#the Arcobaleno curse is awful

[khr-guilded-cage]

[ketchup-chup]

Not the same anon, but why do you not consider the arcobaleno trials canon? Amano wrote them

Hello! So I first wanna preface this by saying that this is no hate to anyone who enjoys the fillers. While I personally do not like the arcobaleno trial fillers I do enjoy the one focusing on the Primo Gen! And to be frank a lot of this is just my personal opinion!

Now, onto the reasons I don’t consider them canon! Which is actually quite a few reasons but I’ll just discuss the major ones.

First, Amano did not write them! In fact, the rumour that Amano approved or had any direct hand in making them is just that. A rumour. This post by boxanimal does a lot better of a job at explaining it than I ever could so I highly recommend reading that.

But essentially. At most Amano may have given the anime staff some info about the arcobaleno’s personalities (and in the Primo Gen case probably info about Daemon’s whole thing) but there is no actual evidence to point to the fact Amano wrote or gave the fillers their stamp of approval to be considered canon.

(putting the rest under a read more since it got quite long)

Second: the characterizations are awful. I'm just gonna talk about Reborn here because he's my favourite because it's the most obvious and it directly contradicts what he’s said previously. I would make the argument the fillers write him very out of character.

What I mean by this is that during Reborn’s trial he says the following to Tsuna:

“The world’s done for if you don’t clear this trial. Don’t you care about what happens to Kyoko, Haru, and your mother?” He mentions saving the world a little later on in this battle as well.

THE THING IS!!! REBORN WOULD NEVER SAY THAT TO TSUNA!! He does not want Tsuna to play the “hero”! It was never about saving the world! This directly contradicts what he tells Tsuna at the start of the Future arc!

“Don’t try to act cool, Tsuna. You’re not the hero type, are you?” “Your reasons for enduring this training, to bring everyone back to the past, or whatever- they’re not you at all.” “Your feelings were a lot more simple at the time, weren’t they?”

Reborn knows Tsuna and knows better that this type of argument/encouragement(?) would not work! Being the hero is not what Reborn wants of Tsuna!!! it's not what he's been trying to teach him or to ever use as his main source of motivation!

So yeah. The characterizations are just. Not good.

Which brings me onto my last point. Which is the most “this is just my personal opinion” of the whole thing.

I do have the belief that the fillers are a large part the reason for many of the most common misconceptions of the arcobaleno. It goes into my previous point where the characterizations are just… not that great.

I do believe it’s why the headcanon that Luce is extremely manipulative and led the other arcobaleno (purposefully) to their doom is so popular and where it initially comes from. When we just don’t see that at all in canon nor do we see any hint or sign that the other arcobaleno hold a grudge against her.

And listen! I am a Luce defender till the day I die, I will admit this!! And I do also have the headcanon as well that she was aware of their fate. But to just water it down to “she misled and lied to the others therefore she is an awful person” does such a disservice to her and the tragedy that is being a Sky arcobaleno (and by extension the "curse" of having divination powers).

There are a lot of other weird things the filler implies (like Luce being pregnant as a baby) that I also won't get into. but yeah, I am just not a big fan of all the implications you get from fillers about these characters.

So yes. This is all to say you will never see me point to the fillers or use any information from them for any discussion regarding the arcobaleno.

If you enjoy the fillers and would like to consider them when you build your headcanons I think that's totally fair and great! You just won't see that from me personally, and I just ask that people don't point to it when discussing canon!

[dark-elf-writes]

You mentioned Hibari straight dragging Tsuna to Fon in sky sickness and I just-

Hibari holding Tsuna like a scruffed kitten: Fix it. Fix it or a swear to god-

Fon, already bundling a squirming Tsuna to his chest: Aw, Kyoya, you do trust me

Hibari, already snarling and one wrong move away from murder: Fix the little animal or die

(I sent this ask & got an error message so I don’t think it went through through, but if it did ignore this one)

The funniest part about this is that by the time it gets bad enough for Hibari to step in Tsuna has been avoiding both the Arcobaleno and his own guardians trying to spare them all from what will eventually happen which means Hibari has to hunt him down and haul him to Fon while Tsuna is trying to get away.

(It’s a pathetic attempt even for the little animal, kitten weak shoves against his chest and curses that sound unfamiliar in Tsuna’s mouth. It should have never got this far. Should have never got so bad that Tsuna couldn’t fight him off despite clearly wanting to. Should have never been so bad that Hibari had to keep his hands on Tsuna’s waist after putting him down until Fon could brace him.

If none of them will do what’s necessary to care for the little animal, then Hibari will. Even if that means dragging Tsuna from one Arcobaleno to the next until they complete their harmonies.)

[moonlit-mystery-writer]

I'm pretty sure I have never send you an official OC ask and that's a fucking travesty which needs to be corrected right now!

I'm too tired for a massive interrogation, so just some questions:

Reading a lot about Celeste makes one realize that she loves taking care of people even at risk of her own health. Which naturally makes me wonder: Who takes care of Celesete? I'm assuming her spouses, but that makes me wonder again: what do they do to take care of her? How do they support their wife when she's not feeling well or overworking herself? When she's feeling guilty about things she couldn't have possibly changed? I'm guessing each of them has a different approach to it?

Actually another question:

How's Celeste's health in general, in one snippet you mentioned she has insomnia, does she have other conditions? How's her immune system? (that's such a weird and specific question only I could ask, go me!) Does she get sick often or is she someone who doesn't even get the sniffles when everyone else around her has the flu?

I'm saying I won't do a massive interrogation but I still bombard you with questions lol

Mwuhahahahaha! You've figured it out! Yes, Celeste will take care of anyone often to the detriment of her own health. Before the curse, the Arcobaleno all took turns taking care of her when she got sick or hurt. However, post-curse and since they've all scattered, none of them do. Not intentionally mind you. They all just assumed the others would step up. Especially as Reborn, Lal Mirch, and Viper all technically remained in Italy. So they'd be the closest to her. As a result, none of them have realized how bad she's been overworking herself almost daily until recently.

Celeste contributed to this too though. As a Mist, she naturally hides things and such. In her case, she often hid how bad she was deteriorating both mentally and physically from others. But especially her spouses. Her eyes, they have enough to deal with because of the curse.

Now, for your second question, I've mentioned before in DMs that I headcanon Mists as having awful health and Celeste's no different.

In her case: She gets bad bouts of insomnia, she's extremely sensitive to getting vertigo, she gets bad nosebleeds frequently, and she gets sick really easily.

For example! One of her kids could just have some sneezing and sniffles around her. The very next day she'll have the full blown flu hard.

This doesn't stop her from taking care of the sick though. She'd rather be sick herself than let them suffer without her. But this also means, while raising her kids, there were definitely days she spent being sick with them.

[hopeswriting]

EVENT: KHR Rare Pair Week 2023

PROMPT: Day 6 - Hair Braiding, Hair Brushing

TITLE: things that are lost (and the things still within reach)

AUTHOR: @hopeswriting​

RATING: G

PAIRING: Fon & Hibari Kyoya

SUMMARY:

After they break the Curse and the Arcobaleno get back their adult bodies, Hibari seeks out Fon for a little talk.

TAGS: Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Bonding, Character Study (a little), Arcobaleno Curse

WARNINGS: Light Angst, Grief/Mourning

LINKS: Ao3 & Ff.net

[Plain text:

EVENT: KHR Rare Pair Week 2023

PROMPT: Day 6 - Hair Braiding, Hair Brushing

TITLE: things that are lost (and the things still within reach)

AUTHOR: @hopeswriting​​

RATING: G

PAIRING: Fon & Hibari Kyoya

SUMMARY:

After they break the Curse and the Arcobaleno get back their adult bodies, Hibari seeks out Fon for a little talk.

TAGS: Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Bonding, Character Study (a little), Arcobaleno Curse

WARNINGS: Light Angst, Grief/Mourning

LINKS: Ao3 & Ff.net /End PT]

*

Fon is fresh out of a shower, drying his hair with a towel when someone knocks on the door of his bedroom. He flicks his eyes higher up the door to the ceiling even when he was already at eye level with it, then catches himself and looks down again, a smile pulling at his lips.

"Yes?"

Kyoya opens the door, looking down before he catches himself too and looks up to meet his eye, and Fon smiles wider.

After the Curse, every little instance of him forgetting he was now stuck in an infant body as he got used to it sent him into a spiral of anger, bitterness and despair he forcefully smothered down lest he gave in to it. It was a small mercy when his mind finally caught up to his new cursed body, though it left him with an awful aftertaste of loss, but now, he's in no hurry to get used to his adult body again.

He startles when he sits up in bed to get up and his feet immediately touch the floor, has to constantly catch himself to not jump on chairs, tables and counters so the world won't loom down on him too much, doesn't need to constantly look up anymore to look at his surroundings, and it all always makes a burst of happiness rush through his veins.

"Strange, isn't it?" he asks.

Fon didn't think he'd ever get the chance to stand in this room again in his adult body. In his room, and left exactly as he last saw it all those decades ago, he could almost pretend all those decades of his life weren't taken away from him.

"Not to me," Kyoya says. "Mother never allowed anyone in here, and I've never seen you in here before either."

Fon's smile fades on his lips. He doesn't know if Kyoya meant it to sting, but it'd be only fair of him if that was the case. "I see."

Kyoya's never seen him in the mansion often altogether, and never for long whenever Fon brought himself to visit. It took him about a decade after the Curse to show his face again to his sister, and he could never bring himself to spend the night in their house either.

She left his room the exact same way he saw it last, maybe waiting for him to step foot in it again, maybe out of anger, resentment or loss for someone who could have as well been dead for how little he was in her life, but standing in his room again back in his adult body, he could never fool himself thinking no time has passed at all. If anything, that his room was left the exact same as the last time he saw it before he was cursed is only proof of how long he was gone from their lives, and no matter how accurately they might pretend everything is still the same, it's time they'll never get back again.

"Come on in," he says when Kyoya fails to do so on his own, noting the strangeness of it.

He walks to his desk, lowering the towel from his hair, Kyoya following after him.

"I'll do it."

Fon glances at him, almost pausing, but sits down and picks up the brush to give it to him.

Well, that's new. He's stalling. Should Fon worry?

Kyoya drapes his hair over the back of the chair first before silently brushing his hair, keeping his eyes down.

Should Fon try to lighten his mood first?

"Do you remember? When you were little—"

"No need for useless reminiscences."

"Why, are you embarrassed?" Kyoya catches his eye through the mirror on the desk, scowling and glaring, and how cute of him. Fon chuckles. "When you were little, you used to hate my long braid because I'd always purposefully smack it across your face whenever we played together. And when you thought me asleep, you'd try to sneak up close to me with a scissor. Remember?"

"So?" he asks, a slight smirk at the corner of his lips he doesn't try to hide because of course, he's entirely unrepentant for it to this day.

"You said this is why you'd never let yourself have long hair."

"I never said that."

Fon grins, holding back his laughter and hiding his mouth with his sleeve. "You very much did, and it was very endearing of you. I wish we had gotten it on camera or something."

"I would have broken it." Fon grins wider but keeps his mouth shut. Kyoya wouldn't have. "Long hair's a nuisance for fighting anyway."

"Only if your strength can't make up for it."

Kyoya doesn't take his comment personally, not even sparing him a glance. He has, of course, all the reasons in the world to be too self-assured for that, but Fon couldn't help but try teasing him anyway.

Kyoya brushes his hair with sure hands, using only the needed amount of strength to not hurt him as he untangles any knots he comes over, sometimes combing his hair with his fingers first to make it easier on the brush after. There's familiarity in the way he moves his hands, and Fon finds himself a little entranced by the sight of it.

This isn't a skill he knew Kyoya to have, nor would he be able to tell when or how he picked it up. More likely he learned it on his mother, and though the image of it makes him smile, his heart also clenches at the same time.

It's more likely the case, but he wouldn't know. He knows Kyoya, of course he does, but the little things about him like this aren't things he'd know unless he witnesses them by himself or someone fills him in.

And it's a bittersweet feeling to now know with certainty he has the time to learn all of it, but it'll never feel the same as if he was able to be there by Kyoya's side to learn them at the same time as Kyoya made it things that'd come to define him. It won't make it any less meaningful, but it's still hard to not taste loss heavy on his tongue.

