being x traumatized mortal" ships!

[somniumoflight]

Crossover Idea #7 – Hollow Knight and Katekyo Hitman Reborn!

Tsuna is pseudo-adopted by the Grimm Troupe

Okay so like, hear me out here. Tsuna and the Grimmchild. Tell me them being buddies and getting into shenanigans wouldn’t be cute, I dare you.

In all seriousness, though, there’s more to the idea than that.

So, what I’m thinking in terms of backstory here for this world is as follows – a long time ago, the world was more or less as we see in Hollow Knight, with great big wastelands between kingdoms that stripped travelers of their memories (and also of their minds, as per one of my headcanons) and gods maintaining the kingdoms that served as bastions from the Wastes.  Despite being basically an apocalyptic wasteland with the occasional oasis for people to live in, the world wasn’t actually dying.  Kingdoms, yes, but not the world itself, and it could have lasted for a long time so long as there were gods around.  However, this is where Kawahira’s people came in – their people were dying due to having no gods to maintain their kingdoms properly, and in an effort to save themselves they created the Tri-Ni-Sette as a replacement.  Thing is, it worked a little too well, and its effects actually covered the entire world.  While this meant that mortal life could flourish, the actual gods began to slip into obscurity – they’re still around, but far less important and powerful, and no longer necessary for maintaining life.

Now, fast-forward about 30,000 years.  Humanity has flourished and taken over most of the known world, though there’s still a small continent unexplored due to several bug gods banding together and creating treacherous storms in order to protect their kingdoms from being colonized.  The Tri-Ni-Sette is deteriorating, threatening the reappearance of the Wastelands, thus the need for the Arcobaleno.  However, most humans aren’t aware of this, save for the Arcobaleno themselves, and so they live in peaceful bliss.  However, the remaining bugs are all too aware of the Tri-Nii-Sette’s deterioration eventually bringing back the Wastelands, and their remaining gods have banded together to prepare.  Amongst one of these gods is Grimm, the Nightmare King and Master of the Grimm Troupe, who is one of the only gods (save for the Radiance and the Vessels, yes they exist too) who risks traveling through dreams to human continents.  He and his troupe travel from place to place, hidden as an eccentric and spooky human circus instead of the bugs they really are, drifting from town to town to gather Essence in preparation for the return of the Wastelands.

It’s during one of these trips overseas that they end up in Namimori, maybe two years after Tsuna’s Flames are sealed by Nonno and Idiotsu (Iemitsu).  The little Sky accidentally stumbles across their tents while trying to escape from his bullies, and though he is at first frightened by them (to be fair the Troupe IS pretty spooky and they throw fire around) they’re also a hell of a lot nicer to him than humans are and he’s quick to warm up to him.  The reverse is also true, and so while the troupe eventually leaves town, as they must do, they promise to visit again and the latest Grimmchild is left in Tsuna’s care both as a friend and to continue gathering Essence from Namimori.

Combining the Grimmchild, who is literally a fireball-spitting baby, with the sheer number of shenanigans that go on in KHR canon quickly sends canon tumbling off-track at break-neck speeds, while creating new shenanigans for Tsuna to deal with at a much younger age.

Details for this fic include:

The Grimm Troupe isn’t just made up of Grimm, the Grimmkin, Brumm and Divine – there are several Vessels in the Troupe as well who decided to come along with him and be part of the troupe (because even in a world where all bug gods are united under one goal, the Pale King is still a terrible father.) Amongst them is Ghost and “Pure,” aka baby Hollow Knight that was never actually used to seal the Radiance and is thus more or less fine, because the Vessels deserve good lives damn it.

The Vessels Do Not Understand People for the most part – emotions are hard for them.  They all like Tsuna though, and basically adopt him as another Sibling along with  Grimmsmol.

The Grimm Troupe knows about Tsuna’s Seal immediately upon meeting him thanks to nightmare-god-voodoo tricks, basically.  However, the lack of Flames doesn’t bother them, because unlike humans, who all have at least dormant Flames, Bugs don’t naturally have Dying Will Flames.  