"Kyoya," he says when he still keeps silent. Kyoya hates to feel like his hands are being forced, but... "You know you can always talk to me about anything, don't you?"

He tries to catch his eye through the mirror, but Kyoya firmly keeps his eyes down. His hands become stiff, his jaw clenching.

"Aren't you going to say something?"

"About what?"

"About how I destroyed your boss watch on purpose."

Fon widens his eyes. Oh. Has it been troubling him all this time? "You destroyed it in anger. In frustration."

"I still destroyed it."

"What do you think I should say?"

Kyoya huffs, briefly glancing at him. "You're asking me? What about anger? Resentment."

"I could never resent you for anything, Kyoya."

"Anger then."

Fon smiles before shaking his head. "No, not anger. I doubt this will help you, but if you really need to hear it... " He marks a purposeful pause, but Kyoya doesn't stop him from saying more. "It was more like despair. We all had our doubts over whether Checker Face would truly keep his word, but if someone could free us from our Curse, it was him. So seeing you break the boss watch like that, it felt like I was back on top of that mountain in a body that wasn't mine, forced to realize my whole life burnt down to the ground before I could do anything about it. And at that moment, that it came from you of all people did make it hurtful. Felt a little like a betrayal." Kyoya clenches his jaw harder, a somber look on his face. "And then, in the very next instant, I realized how silly I was to not have seen it coming."

Kyoya pauses, frowning and catching his eye. "What?"

Fon chuckles. "I found it very amusing that I didn't once consider the possibility of this very scenario happening when I asked you to become my representative. It was a very you thing to do after all, wasn't it?"

"Are you saying this just to make me feel better?"

"Not at all. It was a joy to see, truly. If I were to keep being an Arcobaleno indefinitely, I would have wished for no other memories to make it more bearable but of you being well and living your life to the fullest no matter what anyone tells you. And..." he cranes his neck back to directly look him in the eye "... I realized how unfair it was to you for me to feel that way when I hadn't explained anything to you properly."

Kyoya purses his lips, glaring down at him. "I said, don't coddle me. You had. I knew exactly what it'd mean for you if I were to break your watch."

"But you didn't," he says, smiling. "All I said to you was that the Representative Battle was my chance to be free from the Curse that turned me into an infant and shackled me to a pacifier that constantly stole my flames from me. But that is the least painful thing the Curse costed us."

Oh, it was certainly painful, but standing on top of that mountain newly cursed, the world didn't stop turning, only theirs. The world didn't change in any way, the things they achieved and worked hard for all their lives still existing and attached to their names, and the things and people they cared about still alive and well and caring about them in turn.

They were the only ones who were changed so fundamentally, so irreversibly, they knew right there and then they'd never be able to hold onto what was theirs the same way as before. And being the only ones different from before, they wouldn't get any understanding or comfort from even the people closest to them, the ones who loved them the most.

To this day, Fon truly doesn't know how he managed to drag himself down that mountain knowing the world would look at him, would look at all he lost and at how broken it left him, and still see him as whole. That it'd tell him to go on as if it was the easiest thing to do because it wouldn't see any reason why it couldn't be.

And he knew that going back to his family before he managed to pick some pieces of himself off the floor—any one of them, only for them to also see him as whole and the same as before would have truly finished breaking him for good.

"You'd be dead right now if it wasn't for the little animal," Kyoya says, his voice quieter and his anger gone from it.

"You didn't know that at the time. None of us did."

"You seem to think I'd have chosen differently if I did."

Fon blinks, frowning, genuinely taken aback. He turns sideways to look at him more comfortably. "Of course you would have. Don't you know?"

"I'm well aware of what kind of person I am."

A smile pulls at Fon's lips, a little lost and incredulous. "Well, it seems we have a problem then, because I happen to also know exactly what kind of person you are."

What even...?

Kyoya, who's so fiercely caring and protective, who'd do anything to keep the things and people he cares about whole, safe and happy, who's always been that way, but this is...?

Kyoya averts his eyes, something like... like shame on his face. Like uncertainty, like doubts.

It hits Fon then, realization sinking in.

"Your taste for battles doesn't make you any less kind," he blurts out before he can think any better of it.

Kyoya predictably scowls, but it looks more like a pout, embarrassed as he's always been whenever someone points out his soft side. Fon simply smiles at him.

He is of a kind and caring nature, and it's something he chose to make part of him all on his own. He did need guidance when he was little, when he sometimes turned someone's face bloody at any perceived offense of theirs, but from the beginning Kyoya's never been interested in violence for the sake of violence. Not when his opponent can't hold his own against him.

Fon has no doubts that if he knew what the stakes truly were, it wouldn't even have ever crossed his mind to break the boss watch however angry and frustrated he was at the time. It wouldn't.

Yet, Fon can only understand where his doubts stem from.

He reaches for him, Kyoya halfheartedly raising his hand to smack his own away, but he ends up letting him hold his hand.

"You will not stray," he says, and he feels Kyoya's hand tense, as well as the aborted movement to tug it free. "You have yet to, too. But even if you were ever to stray, I'll find you and guide you back to the right path again."

Kyoya took to fighting as if it was second nature and he's always been among the strongs ever since. And then he's always made sure to be the strongest no matter who he was surrounded with.

But there comes a point when your strength so obviously surpasses anyone else's, to the point you know for a fact no one would ever be able to stop you from doing whatever you want where it makes it hard to not lose sight of why you became so strong to begin with. Of the lines you drew in the sand to hold yourself accountable to the ways you'll use that strength.

It makes it hard to justify why it is you shouldn't use your strength whenever you want and as freely as you want to take the easy path in making the world around you exactly what you want it to be, and even makes it feel like a waste to restrict it in any way.

Fon would know, and it isn't the proudest time of his life, to say the least.

Kyoya won't ever have to as long as he'll watch over him.

He squeezes his hand. "So don't limit yourself or hold yourself back, and keep growing as freely as you've ever been, all right?"

Kyoya holds his gaze a moment before his face lightens for the first time since he came in his room. "That was already my intention," he says, pulling his hand free. Fon smiles fondly at him. Of course. Hibari Kyoya is not one to let something like doubt stop him, or even so much as slow him down. "But it would have been annoying if you were still cursed or dead right now."

Fon bites the inside of his cheek to not burst out laughing, and there's a distinct pink tint dusting Kyoya's cheeks as they look at each other. "How can I possibly not tease you when you're so adorable like this?"

"Shut up." He roughly makes him face the mirror again, making him laugh. "I said, shut up," he says again, throwing the brush on the desk with more strength than necessary.

Fon obediently leans forwards to let him drape his hair over the back of the chair again, and bites on his laughter as he starts braiding them. He'd rather not upset him too much when the fate of his hair is in his hands like this.

"I'm sorry I didn't notice it was weighing on your mind," he says. "But it really just didn't occur to me to hold it against you."

"That makes you the weird one."

He huffs a laugh. "You think? I mean, you're a child, Kyoya. So sometimes you're impulsive, rash and selfish, and only care about the things you want. There's inevitably consequences to it at times, but it's only natural and I would never hold it against you." More likely he wasn't even thinking of the consequences of his actions at the time, entirely focused on the present moment and how he wanted to fight right then and there and not a second later. "Besides," he adds, teasing, "I did steal your preys from you that night, didn't I?"

Annoyance flickers across his face like Fon thought it might. "Which was still completely unnecessary of you. And I'm not a child."

"Yes, of course not. A teenager then. And one who's grown up beautifully from the child he was." Is it wrong of Fon to feel proud of him even knowing he purposefully missed much of that growth, even knowing he wasn't there nearly often enough or for long enough to take credit for any of it? "And what if you did know what the stakes truly were anyway? I'd have understood. I can only be more of a stranger to you than—"

Kyoya harshly tugs on his hair. "Says who?"

"Ow!" Fon cries out, more out of surprise than any real pain, bringing his hand to his hair to massage his scalp. "My apologies."

They don't seem to do anything to soothe Kyoya's anger, but the fierce glare he looks at him with, daring him to argue with him and warning him against it at the same time, makes warmth course through his body.

Yet, for all he knows Kyoya, he does, he's at the same time a stranger to him in too many ways for it not to hurt.

Fon was there for his sister's pregnancy and would have never allowed himself to miss Kyoya's birth either. But he wasn't there for Kyoya's first word, or for when he first learned to say his name. He wasn't there for his first steps, for his first tooth growing or the first one to fall, and he wasn't there either for his first day at school.

Fon was the one to gift him his first pair of tonfas, and he's loved him from the moment he learned of his existence, he has. Surely he's allowed to believe it means something, but years could still pass sometimes between his last visit and the next, and he'd have to catch up on all he missed and learn to know him all over again.

But catching up on all he missed was still going to feel like loss compared to if the Curse around his neck didn't make it too painful for him to constantly remain at his side.

Their infant bodies never worked like real infant bodies, but holding his newly born nephew in his arms while being the same size as him, while knowing he'd soon be bigger than him even when Fon should have had the certainty he'd be able to protect him against the entire world if need be, felt like someone was gouging his heart out of his chest. He held him with arms the same sizes as his, and the thought they could fail him now of all times, giving in under his weight and harming him for it terrified him.

It was so, so bitter knowing his cursed appearance was the only one Kyoya would know him with, so painful to know he was barely able to hug him as it was and soon wouldn't even be able to hold his hand, Fon cried over his beautiful, peaceful and sleeping form.

Ah. Free from the Curse at last, and yet there's so much left from what it took away from him for him to grieve and mourn over.

How bittersweet.

"Here," Kyoya says, flipping his braid over his shoulder.

Fon takes it in his hands, looking at it as he slides his hand down his braid. It looks good. "Thank you."

"I'm still growing, and you're not going anywhere this time." Fon pauses, holding his breath. "So stop looking at me like that, it's annoying."

It takes him another moment for him to dare look him in the eye. Kyoya raises his eyebrow at him, crossing his arms on his chest, daring him to argue with him again, yet obviously certain he won't, and helpless to stop it even if he wanted to, a laugh tumbles from Fon's lips. "So you are. Thank you, Kyoya," he breathes out.

"You promised me a spar."

This time, Fon is the one to raise his eyebrow at him. "Yes, but only in exchange for you winning the Representative Battle for me. Or was it not the agreement?"

"I did this for you," he says, gesturing with his head at his braid.

Fon raises his eyebrow higher up his forehead. "You offered to do it for me, and entirely unprompted at that."

"I never said it was for free."

"You cannot be—" His laugh cuts him off, a wide grin pulling at his lips. "You're the most shameless boy I know."

Kyoya smirks. "You should have thought about it before praising me for it."

"Fine," he says, standing up. "But I'm still getting used to my adult body, so don't cry on me if I end up wiping the floor with you."

Kyoya gives him a disdainful look before taking the lead out of his room. "I've never shed a single tear in my entire life."

"Shameless and a lying liar at that, I see. How saddening."

Kyoya laughs, cutting it short as he brings a hand to his mouth. Fon lightly runs his hand through his hair, leaning his forehead on top of his head a moment and breathing him in, smiling.

Yes, it's just as he said. The future he thought he lost forever is finally firmly in his grasp again, and so perhaps it's time to stop looking at the past to instead make the most of the present and look forwards to the future.

Kyoya is still growing and will keep growing beautifully too without a doubt, and this time Fon has every intention to make sure to be there to see every second of it.

[leftnotright]

PROOF APOLLO WEARS HAWAIIAN SHIRTS

“The Tri-Ni-Sette machine is failing. The world will die.” “We can’t do anything going forward. Going backwards, however, is another matter.” Ryohei had his mission: To go back. To before the most recent Arcobaleno Curse, to before the slaughter of the Simone. To before the Tri-Ni-Sette System finally gave out. Ryohei was used to loss, in the ring and in life. But this time, he promises, he’ll win. Reborn had his mission: Get in this man’s pants, or die trying. After all, Reborn was nothing if not an Icarus.

(Or: The ‘size matters’ fic)

Parings: Reborn/Sasagawa Ryohei Characters: Reborn (Katekyou Hitman Reborn!), Ten Years Later Sasagawa Ryouhei, Sasagawa Ryouhei, Vindice (Katekyou Hitman Reborn!), Arcobaleno (Katekyou Hitman Reborn!), Checker Face | Kawahira Tags: Time Travel Fix-It, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Ryouhei Time Travels

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9

CHAPTER 8: YOU'RE SO GOLDEN

The Simone Islands were hot and just a little bit humid. 

Sand peppered the cracks in between the bricks and stones of the paths. A windmill groaned on the horizon on the east side of town. A fountain bubbled in the centre of the square, a sandstone plaque engraved with the name ‘Cozzarto’ .

A gaggle of girls giggled as they walked past, wrapped in pretty dresses of bright reds and pastels. A team of young men worked to heave crates and sacks onto a cart bound for the Simone docks. An elderly couple walked arm in arm, skin dotted with age and sun, faces creased with laughter lines. 

The Simone Islands were hot and just a bit humid. The Simone Islands were alive. 

Ryohei took in a breath, smelling that bay air and freshly tilled soil up on the hills. 

“How are you liking the place?” A man asked, joining Ryohei at his side, fountain spray touching their cheeks. 

Hair a blazing red, and pupils crossed with the stigma of Simone, Abramo, the grandfather of a boy who would be Enma, smiled at Ryohei. His jaw was speckled with stubble that he scratched at with only four fingers; his middle finger lost in an incident at the mill. His mother, rest her soul, said it was redemption for using it so much to offend people. 

“It’s great,” Ryohei said, voice almost light with awe. 

“Ain’t we just!” Abramo agreed, and gave Ryohei a solid pat on the back. “From our women to our wine, you’ll never find anything quite like us!”

The last time Ryohei had set foot on this land, he had never even reached the town. Far down in the thicket, the Simone Islands had been hauntingly quiet. 

The thought that all this was washed away. In a single night. Right in front of the young eyes of Enma’s Family— 

Ryohei looked at the grimm shape that hung above the ground like a man from a noose. 

“Ah, of course,” Abramo turned and looked upon that shade. “Allow me to introduce Basker Ville, our local lurker. Not much of a talker, let me tell you.” 

Basker Ville, the Vindice guard, which haunted the mountains and shores of the Simone Islands. Ryohei had never heard of him before, one of the many wrangled bodies in those damp halls. Now, the first line of defence against the complete undoing of everything.

Ryohei gave his new brother-in-arms a smile. 

Basker gave a low groan that sounded like something heavy dragged across stone. 

“Ryohei,” Abramo said, throwing his arm around Ryohei’s shoulders. “I hear you’ve been moved into the Vindice’s new base down in the old quarry. I’ve been there; bit of a creeping damp problem. If you ever need a break, come hang out with us up here!”

Abramo was trying to be welcoming, and set an example for the rest of the island, which watched on with bated breath and careful eyes. They weren’t used to outsiders after centuries of exile. And so many had come. Ryohei, even after three days now, was merely the most recent of the swathe of folk to the island.

Like Abramo had said, almost overnight, a deep, cavernous hole had been bored into the walls of the vacant quarry. With skill and speed befitting the corpses of history’s Best, a base had been constructed out of the layers of cracked stone and calcified coral. The Vindice had made their home under the feet of the Simone.

The island was shaken, to have the Wardens beneath their floorboards. 

Most of them didn’t even know why.

Only the main branch of the Simone had been told by Bermuda personally. From there, it was up to the Family’s discretion who on the island needed to know. 

“Thanks!” Ryohei smiled, and without hesitation, threw a reciprocal arm over Abramo’s shoulder as well. “Hey, do you know anywhere good to eat around here? The Vindice aren’t big on meals. Ghouls and all. No offence.”

Basker Ville grunted, bandaged face completely unmoved.

Abramo grinned. 

“My good man, let me introduce to you the wonders of Simone-style cuisine.”

Maybe it was the weird herbs that grew on the island, maybe it was the centuries as a closed community, or maybe it was the adventurous palletes of people who were so in tune with the earth they walked upon, but Ryohei had never seen these kinds of variations before.

The Simone did beautiful things to a steak. Their minestrone had an almost minty sting at the end. Their rosemary tarts were kind of spicy. 

‘Flash pickled’ was an entire range of goods, and compared to traditional pickling, it had a distinctly warmer undertone. Depending on the intensity, it could almost taste smoked. 

There was this specific rock that when boiled in sugar and a particular root made the sugar change colour and pop in your mouth. They had more kinds of beer in a single space than seemed anyway safe, and dear God, their wine.

Ryohei happily kicked his feet under the table as he ate his nth meal of the morning. Abramo nearly sick with laughter as the plates stacked up, a group of Mountain Flame folk cheered Ryohei on. 

“It’s your own fault, Kozato!” A waitress laughed as she put down a cup of sweet tea in front of Abramo. “You basically challenged the man when you said you’d pay. He eats more than a Mountain.”

“It’s just so good!” Ryohei groaned, clearing off his plate with his spoon. 

Despite the isolation, Italian blood was thicker than any mulled wine and one attribute had stayed over the generations: food brought people together. And the head chef of this fine family diner, an old woman with a spine like a question mark and a grip that could crush diamond, was all but singing Ryohei’s appetite praises as she pinched his cheeks bruised.

In the corner of the family diner, Basker Ville stood like the monster at the end of the bed. At his feet, a trio of girls sat, threading paper flowers into the holes of his gnarled coat, a pile of red paper napkins between them. 

Their mothers watched on with growing warmth. Basker Ville did not move an inch.

Ryohei grinned as another plate of pasta was brought out to him, with seafood straight from the Simone Bays. He dug into it with gusto, feet doing a little tappy dance on the red tiled floors.

“Ryohei.”

Ryohei looked up as a shadow loomed over his table, and the scent of something damp and something rotten crept into his nose. Ryohei swallowed his pasta, refusing to let it go to waste despite how the taste had soured on his tongue.

“Hi Jaeger,” he waved with his spoon. 

Basker Ville came floating over. Ryohei spied the red paper flowers lining the bottom of his tattered cloak. 

Jaeger looked at the state of his coat. Basker Ville made no move to remedy his uniform. 

Jaeger seemed to sigh. Then he turned back to Ryohei who was packing his pasta into a takeaway box.

“You are to return to Base,” Jaeger announced. “The Machine is ready to be witnessed.”

Abramo looked up sharply, a breath taken from between teeth. 

Ryohei grinned, feeling a surge of excitement and hope bloom in his blood. He stood without further prompting, takeaway under his arm.

“Ready when you are!”

“May I come!?” Abramo nearly choked out, standing as well. The diner was quiet as they watched. “I — I would like to come as well. To see the Machine.”

Jaeger turned his head slowly towards the head of the Simone Islands, regarding him with icy silence.

“Huh? You haven’t seen it yet?” Ryohei blinked, looking at the Simone man beside him. “Dude! Sure, come on!”

“ Boy —” Jaeger began, frustration clear in that single utterance.

Basker Ville appeared behind the two mortal men and in a flurry of tattered cloaks and red paper flowers, Ryohei and Abramo were plunged into that wet stench of decay and rot. Ryohei grunted as he landed on his behind, the butt of his shorts instantly damp. Abramo stood beside him, grounded and unshaken.

“Earths,” Ryohei grumbled.

Abramo laughed and helped Ryohei to his feet, “Up we go.”

Ryohei pouted as he pulled at his shorts, peeling the wet khaki from the back of his thighs with great tactile discomfort. 

Basker Ville groaned and turned to lead the way, navigating halls of sandstone and bedrock, lined with carved-out pillars that harkened back to the Roman Headquarters. Bits of seashells and ancient coral pocked the walls. Abramo trailed his fingers along the wet tunnel, feeling the layers of stone and the passage of time that had built the very land his ancestors walked upon.

Ryohei waddled after them in his wet shorts.  

The sandy floors crunched into stone, and Ryohei was tempted to see if his breath would fog as they walked deeper into those tunnels that wound and twisted beneath the island of the Simone. At one point, he heard Abramo murmur, “We must be near the tavern,” like he could have somehow mapped their progress by memory.

Basker Ville gave a soft huff in response. It sounded like the rattling of rusted plumbing.

They walked for a few more turns, the hallways branching off and splintering with doors lining the way. Ryohei glanced at one as they passed, ‘Maintenance Room 3’ the plaque read. 

Ryohei snickered. 

It got colder. Ryohei felt his skin pebble with goosebumps. Abramo rubbed his arms. Their footsteps splashed in shallow puddles that pooled in the grooves of carved stone. It smelt of sea water and dead fish. 

The tunnel curved down steeply, bits of seashell and sand slipping under their sandals. 

A door stood at the end of the dark tunnel, layers upon layers of Vindice chain crossing the large stone and steel slabs. Basker Ville groaned as he approached the doors, a dark Flaming hand outstretched. The door warped, darkness leaching through the cracks. It spread like a mould and smelt equally as musty, moist and rotten. Basker Ville stepped aside, and Ryohei stepped through the portal.

The ground was hard-packed stone under Ryohei’s sandals, and the scent of fish was deftly cut by the sharp stench of hot, welded metal and solder. The room was a cavern freshly carved out of the island, gems and mineral deposits dotting the walls and vaulted ceiling, those gleaming riches now unimportant and just another part of the structure. Three grand doors were in each third of the room, each one made of metal and stone and chained down like a Vindice criminal under watch. 

Multiple Vindice ghouls floated around, their coats cast aside or sleeves rolled high on their thin, bandaged arms. They carried crates of scrap metal, tanks of butane and coal, and bags of sand. They crouched as they worked with spanners, floating high overhead as they bent beams into arches. 

A tunnel off to the side burnt red hot, waves of pure heat wafting out as the sand was dragged in. Faintly, Ryohei could hear glass shatter.

Wires of copper and coolant branched like bulbous roots, sprawled across the floors like wandering vines. Seven large metal bases had been built into the bedrock floor, arching structures of red-hot metal beams wound tightly together like the bud of a rose about to burst into bloom. They stood grand in the centre of the room, at least two men tall and catching the light of Flame and fuse as the Vindice welded. 

Ryohei crossed the room, stepping over the wires carefully. They were heavy; if he bumped them, Ryohei didn’t doubt that he’d be the one to move before they did.

He reached the seven bases, lined up in the centre of the cavern. Seven spots, for seven Flames. The new batteries, the new Machine to save the world.

Ryohei touched the base. The metal was cold. It was incomplete. The Machine had no power. 

“This place,” Abramo uttered as he stepped out into the cavern, looking around in wonder. He looked up at the rocky roof. “We’re under the church.”

“Indeed. Your church was built upon the part of your island that went deepest below sea level,” Bermuda’s childish voice rang out as he floated over. Behind him, Jaeger followed. “I see you’ve arrived finally, Ryohei.”

“Yeah,” Ryohei answered, still squatting beside the centre base. He took a long breath that tasted of burnt metal. “You guys have been busy. It’s looking good.”

“But unfinished,” Bermuda said, and looked upon the metal frames. “I hoped to be further along. To test this theory.”

“It’ll work,” Ryohei said, voice stern and sure. 

Bermuda regarded him coolly, unfazed. He couldn’t let himself be moved so easily. Not again.

“A theory,” Bermuda uttered.

Ryohei gritted his teeth, but let the topic lay.

“So,” Abramo spoke softly, coming to touch the machine as well. “This is where you want us to put our Earth Flames?”

“Correct, once the Machine is complete, we will require you and your most powerful representatives to inject your Flames,” Bermuda said.

Ryohei looked at the Machine, still just a skeleton of the one Ryohei had helped power in his youth. There was a distinct difference though — this one was bigger. Even now, in its stripped-down state, Ryohei could tell this Machine would amount to something mammoth. 

When it was finished. 

“What’s the part you’re stuck on?” Ryohei asked, rapping his knuckles against the metal base. 

A Vindice ghoul grunted at him in warning.

“Two components,” Bermuda sighed and floated towards that small tunnel that wafted with heat and glowed an ominous, sweltering red. 

Ryohei stood up with a groan and followed after him, as the stench of a hot kiln grew stronger. 

The room was solid stone from ceiling to floor; trails of scorch and smoke climbed the walls. Metal rods leant against anvils, great sheers and tongs littered tables. Several bodies of exposed bandage and rot worked the room, shovels in blackened hands as they fed the three, gaping, hungry mouths of the furnaces, carved out of the bedrock of Simone Island. 

Abramo coughed as he stood behind Ryohei. The air was dry and leached life from his throat as he tried to breathe. 