This whole “all humans have Flames” thing is the source of Tsuna’s abuse by Namimori post-Sealing, though – he feels “empty” to them and instinctively they all hate that.  So Grimm, being a literal god albeit a weakened one, uses his own nightmare flames to start burning the Seal away a little bit at a time.  They’re just similar enough to Sky Flames that he can sort of get away with it without causing permanent damage so long as he’s careful, but due to the nature of his own fire Tsuna’s get a little… eldritch when he’s finally able to use them again.

Eldritch as in his Flames can now burn Essence and are made stronger every time they do so, and they feel really weird to normal Flame-Actives.  And may or may not cause nightmares in people they’re not compatible with.  It doesn’t help with human people in Naminori not liking him anymore, but hey, at least now the bullies leave him alone!

Tsuna, being an impressionable kid, starts emulating the Troupe after they’ve helped him.  He may or may not wear all red and black, and try to take dancing lessons after school.  He also may or may not be given a Grimm Troupe mask at some point and it sort of becomes his security blanket even when he’s not wearing it.

The Grimmchild is a grade A Accidental Troublemaker.  They’re old enough to be able to spit fire, but not old enough to know how to control it properly, so they catch a lot of things on fire when excited, or mad, or just in general, and usually by accident.  It happens so often that spontaneous combustion around town barely makes anyone bat an eye after a few years.

They start doing it on purpose as they get older though, mostly because some of Tsuna’s bullies can’t take a hint and need to be scared off sometimes until they smarten up finally and leave him alone.

Grimmsmol may or may not accidentally smack into babby Hibari while flying one night and catch the carnivore’s attention as a “baby carnivore.”  Hibari ends up actually helping gather Essence with Tsuna and Spooky Junior early on, which leads to him both going Active due to a particularly nasty restless ghost (which is where they get Essence from in the first place) and him ending up with a little bit of nightmare in his Flames as well… not that he needs them much, haha.

Something similar may or may not end up happening with Chrome (and later Mukuro, who escapes the Vindice earlier than canon to go to Namimori at Chrome’s suggestion), Takeshi, and also Ryohei (he thinks the little hellbat baby is EXTREME, enough said.)  Basically all Tsuna’s Elements end up with the nightmare flames thing going on to a degree.

The first time Tsuna’s new friends meet Grimm, they all basically decide we want to be like you. Yes, even Hibari, though he’s more focused on the whole super-powerful fireball-throwing “carnivore” thing than the oh my god you’re so cool/extreme sentiments the rest of them have.

Grimm ends up teaching them all how to “dance,” aka they all end up acrobatic fire-throwing fighter, though they each end up developing their own “dancing” style at his insistence.

The little differences all start stacking up until by the time Reborn arrives in Namimori, Tsuna’s Seal is already broken, he has four out of six element bonds, their flames are all slightly infused with nightmares due to proximity to Grimm Jr. and the Troupe, all five of them are already budding badasses due to Grimm’s lessons and them practicing when he’s not in town, and all of them are slightly creepy to everyone not in their circle.

Funnily enough, this Tsuna isn’t so reluctant about being a Mafia Boss, and Reborn is a lot more reluctant to teach the kid.  Tsuna figures that being a Mafia Boss would let him help the Troupe gather Essence more easily, since he’d have a lot more power and would know more about where all the gruesome deaths that create the Ghosts that create Essence in the first place would be.  Reborn, on the other hand, is unnerved by Tsuna and Co’s weird Flames and their eagerness to become Mafioso, and their calmness when confronted with death, which isn’t normal for civilians.  Hibari he can understand, he’s Fon’s nephew and technically already part of the underworld, but the rest of them? He’s actually pretty sure he’s accidentally discovered actual demons in disguise, which is pretty funny actually since he’s technically still more dangerous than all of them.

Reborn does end up in the Tsuna and Co. bandwagon eventually though, because once he knows the full reasons why they wanna be in the Mafia, and he sees the sheer chaos potential of the group (Grimmchild included), he’s all for training these little demons.  (And all for meeting Grimm because hey, actual god that can burn away Flame Seals without having Flames – maybe he has some insight into how to break the Arcobaleno curse?)

Bonus: Hayato is thrilled when he ends up being called in, not just because he has a chance to fulfill his dream but also because his future Boss is literally friends with a baby UMA and the baby UMA’s parents and family.  That and the Grimmchild really doesn’t like Bianca and is perfectly willing to try to catch her on fire when she’s nearby.

Good god that’s a lot of text.  Uh, whoops?