A Vindice corpse lumbered across the workshop, metal rod in hand. They dipped the end in a vat of something utterly molten. Steadily, they twisted and dipped, twisted and dipped, until a great blob of red hot sat perched on the rod. The Vindice crossed the room, still twisting to keep that mass from drooling off, and poked it into the belly of the furnace. 

They took a breath. Their stomach expanded, their barrel of a chest rose. They pressed their gnarled, dry lips to the end of the rod and blew. 

The blob ballooned, and swelled, and the Vindice raced to a large, metal chamber — a mould — and blew again. The molten balloon grew. Back and forth they ran, tempering, heating and blowing until the metal chamber caught the edges of the red bubble. And with another great gust of breath, the bubble took shape, a cylinder, two men tall, and cast in glass inches thick.

Carefully, two other Vindice transferred the slow cooling glass to the far side of the room. The floor sparkled and crunched under their shoes. They set the cylinder in place, a kind of bareboned version of the Machine’s base. Still sealed at the top with warped glass, the chamber was almost rosie as it cooled, and as the last blotch of heat leached away, a Vindice ghoul raised their hand.

Flames of Night erupted within the cylinder. It flickered and swayed, seeming to eat at the light around it.

The glass cracked. A long, spider-webbed split that grew, and stretched, and clawed its way across the glass. 

Ryohei threw his arm up as the chamber exploded. Glass rained down on their heads, all small shards and fine crystal powder.

“Five seconds,” Bermuda mused. “A new record. Well done.”

The Vindice in the room nodded in thanks and swept up the shards to be poured into the vat, melted, and everything began again. 

“The first issue we have met is the container. The blueprints call for glass specifically, but no glass we craft can contain Flames. The frequency they emit when pure is too much for it,” Bermuda explained, watching the craftsmen try again, and again, and again.

Hands blackened, bandages soaked in sweat and fluid, lips chapped and cracked. Cuts and burns littered their broken bodies. In the light of the furnace, they glittered, glass in their hair and embedded in their skin.

Bermuda watched.

Steadfast. Stubborn. Too willful to lie down, even in death. His Vindice would persist.

Ryohei dusted the glass on his arms into the vat and shook out his shirt. 

“So you need some special glass or something?” Ryohei asked as he picked bits out of his hair. 

“In short,” Bermuda uttered. Then Bermuda turned and, without preamble, floated from the room. “The second issue is more technical. Whoever designed this Machine was a genius. Whoever scribed it, however, was an idiot.”

Ryohei grinned. He didn’t have the heart to tell Bermuda that the ‘genius’ and the ‘idiot’ were one in the same. Verde, nor Tabolt, were very good at explaining their creative process. 

“It is taking a small team to decipher whatever madness their handwriting and lexicon is.”

Ah, that was Tabolt, definitely.  

“Haha, sorry ‘bout that! In their defence, they were in a rush!”

“Clearly,” Bermuda muttered. “No matter. They’re making progress. Whether it be through your ‘Verde’ or the Vindice, the instructions will be deciphered.”

“That’s the spirit!” Ryohei cheered and gave Bermuda a pat on the back.

The Vindice Boss wobbled in the air, before he gave Ryohei a sharp and scathing glare. He rightened his hat with a huff.

Ryohei gave a sheepish smile. Abramo snickered.

Ryohei looked around eagerly as they exited the tunnel and crossed that central amphitheatre that housed the metal bones of the Machine. Just seeing it, the tangible progress towards his Family’s Will — it was enough to inspire Ryohei again. Lit the fire under his feet.

He couldn’t wait to get out there and track down Verde. 

Bermuda led them to another one of the three doors and a portal warped to life. On the other side of the chain door was a staircase. Made of stone, coral and dangerously steep, it reached up, up and disappeared behind the curve of the earth. 

They climbed those stairs, Abramo trailing his fingertips along the wall, feeling the jut of ancient sea shells and slate. Their soles crunched on the sandy stairs, and slowly, Ryohei could feel the soft touch of a breeze across his face.

The stairs reached a landing made of stone, scratched and slashed with chisel marks. On one of the walls were five deep divots, lined up and worn in, like some sort of shelf. Abramo let out a sound of recognition.

“Wait, this is—” Abramo uttered and looked up.

Ryohei followed his gaze and saw a trap door, old and metal. He looked to the divots — a ladder — and climbed. He reached the trapdoor and pushed. The metal hinges groaned, dust and dirt crumbled from the seams. 

Ryohei breathed deep.

He could smell incense.

Ryohei blinked, eyes adjusting after so long underground. He looked around. Pews sat before him, old and well-worn, even with their glossy finish. Stained glass windows lined the stone walls, depicting prophets and saints. Candelabras flickered, barely visible against the slanted afternoon sunlight.

Abramo had said the Machine was built under the church.

He heaved himself up and out of the hatch, the rough lines between the tiled floor bit into his palms. 

Ryohei felt his nape catch alight and scorch down his back.

Ryohei spun. The mortar dug into his knees. 

That tall, lithe silhouette sat in position of pride upon the altar, one knee crossed over the other. Around him, candles were in their stands, each one warm and lit, leaning and flickering as if to reach and touch sun-kissed skin. A burnt match hung from his fingertips, the smoke curled.

They tilted their head and Ryohei saw the shadows peel away, and a satisfied smile was lit by the sweet touch of golden hour. The sun caught those black eyes and shone like something precious, something great. Full of life and freedom. The Greatest. 

Ryohei grinned with teeth and heart. 

“Reborn.”

Reborn, the very embodiment of the golden hour and dripping with light, shadow and heat upon that flaming altar, smiled back.

“Hello Ryohei.”

[ciaossu-imagines]

colonnello drunk hcs pls?

Of course, anon dear! Thank you for the request and I hope you enjoy the headcanons!

Colonello doesn't drink very often, actually. It's not something he enjoys, overall, both the taste, the feeling of being drunk, and the effects of alcohol on the body.

On the rare occasion he does drink, it's always very much a social thing. He is a sociable guy, especially back in his COMSUBIN days, and he will have the occasional beer at a get-together or when out with the boys.

However, that's normally all it ever is - just one or two beers. That's enough, given how rarely he drinks, to give him a pleasant, slight buzz.

Colonello has only been drunk twice in his life, and one of them was a full out blackout drunk where he doesn't even remember the night, though he knows it was following the funeral of a man he served with. He does remember the awful hangover - the headache, the nausea, the sensitivity to sound and smells. He hated it so much that he actually is so careful about drinking because he really never wants to experience it again.

The other time??? The only other time he didn't care how drunk he got or how bad the hangover would be? Is it any surprise it was after the full weight and ramifications of the Arcobaleno curse took hold? Of course, given his new baby body, he also got drunk a lot quicker than he figured he would.

[byakuwan]

@hopeswriting 😭 im SO sorry for making this awful diagram but the browser chart maker i used is literally garbage, and it's been 2 hours so i gave up. (i have no clue on her age btw.)

BASICALLY the theory is that the pacifier's ability is what brought her to that new timeline in general, but the sky arcobaleno's curse stopped her from being affected by the reset. everyone else rewinded, as did time itself, but uni did not.

HOPE THAT MAKES SENSE? now that i actually organized my thoughts lmao

So…why is Uni (present day) the same age as Uni (TYL)?

[elarawritingtrash]

Fandom: Katekyo Hitman Reborn!

Written in 2018

Summary: A girl from our world is reborn... into Sawada Tsunayoshi. Inexplicably female Sawada Tsunayoshi, even. She deals.

Warnings: Canon-typical violence.

Iemitsu and Nana loved each other. They really did; that was never fake on either of their parts. They had a whirlwind romance; it was only a few short months before he proposed. Only a few more months and they got married. Basking in the thrill of new love, they bought a house together.

Just less than a year after they met, Iemitsu had to leave for work. Nana understood. It was his job and he had to leave, and she wasn't mad about it. Still, understanding didn't stop the ache in her chest where Iemitsu had taken hold of her heart and left with it.

A matter of months after that, Nana realized she was pregnant. After three different types of pregnancy test, the excitement took hold of her and she called Iemitsu in a rush. It wasn't how they usually did things; his schedule was unpredictable and Nana never even knew what time zone he may be in at any given time, and so he was usually the one to call her when he had the time. This, however, Nana felt took precedence.

"What -- Nana? Are you okay? Is something wrong?" Iemitsu said immediately upon answering.

Wherever he was, it was loud; there was a mash of indistinguishable noise audible even over the phone. Nana ignored it.

"I'm fine, dear," she said, and then, before he could interrupt and say he was busy, "I have big news! I couldn't wait to tell you!"

She could practically hear Iemitsu deflate over the phone. The silly man never had been able to deny her. "Is that so? Well, now you've got me all excited!" he said. "Tell me what it is, I'm dying over here, Nana, end my suffering."

There were voices on the other end, too quiet to make out words. Iemitsu ignored them, and so Nana did too.

"Oh, you big goofball," Nana said with a giggle. "Okay, here it is: I'm pregnant!"

Nana waited eagerly for Iemitsu's response. There was silence over the phone, accentuating what sounds like people hammering on wood in the background. Finally, Iemitsu responded, all but babbling in his excitement.

Of course, then there were more voices in the background and Iemitsu excused himself hurriedly, but that was fine. Nana understood that her husband was busy.

Several months later, he was also too busy to be there for the baby's birth. Nana wouldn't lie and say that one was fine, but, well, it's so nice to have any of the time together that they do get, she just wouldn't mention it. It wasn't worth it.

In any case, this one was a little problematic for Nana. She and Iemitsu had, in the intervening months since discovering her pregnancy, discussed names. Iemitsu wanted to follow his family's naming tradition and Nana was fine with that, since it seemed so important to him. However, they'd never actually covered what to do if the baby was a girl. All of the Tokugawa Shoguns were men, for obvious reasons, so how was Nana supposed to name their daughter? At a loss, Nana just went with her preferred choice of Tokugawa names she'd already decided on: Tsunayoshi. It was a boy's name, sure, but it could be cute enough to be a girl's name, too. She could already imagine it. Her daughter, Tsu-chan. That was cute, right?

Sawada Tsunayoshi was just over a year old when she realized that she was doomed. This realization, by sheer coincidence (except not at all) coincided with her first meeting with Sawada Iemitsu.

He was, after all, a little more recognizable than Nana, who for the most part could be a perfectly normal Japanese housewife.

So, yeah. Tsuna, or rather the formerly adult, American woman now inhabiting Tsuna's body, came to a sudden, awful realization and narrowly avoided swearing her head off in English and making everything much worse. Fortunately she did avoid that.

She was Sawada Tsunayoshi and in about twelve years, she was going to be forced into becoming the boss (candidate) of the Vongola Family. Tsuna thought about this. Unlike the canon version of Tsuna, she was not especially adverse to the idea. She was, in fact, rather fond of the idea of doing what Canon!Tsuna had planned to do. The problem, of course, was that she was totally going to die. Canon!Tsuna and co. only survived through sheer dumb luck and the fact that she was here at all likely meant she didn't have any of that.

Tsuna plotted. She had exactly three broad options in life. Number one: somehow manage to save all of Nono's legitimate sons who die before she's fourteen. Number two, flee the country and somehow manage to hide from the Italian Mafia. Three, become so amazingly awesome that she could win at not only life, but Tsuna's life.

Although tempting, number one and number two did seem difficult to achieve. Nigh impossible, really. That left number three.

Tsuna resigned herself to living through the canon storyline. It was pretty much her only real option. It brought up some more questions; how much could she change? How much should she change? The canon storyline actually went really well, all things considered. Except for, like, the emotional suffering of pretty much everybody involved. Still.

From what Tsuna remembered, the Daily Life Arc didn't really have anything important in it. Besides introducing people, anyway, and she probably couldn't change any of that and didn't really care to. She did actually like the characters in Katekyo Hitman Reborn, although it was a little questionable if she'd like them as real people. Well, accepting the weirdos that hung around Canon!Tsuna was part of resigning herself to his life, so whatever. In any case, besides that, she could probably change a lot of the Daily Life arc and not have it matter too much. Which is good, because Tsuna did not remember it well enough to micromanage the entire thing. Whoops.

The first truly important arc was Mukuro's appearance. How could Tsuna even change that if she wanted to? Go after Mukuro earlier than Canon!Tsuna would have? Follow Hibari? Oh, actually, if she changed the Daily Life Arc enough, Hibari wouldn't have Sakura Disease, so that could actually change a lot. Tsuna figured it doesn't matter too much; the Mukuro Arc probably didn't need to go in any specific way. Maybe it wasn't even really important?

If that was the case, then the actual first important arc would be the Varia arc. Which went exactly according to plan down to which Guardians won and lost and in what order. It had always kind of annoyed Tsuna, to be honest. But if it didn't go perfectly, then the Sky Battle probably wouldn't happen? And even if it did, if Tsuna didn't lose the Sky ring to Xanxus, he wouldn't fail the succession test thing and he'd probably never give up on usurping her as Vongola Decimo. But then, he hadn't really in canon anyway, had he? In the Future Arc, the Varia had still been refusing to acknowledge Canon!Tsuna as Decimo.

Oh, and that was the real issue. Arguably the most important and potentially disastrous arc in the series: the Future Arc. If it went wrong, well, there went the entire universe. Literally. Thanks, Byakuran. It would be easy to completely avoid, though. If Tsuna just kept that box of Ten Year Bazooka ammo from falling into Shouichi's hands, the Future Arc probably wouldn't happen at all.

That would be awesome, except. After the Future Arc was the Shimon Arc, and Tsuna and his/her guardians would probably not stand a chance against the Shimon Guardians or Daemon without the whole Vongola Gear thing which was only a thing because of the Future Arc. Plus Byakuran wouldn't have his future memories, so he wouldn't show up to heal Yamamoto. Of course, Tsuna could just keep that from happening, probably, but the point remained that they would most likely get their collective butt kicked in a straight fight if the Future Arc hadn't happened. Even more so than had happened in canon.

Not to mention that after that was the Curse of the Rainbow Arc (Arcobaleno Arc for short). Tsuna was sure the Arcobaleno could find representatives either way, but the end result was trying to beat the Vindice in a direct fight, which. That wasn't going to end well if everybody wasn't as strong as their future selves. The Varia would be weaker, Tsuna and her guardians would be weaker, Byakuran and Yuni might not even be there...? What if it was still Aria as the Sky Arcobaleno with only the Giglio Nero fighting for her? They'd get destroyed. And like, Fran wouldn't be there at all, so the Vindice might actually kill Mukuro or at least destroy his watch...

Thinking about the entire thing gave Tsuna a headache, so she decided to wing it. Or at least figure it out later. Whatever.

It was only potentially the fate of the entire universe on the line, it would probably be fine.

Tsuna's first order of business: keep Iemitsu and Nono from sealing her flames. She wasn't entirely sure why they'd sealed Canon!Tsuna's in the first place, but she figured that the best way was to be completely and utterly unspectacular and also make sure not to use flames around them. Like, obviously.

Her first meeting with Iemitsu was easy enough. She was one years old, he treated her like a newborn baby, and he only hung around for like a week anyway. For most of the week, he and Nana largely ignored Tsuna -- beyond the required caretaking of babies, anyway. Tsuna was already walking and talking, but that week she ardently refused to do either in the hopes of convincing Iemitsu she wasn't an impressive child. Nana did not do anything to hinder this. She didn't even seem to think it was strange.

But then, Nana was a strange woman.

Iemitsu left, and Tsuna started experimenting. The thing was, she really should have known what she was in, because, now that she knew the terminology, it was obvious that she could sense flames. She wasn't sure if that was normally a thing in the Hitman Reborn universe, but she definitely could. Iemitsu just... felt like a Sky. Tsuna couldn't explain it. She wouldn't have recognized it if she didn't know that he was, though, just like she hadn't recognized her own flames for what they were.

Other people felt strange too, gave off an energy of sorts that they never had in her original world. Without a reference point for what each type of flame feels like, though, Tsuna couldn't identify them. Since the only person she'd met that she knew the flame type of was Iemitsu, she could only identify Sky flames. Nana was... not a Sky, and that was as far as Tsuna could tell.

In any case, now that Tsuna knew, she started experimenting with flames. It was a shame that she had Sky flames, since as far as she knew, Mist flame users were the only ones confirmed to be able to use them independently, without a Box Weapon or Dying Will Mode. Still, that wasn't going to stop her from trying. Canon!Tsuna, at least in Hyper Dying Will Mode, was able to light his mitten-gloves on fire. Tsuna wanted to be able to do that too. She wondered if it was possible to will-power one's way to Hyper Dying Will Mode without the bullets or pills? It might be nice to skip the whole almost-naked normal Dying Will Mode phase.

Tsuna went through everything she could remember about using flames from canon (resolve, and whatnot), but saw no results for a long while.

As Tsuna got older, she noticed some odd things. Once, when Tsuna was two, she was coloring in the living room (because coloring can be fun, it's a normal little kid thing to do, and she was using it for the motor control practice it was) while Nana was cooking dinner. Nana wandered out to check on her, leaned over where Tsuna was coloring.

"Wow, Tsu-chan, you're doing so well!" she said.

Tsuna didn't respond, because she knew by now that Nana didn't expect her to, and continued carefully outlining the edge of the cloud in purple. After a moment of watching, Nana settled down on the floor next to Tsuna.

"Doesn't it get kind of boring being so careful?" Nana said.

She didn't question the purple cloud, and though Nana would never be her mother, Tsuna thought she might be able to love her anyway. She shrugged.

"No," she said eventually, because it wasn't. A child might enjoy the chaotic swish of crayon on paper, but she actually liked the precision work better. She'd never been good at drawing.

Nana hummed thoughtfully and stayed there, apparently entranced by the sight of her two year old coloring.

After some time, Tsuna paused in the middle of coloring a field of grass a perfectly normal green, looked up, and thought, the pot is going to boil over. She said as much, and Nana jumped to her feet and rushed into the kitchen. Tsuna blinked, feeling a little off. She listened, and yes, there was the sound of something bubbling from the kitchen, but she hadn't noticed it before, not really. She didn't even know what Nana was making.

That was the first time. Things like that kept happening, but it wasn't until close to a year later, when she warned Nana that somebody was at the door a full two minutes before anybody was actually at the door without any real reason to think so that she realized what it was. Hyper Intuition. Tsuna was a little baffled because she didn't remember Canon!Tsuna having it like this.

She wasn't complaining, though.

The next time, Tsuna told Nana that the mushrooms would go bad if they didn't use them that day (she was really starting to wonder at the Hyper Intuition, what was that), and Nana smiled and nodded like it was perfectly normal for a three year old to say such things.

"You know, Tsu-chan, your eyes turn such a pretty orange sometimes," she said casually, also as though this was perfectly normal.

Tsuna immediately found the nearest reflective surface to check for herself, but her eyes were the same brown as always. Disappointing.

She was still three when she had a breakthrough with flame usage. It was less through careful practice and her own resolve and more through sheer mindless panic. Tsuna woke up in the middle of the night, found a shadow that shouldn't be there next to her bed, and freaked out.

Sucking in a breath ready for screaming, Tsuna bolted upright in bed and, mid flail as her arm gets caught in her blanket, created a line of breathtaking orange fire. The fire lit up the room spectacularly, impacted the fan Nana put in Tsuna's room earlier that day, and fizzled away. Tsuna slowly let out the breath, her heart still trying to beat its way through her ribcage, and felt a little ashamed of overreacting so badly.

But it was definitely soothed by the triumph of making flames. Flames that were definitely Sky flames! And without Dying Will Mode or a Box Weapon or Ring! Tsuna was ecstatic.

She also started practicing harder. Now she had an emotion to focus on. At first, she made the mistake of thinking it was the panic, but it wasn't, not really. It was the knee-jerk refusal to go down without a fight. The instinctive nope to waking up to what she thought was a person at the side of her bed.

Resolve, kind of.

But really it was more like spite.

When Tsuna was four, Iemitsu showed back up for the second time in her life. This time, he came with a jovial old man with a white mustache and brightly colored shirts that he introduced as his boss. Timoteo. Vongola Nono.

Tsuna put the flame practice on hold, played the perfectly normal shy little girl, and spent the majority of her time looking down. She couldn't tell when her eyes turned orange. Though it was usually connected to her Hyper Intuition, she can't always tell when that's going off. This way they hopefully won't notice either.

It fit with her whole shy act, anyway.

Timoteo told Tsuna to call him grandpa, and Tsuna stared at his hands (the Vongola ring), smiled weakly, and obeyed.

Nana got the adults tea on Timoteo's request, set three cups on the coffee table, and sat down on a couch. Tsuna, perched uncomfortably on Iemitsu's lap for a number of reasons, looked at Iemitsu's cup, too-close-to-the-edge-it'll-fall. Iemitsu and Nana didn't seem to have noticed. Just as Tsuna was about to lean forward and push it away from the edge, Timoteo, still evidently engaged in the conversation, nudged it further onto the table without even looking.

Tsuna's heart just about stopped because she forgot Timoteo had the Hyper Intuition as well (it was, after all, Vongola Hyper Intuition). Given that they knew she was part of the line, he almost certainly would have noticed if she'd answered to its call. She didn't give herself away, but she very easily could have. With that, Tsuna resolved to ignore the Hyper Intuition until they leave.

Ten minutes later, Iemitsu got excited about something and leaped up from his seat, picking Tsuna up to avoid sending her flying, and knocked into the table as he did. The cups all rattled around dangerously, but none of them fell off.

Tsuna wondered how Iemitsu apparently managed to not only avoid getting the Vongola Hyper Intuition, but do it so spectacularly.

Despite the fact that both Timoteo and Iemitsu were supposed to be smart people, Tsuna managed to make it the entire two weeks of their stay without giving herself away. Nana, who knew all of Tsuna's secrets and didn't know they were secret, didn't give her away either. Tsuna had noticed something about Nana: she very rarely gave information away. She didn't tend to mention anything unless somebody else mentioned it first.

Tsuna kind of got the feeling that her parents were playing Mafia chicken: who was going to bring up the elephant in the room that was the Mafia first? If that was true, then she was impressed with both of their canon selves for making it until Tsuna was fourteen. And still going, actually.

When Tsuna was five, Nana sent her to kindergarten. This was also the first that she'd really been allowed out of the house save for the backyard and shopping, so she was pretty excited despite the fact that it was, you know, kindergarten. She was sure to be disappointed, but honestly she didn't even care.

Tsuna was not actually disappointed. Not really. Yes, kindergarten was not the greatest time, but neither was being a five year old that wasn't in kindergarten, so things could really only get better.

It was easy to pick out Kyouko and Yamamoto from the horde. Kyouko was an adorably shy five year old, curled in on herself and watching the world with big eyes. Yamamoto, meanwhile, was just as friendly as his future self, but more animated about it.

Hana was there too, and, glaring hatred at the boys in the class, primarily Yamamoto's rowdy group, she attached herself to Kyouko's side apparently without Kyouko's input.

Tsuna had a debate with herself. She didn't actually want to be alone until she was thirteen, but then she also wasn't sure about the ethics of befriending five year olds. Not to mention, Yamamoto seemed more than happy with the friends he effortlessly made and Kyouko and Hana seemed content with just the two of them. And if she waited, they'd probably end up friends anyway by way of the Powers of Canon.

Then again, this was her life now, and she wasn't Canon!Tsuna. Why should she wait until canon when, if they'd get along anyway, they could be friends now? With that decided, Tsuna also decided to try to befriend Kyouko and Hana first. They were... a little less impenetrable than Fort Yamamoto and Friends. It went really well. Being five, Tsuna walked right up to them and asked if she could sit with them.

Kyouko smiled at her and agreed, and Hana didn’t argue. Kyouko did have a nice smile, Tsuna decided, in a totally not-creepy way.

And apparently it was as simple as that. Suddenly they were friends now. Tsuna was allowed to walk over and sit with them without asking and vice-versa. She wasn't sure how to feel about it. Making friends was never this easy in her first life -- although, maybe it was just easier as kids.

Tsuna stuck with Kyouko and Hana for a while, watching Yamamoto for an opening. He had to spend some time not completely surrounded, right? As soon as that happened, she'd pounce. Even if they wouldn't exactly be canon style friends where they seemed to do everything together, she could get started on that friendship a little early. If there was anything she'd like to change about the Daily Life Arc, it was Yamamoto getting to the point of almost committing suicide. Well, there were probably other things, too, but that was the first one to come to mind.

She just couldn't make herself interrupt when he was surrounded by people.

"Um, Hana-chan, Tsuna-chan," Kyouko said, trying to meet their eyes and failing. "Do -- do you want to come over to my house after school tomorrow?"

The next day was Saturday, so they would have a half-day of school.

Hana shrugged. "Yeah, sure," she said. "Not like I want to hang around at home with my brothers. My mom will probably be thrilled, too."

Kyouko's expression brightened into an almost-smile. Her gaze shifted expectantly to Tsuna.

"I'd love to!" Tsuna said. There was really no other possible answer to those hopeful eyes. "I'll ask my mom if I can, but she'll probably say yes."

It wasn't like she had any reason not to, and anyway it was worth it just for Kyouko's sheer happiness.

After school, walking hand-in-hand with Nana to get home, Tsuna asked about it. "Mom, can I go over to Kyouko-chan's house after school tomorrow?"

"Hm? Of course! My little Tsu-chan making friends, Mom is so happy!" Nana said.

And that was the end of that. Nana didn't ask about transport at all, didn't care to ask about contact information, nothing. It was a good thing Tsuna wasn't really five, she reflected.

"Grandma can't make the walk to come pick us up every day," Kyouko explained the next day. "So Big Brother and I walk home together."

"You have a brother, Kyouko-chan?" Hana said, scrunching up her nose.

Kyouko nodded happily. "Yup! He's a year older than me. He should be getting out of class soon. You have brothers too, right Hana-chan?"

"Ugh." Hana's disgusted expression worsened. "Three older brothers and a younger brother, and they're all awful."

Tsuna was maybe starting to see why Canon!Hana held such dislike for the 'monkey' boys in her class.

"They can't be that bad," Tsuna said with a giggle.

"They are!" Hana said. "They're loud and messy and in-- inco-- rude!"

Kyouko laughed. When Hana gave her a betrayed look, she patted her on the shoulder. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she said.

Hana frowned, almost pouting. "Anyway, have you guys seen the newest episode of Sailor Moon?" she said, obviously changing the subject.

Kyouko and Tsuna went with it. About ten minutes later, there was a shout. "Kyouko!"

A young boy rushed up to the gate where they were waiting, hardly slowing at all before practically tackling Kyouko in a hug. Kyouko seemed to be used to this treatment, and hardly reacted to almost being bowled over.

"I'm EXTREMELY sorry for being late, Kyouko!" the boy bellowed, evidently at top volume.

Kyouko just smiled. "It's okay, Big Brother," she said.

At this point in time, Kyouko was only five years old, but Tsuna could kind of see Canon!Tsuna's appreciation for her smile. It was sweet, but as bright as the Sun flames she shared with Ryohei.

"Big Brother, these are my friends, Kurokawa Hana and Sawada Tsunayoshi," Kyouko said, wiggling carefully out of his hold. She fumbled a little over the names, but not much. "Hana-chan, Tsuna-chan, this is my brother, Sasagawa Ryohei!"

Ryohei turned to them, and Tsuna got a strangely ominous feeling. "Kyouko's friends, huh? Well, any friend of Kyouko is a friend of mine!" he declared at only slightly less than the top volume he'd been speaking in before. "You can call me Ryohei, okay?"

It was phrased as a question, but Tsuna got the feeling it wasn't a question.

"You can call me Tsuna, then," she said. "It's nice to meet you, Ryohei-san!"

Hana turned to look at her aghast. After a glance at Kyouko's beaming smile, however, she swallowed down whatever she'd wanted to say. "It's nice to meet you... Ryohei-san," she said reluctantly.

"ALL RIGHT!" Ryohei said. Several nearby people flinched. "Let's go home, then!"

He pumped his fists, then held one hand out to Kyouko. She put her hand in his automatically. "Everybody hold hands so nobody gets lost," Ryohei said. It sounded like he was reciting somebody else's words.

Smiling, Kyouko held out her hand, and Tsuna obediently grabbed hold, then offered her other hand to Hana, who gave them both a pained look. Still, after a moment of Ryohei staring expectantly while Tsuna faced away from him and tried not to laugh, she grabbed Tsuna's hand.

Finally, they were off. Ryohei led them carefully through Namimori. His forehead was furrowed in concentration, and he watched the three of them as well as strangers carefully. Tsuna wondered if it was normal to have a six year old and three five year olds walk home from school together. It seemed like a lot of responsibility and danger.

But then, given what Kyouko said, they didn't have much choice. Their grandmother couldn't pick them up -- so their parents probably weren't in the picture? It kind of explained why Ryohei ended up so protective of Kyouko, Tsuna supposed.

A couple of weeks later, an Opportunity to befriend Yamamoto appeared. Kind of.

All of the students had been sent outside for recess, and as they usually did, Tsuna, Kyouko, and Hana were sitting at the edge of the asphalt playground area talking. A shadow fell over them, and Tsuna looked up to find Yamamoto standing in front of them. There was a small crowd of boys behind him.

"Hi!" he said once he had their attention. "We're playing a game, but we don't have enough people. Do you want to play?"

One of the other boys stepped closer to Yamamoto. "But they're girls," he hissed in what he probably thought was an undertone.

"So?" Yamamoto said with an uncomprehending look.

Faced with having to explain exactly why them being girls was a problem, the other boy faltered.

Tsuna, Kyouko, and Hana exchanged looks. Tsuna, having been trying to get an in with Yamamoto anyway, was instantly and totally on board regardless of boys being stupid. Kyouko, who was a friendly and generally open-minded person, was curious about it. Hana, who didn't like boys or rowdy people or sports, wasn't particularly interested.

After a moment, Hana visibly relented. Tsuna turned back to Yamamoto, already getting to her feet.

"Sure, I'll play," she said readily.

Kyouko hesitated, looking uncertainly at Hana, who nudged her.

"Ah, me too," Kyouko said eventually.

"I'd rather not," Hana said, then waved Tsuna and Kyouko off. "It's fine, I'll just watch."

Yamamoto flashed a blinding, 100 watt grin. "Okay!" he said.

The game turned out to be some strange kickball thing, where it basically followed the rules of baseball but with a soccer ball and kicking instead of a baseball and bat.  Tsuna wasn't sure why she was surprised about that, honestly.

The teams ended up with Yamamoto, Tsuna, and Kyouko on one against the other three boys Yamamoto had been with on the other.

Tsuna had never had much experience with baseball or kickball in either of her lives, and so honestly her grasp of the rules was extremely shaky. Kyouko, probably, was in a similar boat. Yamamoto, of course, was pretty much the king of the game, far outstripping the rest of them. He wasn't very good at explaining the rules to Tsuna and Kyouko, but he was patient about it.

Their team won against the boys, in the end, and Tsuna was vindictively pleased. Even if it was because Yamamoto carried them, they hadn't completely ruined his chances or anything.

Because children were apparently like that, after that Tsuna, along with Kyouko, was kind of friends with Yamamoto. The other boys seemed to disapprove of her or at least dislike her, but Yamamoto himself always seemed perfectly friendly even if she interrupted while he was with several of the other boys.

Still, it wasn't like Tsuna had usurped his other friendships. Yamamoto still spent most of his time with those other boys. It was just that now Tsuna was part of the In-Crowd who was allowed to approach him.

Tsuna still spent most of her time with Kyouko and Hana, anyway, so it was fair.

Regardless of Tsuna's intentions, her being more proactive did not cause canon to start early, so overall, very little happened for a long time. They finished kindergarten, started first grade, and eventually moved into second grade.

Whenever Tsuna wasn't actively spending time with any of her friends, she studied. Not the blade, since that was Yamomoto's thing (or it would be, anyway), but specifically she studied Japanese. Tsuna wanted to have an adult's reading level, but man. Japanese was hard. So she studied a lot.

It was also in second grade, at the age of seven, that Tsuna met Hibari for the first time. Tsuna was alone for lunch, for various reasons, and eating on one of the roofs which people weren't technically supposed to go up to.

Really, it was practically asking to run into Hibari. That definitely wasn't why she did it in the first place.

So, Tsuna was eating her lunch innocently, and suddenly Hibari, at the approximate age of eight, came swanning up out of nowhere and whacked her over the head with a tonfa.

Tsuna flinched away. "Ow! What was that for?" she complained, rolling away to remove herself from tonfa range.

"You are trespassing," Hibari said remorselessly. "Leave, or I will bite you to death."

There were two things about this that Tsuna noted immediately. First, the fact that he actually gave an option for mercy. She was about ninety percent sure that Canon!Hibari went looking for excuses to beat people up, and so would never give up a perfect opportunity. Second, he was already using his strange, strange phrase by eight.

And then she actually thought about the ultimatum he'd just given her. She had achieved what she wanted by hanging out on the roof, which was running into Hibari himself, and there were plenty of other places she could eat lunch. On the other hand, she was there first and Hibari wasn't actually allowed on the roof any more than Tsuna herself was. He was being a hypocrite, likely because he wanted to nap in peace, if Canon!Hibari was any indication.

So, because apparently she was suicidal, Tsuna frowned, got to her feet, and said, "You're not allowed up here either."

Something she knew would absolutely start a fight. With Hibari, there were very few other ways for an encounter to go, anyway.

Hibari's eyes narrowed. That was all the warning Tsuna got before Hibari was suddenly right back in her face, first tonfa already halfway to her head.

The thing was, Tsuna was not experienced at fighting. She had never done any form of martial arts in her first life, not even self-defense, and obviously this time around she was seven. And, apparently, Hibari was monstrously strong at all ages.

However, Tsuna had the Vongola Hyper Intuition and an adult brain capable of reading its urges and reacting to them.

As far as Tsuna would recall later, the fight went something like this: duck the tonfa, wait there's another tonfa, step back to dodge a strange upper-cut-like move, dodge roll to the left, get back to her feet fast, wait no back down to avoid the tonfa again, kick out at Hibari's legs, miss because he dodged backwards, back to her feet again, Hibari was approaching again, step back, WAIT watch out for the rock. Tsuna glanced down to find that yes, there was a rock where she'd been going to step which she would have tripped over. Then, having taken her eyes off Hibari, she was surprised when he got her square in the face.

From there, it was a mess, really. In the end, with a few achy new bruises, Tsuna was forced to flee the roof.

Tsuna wasn't ashamed, exactly. She was pretty sure it was a fact of the universe that Hibari Kyouya would always be able to beat Sawada Tsunayoshi -- although they'd never fought directly in canon after Canon!Tsuna really started getting strong. Still, she didn't think that losing was embarrassing.

It was just annoying.

The petty, contrary part of her was furious that Hibari had successfully chased her away. He was stronger than her, and he'd used that to get what he wanted. That was fair, but it didn't stop Tsuna from being irritated by it.

Thinking wistfully of her abandoned lunch, Tsuna decided then that she wouldn't let it go so easily. Hibari may be stronger than her, but she wasn't going to give up. Most days, she ate lunch with her friends, but after that, she took one day a week to go up to that roof, vindictively, just to annoy him. She would never allow him to nap in peace.

It was odd, though. Tsuna had gone up to the roof before and Hibari hadn't shown those times, which probably meant he didn't always nap up there during lunchtime. After that first encounter, though, he was there on the roof every time Tsuna was.

(Tsuna still got beat up and fled most of the time, and the bruises got hard to explain, but she wouldn't give up.)

The next year, Tsuna decided that her Japanese had gotten good enough to branch out a bit, and started working on Chinese. Going right for Italian seemed too on-the-nose, and she didn't want to be obvious about knowing about Iemitsu's job, and Chinese was cool. Plus, almost all of the Italians in series spoke Japanese, while I-pin, the Chinese speaker, did not speak Japanese very well, so Chinese would, ironically, be more useful.

"Is that a beginner's Chinese book?" Hana said dubiously when she noticed.

"Yup," Tsuna said.

"Ooh, you're so smart, Tsuna-chan!" Kyouko said.

Hana made a face. "But why? Isn't English enough?" she complained.

Both of them knew full well that Tsuna aced all of their English tests. Tsuna was pleased that neither of them bothered to mention it.

"I guess. I just like languages," Tsuna said.

It was actually true. She did like languages; otherwise she probably wouldn't have willingly subjected herself to a third one. Canon!Tsuna hadn't had to learn any extra languages for the storyline, after all. Still, Tsuna was pretty sure that if she was going to take over as the boss of an Italian mafia, she would need to know Italian at least. So really, she was subjecting herself to a fourth language in learning Chinese.

She found she didn't really care.

When Tsuna was eight, and Yamamoto was nine because his birthday was earlier than hers, he disappeared from school for several days. The gossip and rumor mills being what they were, the news of why got to the school before Yamamoto even returned.

His mother had died.

It was a little unclear exactly what had happened, and Tsuna didn't put any extra effort into figuring that out. That was none of her business. Even if she was dying of curiosity.

The point was, Yamamoto's mom died. Tsuna knew, intellectually, that that happened. She'd been dead for canon, after all. It didn't make it less sad, though.

Yamamoto was missing from school for the rest of that week, and reappeared on the next Monday. Given the crowd he'd drawn in the canon storyline when he was threatening to jump off the roof, Tsuna half expected that everybody would crowd around him. Offering condolences, maybe, or asking graceless questions about it.

That didn't happen at all.

Almost ghostly for the lack of color in his cheeks even now, Yamamoto slipped around like a specter. When confronted, he forced a smile onto his face and replied with horribly forced cheer, but he didn't initiate anything or speak without prompting.

As a result, or perhaps entirely unrelated to Yamamoto's behavior and simply because of awkwardness about his mother's death, the class, including Yamamoto's usual friends tip-toed around him, talking in undertones and going quiet if he approached. Overall, it was very much leaving him out, suddenly.

Tsuna wondered if none of them had ever dealt with a person who'd lost someone. She wasn't entirely sure how to go about it either, but this, she felt, was totally wrong. In a way, she thought, she was currently seeing why and when Yamamoto became emotionally distanced from his friends as he was in canon. She could even understand it: if they weren't willing to stick with him when he was grieving, if they didn't want to talk to him if he wasn't carrying the conversation, what was really the value in their 'friendship'?

It wasn't comparable at all, Tsuna knew. Yet she looked at Yamamoto, at the face of a nine year old whose mother had died and who felt like their entire world was falling apart, and she saw herself. Her parents in her first life had died, too, and she still vividly remembered the stabbing pain of the loss, but that wasn't what she thought of. She hadn't been a child when either of her parents died, after all. Rather, she thought of her own death and being thrown, screaming, into an entirely different universe. She wondered if that was what he felt like. Did life look different now? Was everything strange and off and wrong?

From the look on his face, she'd bet that was how he felt.

So Tsuna sucked up the awkwardness and the uncertainty about bothering Yamamoto while he was grieving, gave an apologetic look to Hana and Kyouko, and barged into his bubble of fellow-student-observed privacy.

"Hi, Yamamoto-kun!" she said, trying too hard for a cheerful tone.

Yamamoto looked up, surprise and something almost like dismay on his face for a split second before he gathered himself and started forming that fake, fake smile.

Tsuna just kept going, talking before he could even try. "So I noticed you were out of school for a couple of days and I was thinking I could catch you up on what's happened!" she said. "Not school work, I mean, the teachers probably helped with that, but like, did anyone tell you about the fight between Aosa-kun and Sarue-chan?"

Yamamoto blinked. "No, not yet," he said slowly.

"It was amazing. Or horrible. Depending on how you look at it," Tsuna said, sitting next to him now that he'd encouraged her even the littlest bit.

"Oh yeah? Which side are you on?" Yamamoto said, a hint of a real smile on his face.

Tsuna beamed. "Amazing, of course," she said, and without prompting, continued, "Okay, so, you know how Sarue-chan accused Aosa-kun of cheating, right? We~ll, it turned out that he was. Technically. I mean, he had his older sister helping him, so I think that counts as cheating. Sarue-chan obviously thought so too..."

Tsuna kept talking almost solid throughout the rest of their break, with only minimal input from Yamamoto. She considered it a success when, halfway through, Yamamoto laughed for the first time since he'd returned to school.

The next day, Kyouko and Hana, giving Tsuna extremely similar understanding looks, although tinged with different shades of emotion (approval in Kyouko's case and exasperation in Hana's), joined the two of them. Between the three of them, it was easy to keep a conversation going, though Tsuna was careful to make sure that Yamamoto was included in it. Hana had an impressive dry wit, and offered a different, yet still funny, perspective of things from Tsuna's version, while Kyouko found the both of them hilarious, and her laughter was infectious. To Tsuna's joy, within a couple of weeks, almost all of Yamamoto's smiles were real.

And, although once they considered it 'safe', Yamamoto's usual friends returned and he went back to spending time with them, he still spent a large majority of his time with Tsuna, and Kyouko, and Hana, when any or all of them were around. (After a while of this, Yamamoto slung his arm around Tsuna's shoulders and outright called her 'Tsuna' with no honorific instead of the 'Sawada' it had been before, so Tsuna looked back, raised her eyebrows, and called him 'Takeshi'.)

Even when Tsuna was doing her weekly lunch with Hibari, the three of them often spent it together without her, and Tsuna found that she was actually delighted by this turn of events. It was surprisingly cool that she'd managed to get them to become friends with each other, and not solely when they separately wanted to spend time with her.

So yeah, Tsuna was pretty pleased.

Through her weekly lunches (aka fights) with Hibari, Tsuna was slowly but steadily getting better at fighting. Their fights also steadily got longer and longer before the inevitable conclusion of Tsuna getting tired of getting new bruises and fleeing. Finally, halfway through third grade, the usual format changed.

Tsuna was keeping up surprisingly well, although she had a new bruise on one forearm, the other shoulder, and one of her shins. She was getting tired, though, and the new injuries hurt, making it harder and harder to keep up with him. Since it was practically all she could do to dodge, Hibari only had one Tsuna-inflicted injury, which she doubted was even a proper bruise; she'd just barely gotten him in the stomach with a kick, and he'd been dodging backwards at the time anyway.

So things were not going in her favor at all, and Tsuna was just about ready to call it and make a run for the stairs.

Then Hibari abruptly backed off, a thunderous scowl on his face. A second later, during which Tsuna could do nothing but gape, because Hibari didn't just stop, the warning bell went off. Lunch was almost over.

Hibari glared at Tsuna briefly, though it seemed different from usual, then spun around sharply and stalked over to the far side, where he settled on the floor and appeared to go to sleep. Tsuna stared for a moment. She knew he usually napped up there, or at least she'd assumed so, but didn't he care about class? Eventually, Tsuna just shrugged it off and left to go to her own class. Honestly, it wouldn't even surprise her if Hibari was planning to skip class just to get his nap in.

After that, Tsuna was surprised to discover that she had, evidently, earned Hibari's respect. That was not to say he stopped attacking her, because that was most definitely not the case. He did, however, stop fighting after thirty minutes and allow her to spend the rest of lunch on the roof while he napped (or appear to, anyway). Tsuna figured it was his way of conceding, even if only so that he still got some nap time before classes started again.

And of course she stayed on the roof once he'd given up; it was her hard-earned right to eat lunch on that roof, okay. It had taken her more than a year of getting beaten up by Hibari and then, each day, thirty minutes of narrowly avoiding being subjected to that fate yet again, to secure her right to eat on the roof. Tsuna was absolutely going to take advantage of it.

Several awful, wintery months later, they made it to February (an awful month to be true, yet the end of winter was in sight), and Valentine's Day reared its ugly head.

Tsuna debated with herself for a week and a half before deciding to try to make homemade chocolates for her male friends. All two of them, and that was reaching to count Ryohei. On a whim, Tsuna decided to (try to) make some for Hibari as well. Bribery was absolutely Tsuna's jam and she wanted him to like her even if only for her acceptable chocolates.

Because really, she doubted anyone else had the guts to give him chocolates regardless of his pretty face.

So, about three days before Valentine's Day, Tsuna asked Nana (who is a masterful chef in her own right) to teach her how to make chocolates. If it were what Tsuna still considered 'modern day', meaning the mid-to-late 2010s, she would have googled it. As it was, the year 2000 and without even a computer much less a smart phone, Tsuna could not do that.

Fortunately, Nana both knew how and was absolutely delighted to teach her.

"Aah, my little Tsu-chan, growing up and making chocolate for boys!" she squealed.

Tsuna knew it wouldn't affect anything if she tried to point out that the chocolates weren't romantic, so she didn't bother.

"So, do you want to customize them?" Nana asked. "You know, do something special for each boy!"

Tsuna blinked. Specialized chocolate? "Like how?"

"Well, you know, your dad really loves caramel, so I'd put caramel centers in his!" Nana said. "Do you know anything like that?"

"Uh..." Tsuna thought about it. She knew nothing about Hibari's preferences for obvious reasons. Takeshi, she was pretty sure, liked vanilla because he was that kind of person. Ryohei, in his on-going existence as being as extreme as possible, liked spicy foods.

She told Nana as much, who beamed. It turned out that there was a way to make spicy chocolate, and to put vanilla (but not like, pure vanilla flavoring) inside chocolates. And, because Tsuna didn't have anything to say for Hibari's, Nana decided on her own to give them caramel centers and refused to be dissuaded. Tsuna had obviously inadvertently caused her to feel nostalgic.

The first batch was almost entirely made by Nana, while Tsuna just watched, so naturally they came out perfect. Tsuna wanted to make the chocolates herself, though, or she would have just gotten store-bought ones.

So, she tried on her own, with Nana watching over her shoulder and giving her pointers. Still, even with the help, batch number one came out.... mushy.

Tsuna didn't even know that was possible.

Batch two came out crunchy.

Batch three was too salty, and it was a very good thing that the Sawada family, thanks to Iemitsu's illegal career, was rich, and Nana was a very understanding person.

Batch four didn't have enough salt.

Batch five was edible, but less like proper, balled chocolate and more like chocolate chips.

Batch six, finally, was both edible and even remotely correctly shaped. They weren't pretty, still, but Tsuna decided it was good enough. Her friends would just have to deal.

Honestly, Tsuna wasn't even sure why she bothered when, in the end, they went out to the store to get 'proper' boxes to put the chocolates in anyway. Nana gave her the choice of what colors to get, so, because Tsuna thought she was extremely funny even if nobody else would get the joke, she decided on a blue box with black ribbon for Takeshi, a yellow box with white ribbon for Ryohei, and a purple box with black ribbon for Hibari.

She was hilarious, obviously.

Valentine's Day itself came around. Tsuna gave her chocolates to Takeshi first thing in the morning, before class.

"Appreciation chocolates," she made sure to clarify.

Takeshi laughed. "Hey, thanks, Tsuna! I appreciate you too!" he said cheerfully and tucked the chocolates away carefully.

Tsuna shrugged. "Try the chocolates before you thank me," she said. "I tried to make them myself, but they didn't come out so well."

"Oh, Tsuna-chan, you know how to make chocolates?" Kyouko said. "That's so cool!"

"Well, I asked my mom to teach me, she's like this amazing cook. I swear she knows how to make everything," Tsuna said.

They were interrupted by a small group of girls walking up in a huddle to offer several boxes of chocolate to Takeshi. They weren't quite to the age, yet, where girls went crazy giving chocolates to popular boys, but apparently, they were old enough. Takeshi accepted the chocolates gracefully, and the girls walked away with heavy blushes.

By the time lunch came around, Takeshi had a small pile of boxes of chocolates.

"Somebody's popular," Tsuna said dryly. "Maybe I should take my chocolates back?"

"Aw, no way," Takeshi said with one of his usual grins. "I appreciate your chocolates the most."

Tsuna figured most of the girls who'd given him chocolate would have swooned at that, but. She wasn't really feeling it.

During lunch, Tsuna excused herself from eating with her friends.

"Huh? Why?" Kyouko said.

"There's somebody else I want to give appreciation chocolates to, but he's not in our class, so I don't know when else to find him," Tsuna explained.

"Somebody else?" Hana said with a wrinkle in her nose. "Who? ...Why?"

Tsuna laughed. "I just feel like it," she said.

"Nooo, Tsuna-chan, you can't say something like that and leave!" Kyouko said. "You have to tell us who it is!"

"I don't know if you'd know him," Tsuna said, but shrugged. They'd find out eventually either way. "His name is Hibari Kyouya."

To Tsuna's surprise, all three of them paled a little. All of them started talking at the same time.

"The demon?" Hana said.

Takeshi frowned. "Are you sure that's okay?"

"Huh? Isn't he super scary?" Kyouko said.

"I don't know, we've been hanging out --" technically, "-- at lunch once a week for a while now. I think it's fine."

And then Tsuna fled before they could refuse to let her go. Honestly.

She went up to the roof to wait. She wasn't entirely sure Hibari would show up, actually; it wasn't their usual scheduled fight-day. After a few minutes, though, he stalked through the door onto the roof.

Tsuna was impressed. He either had a sixth-sense for these things, did actually nap on the roof all the time now, or had the roof under surveillance.

"I don't want to fight," she said hurriedly before he could attack her.

Hibari's eyes narrowed. Tsuna dug the box of chocolates out of her bag.

"I just wanted to give you these," she said, offering the box. "Then I'll be leaving."

After a moment of staring at the box with something like suspicion, Hibari snatched it from Tsuna's hand.

"Fine. Leave, herbivore," he said, striding over to his usual spot and laying down.

Tsuna rolled her eyes, supposed she should count herself lucky he'd decided not to 'bite her to death' regardless, and skedaddled.

Later that day, she accosted Ryohei as he was picking Kyouko up so they could walk home together and gave him his box of chocolates. Ryohei accepted it with great enthusiasm and also a rib-cracking hug, so Tsuna figured that made up for Hibari's ungrateful attitude.

(Even later, Ryohei and Takeshi would both say that Tsuna's chocolates had been awesome. On her next fight-day with Hibari, after they'd finished the fight, he looked at her for a bit longer than usual and said that he didn't like the caramel, and then went to lay down. Tsuna was somewhat insulted but mostly just took it as a challenge to find something he did like.)

Truth be told, Tsuna hadn't even considered the existence of White Day when she gave her friends chocolate. She managed to all but completely forget it existed.

So, it came as a surprise, when, March 14th, Takeshi greeted her before class with a store-bought box of white chocolate. Tsuna stared for a long moment.

Takeshi, evidently unbothered, laughed. "I tried to make homemade white chocolate, but it didn't turn out that well, so! Here," he said.

It was then, after approximately thirty seconds, that Tsuna remembered that White Day was a thing. The day boys who had received chocolate on Valentine's Day were supposed to return the gift with white chocolate or jewelry or something.

"Thank you," Tsuna said on instinct as she took the box.

Takeshi laughed at her again.

Later that day, during the two entire seconds Tsuna was alone, Hibari appeared like an apparition.

"Herbivore," he said to get her attention. "It is White Day."

With that, he held out a modest-sized cake covered in white frosting and dropped it without waiting for Tsuna to reach out first, causing her to have to jerk forward to catch it. Tsuna examined the cake suspiciously. It wasn't especially large, definitely a one-person cake, but it was beautifully decorated with white frosting.

It looked really expensive. Much more than three times the worth of the chocolate Tsuna had given him.

But, when Tsuna looked up, Hibari was halfway down the hall, evidently making his escape while she was distracted, so she couldn't say anything about it. Tsuna stared after him for a moment.

Then she decided to redouble her Valentine's Day efforts the next year. Clearly, Hibari was the kind of person who had to win in all things, including giving gifts. Tsuna wasn't sure why she was surprised. But she was also not going to lose.

Later, finishing off the near-perfect mirror of how Tsuna had handed out her chocolates, Ryohei found her just after school to give her yet another return gift. Ryohei's turned out to be what seemed to Tsuna to be a party-sized platter of cookies. However, due to the sheer enthusiasm of his giving them to her, Tsuna did not have an opportunity to refuse them.

Tsuna stared down at the package of probably ninety cookies and found herself making Hansel and Gretel jokes. There was no way she was going to be able to finish off that many cookies before they went stale.

(She ended up sharing them with Kyouko, Hana, and Takeshi.)

Tsuna had managed, so far, to skate by unnoticed by most people; the bullies left her alone, and despite being friends with the Two Most Popular Kids in Class(tm), people didn't really seem to consider her popular.

She liked to consider it a result of a healthy dose of minding her own business. It was, she reflected, almost a miracle considering how pitifully Canon!Tsuna did not manage the same thing. Maybe there was something more to it, but if so, Tsuna wasn't doing it on purpose, so she was at a loss.

Anyway, Tsuna didn't usually bother with the other students of her elementary school except for her usual five. Since she had such a small group of friends, she tended to notice when something was different.

Such as, for example, Kyouko not being there at the gate after class as she usually was, waiting for her brother.

Hana shrugged it off and left, which was fair because her mother generally got mad at her if she didn't report in for babysitting duty without warning. Takeshi was occupied with baseball as per usual.

So, it was just Tsuna.

She had a bad feeling about it. Given that she had little way of telling the difference between a 'my-schedule-has-been-interrupted-and-I'm-upset' bad feeling and a 'my-creepy-Hyper-Intuition-is-going-off' bad feeling, she listened to it and went looking for Kyouko. First she went back to their classroom, which was empty, and then checked the bathroom with the same results.

At a loss, Tsuna checked on Ryohei, who was in the boxing club even at this young age. The club was still going, and so she didn't interrupt, but as far as she could tell, Kyouko wasn't there either.

The bad feeling redoubled. Kyouko never left without her brother.

Tsuna went around checking the school grounds, but found nothing. Finally, she made her way back to find Ryohei, where the boxing club was now just finishing up. Tsuna slipped into the room, hurrying over to him.

“Oh, Tsuna! What's up?" Ryohei said.

"Do you know where Kyouko is?" Tsuna asked. "She wasn't at the gate where she usually waits."

Ryohei blinked. "No, I--" he froze. "NO! THOSE JERKS!"

He rushed off without an explanation. Tsuna sighed, but ran after him anyway. Unfortunately, given that Ryohei was the kind of madman who jogged every morning and Tsuna was not, he outpaced her pretty easily, but fortunately, he was easy to follow.

All she had to do was follow the cries of Kyouko's name.

Eventually, she caught up to him in an alleyway near Namimori High School. Ryohei was already embroiled in a fight with three boys wearing the high school uniform, while a fourth was standing to the side, holding onto Kyouko, who looked terrified but uninjured.

Well. Tsuna figured the proper course of action was obvious.

She flung herself at the boy holding Kyouko. Without jumping, Tsuna managed to reach just high enough to clip him in the jaw with a punch, and he released Kyouko and stumbled away with a surprisingly high-pitched yelp.

"Tsuna-chan!" Kyouko said.

Tsuna kicked one of his legs out from under them and then turned, hearing him fall to the ground behind her. Kyouko, the smart girl, had backed away to the mouth of the alleyway, out of danger. The boy Tsuna had knocked over wouldn't stay out of the fight, she knew, but she took the brief time it would take him to get back up and charged into Ryohei's one vs three battle.

They'd noticed her, unfortunately, and so she couldn't get a sneak attack, but she ducked past one's attempts to grab her and threw her weight into slamming elbow-first into his midsection, and he doubled over with a wheeze. While he was distracted, Tsuna raised her leg and kicked him where the sun don't shine. He whimpered, fell to the ground, curled up in the fetal position, and didn't move again.

The other boys converged on her, but Ryohei punched one in the side from behind, earning a shout, and they turned back. Tsuna turned just in time to dodge away from the fourth (now third) boy before he could grab her by the hair.

"You little brat," he said.

"You big bully," Tsuna said, and launched herself at his face.

The boy threw his arms up to protect the face with a shriek. Tsuna grabbed handfuls of his school vest and leveraged herself to knee him in the stomach, then, as she fell back down, inadvertently pulled him down with her. She landed on her feet, released her holds on his vest, and dodged out of the way as he faceplanted.

After jumping on his back just to hear him yelp again, Tsuna made her way back over to Ryohei, where he'd managed to get one of the boys to stay down. Tsuna flung herself onto the remaining high school student's back, grabbing him around the neck. He yelled and grabbed her arms, trying to pry her off. In doing so, he left himself open and Ryohei nailed him in the kidney.

The high school student crumpled with a whimper suspiciously similar to his friend's.

Breathing hard, Ryohei glanced around at the boys as if daring them to get back up. None of them did. Finally, he turned away and made his way over to Kyouko, who let out a sob and flung herself into his arms.

Tsuna followed out of range of the high school students, then shuffled and looked away awkwardly.

"Big Brother!" Kyouko sobbed out.

"Kyouko! I'm so sorry. Are you okay?" Ryohei said.

She shook her head. "I'm okay, but Big Brother, you're hurt!"

Ryohei had a bit of drying blood coming from his nose and some trailing from his mouth, as well as what was probably going to be a beautiful black eye.

"What, this? This is nothing! I'm fine!" he laughed.

Kyouko looked doubtful, but then she apparently remembered Tsuna's existence and turned to her. "Oh! Tsuna-chan, are you okay? That was so scary when you jumped in!"

"I'm okay. They didn't even hit me," Tsuna said. None of those boys were even close to Hibari's level. "I'm glad both of you are okay."

"That was AWESOME, Tsuna! YOU WERE EXTREMELY COOL!" Ryohei said at top volume. Then, somewhat quieter, "I'm sorry you had to get involved!"

Tsuna shrugged. "Thanks, Ryohei-san. I don't really mind, though," she said.

Ryohei released Kyouko to loom over Tsuna, grabbing her by the shoulders. Tsuna looked at his hands, a little put out that he was getting blood on her.

"Tsuna! I want you to call me 'Big Brother' from now on!" Ryohei declared. "BECAUSE YOU'RE LIKE A SISTER TO ME!"

Tsuna blinked. "Um." She looked to Kyouko for help, who, much calmer now, just giggled. "I don't... think that's appropriate,"  Tsuna tried.

"CALL ME BIG BROTHER!" Ryohei said again.

Tsuna gave up. "Okay."

She was pretty sure Canon!Ryohei had done almost exactly the same thing to Canon!Tsuna. Maybe that was just one of those things that couldn't be changed? It wasn't like it really mattered, Tsuna supposed.

Tsuna was a pretty light sleeper. She hadn't always been, she knew; in her first life she'd sot of grown into it after being a sleep-like-the-dead sleeper as a child. In her second life, she'd somewhat learned how to sleep through things again as a baby and young child, and, again, grown out of it.

So she woke up when the front door slammed. As Tsuna was lying there wondering why the door would slam at a time like this (1:43 in the morning), she heard The Sound. Laughter. It wasn't such a strange thing, of course, except for the fact that ghostly laughter at 2am was pretty creepy. This wasn't creepy, though; she recognized it as her mother's laugh. Specifically, it was the way Nana laughed when Iemitsu was home.

This thought was worrying enough to have Tsuna slipping out of her room, to the top of the stairs. She stayed just around the corner out of sight of anyone looking up and listened.

Sure enough, there was Nana's voice, speaking in a contained murmur. Then a deeper baritone, recognizable as Iemitsu purely because it could be no one else. She certainly didn't recognize it because she heard it so often.

Tsuna huffed silently and made her way back to her room, flinging herself into bed, and tried not to sulk. It wasn't that she had anything against Iemitsu... Okay, that was a lie. She really didn't like him; she hadn't even liked him much as a character in her first life. Being in a world where he was a real person, and also a real absentee dad? She really didn't like him. And she hadn't even seen canon behavior like being drunk half the time he was home, yet.

Iemitsu just made it so easy.

The next morning, Tsuna dreaded going downstairs, knowing with certainty what she'd find. Nana would be glowing with happiness, dancing around the kitchen making breakfast while Iemitsu either waited patiently or distracted her repeatedly with literal dancing or any other variety of safe-to-have-the-nine-year-old-walk-in-on behavior. They would have a normal Japanese breakfast today for lack of ingredients, but later Nana would go shopping to get more exotic things to make breakfast from whichever country Iemitsu decided to claim he'd been in.

Tsuna was pretty sure that was part of their ongoing game of chicken, honestly, but she was so not going to get involved in it.

Whenever Tsuna relented and went downstairs, Iemitsu would greet her eagerly and expect her to reciprocate. Nana would quietly expect the same; she loved Iemitsu regardless of his absences, and it seemed she genuinely could not understand that Tsuna didn't feel the same way.

[fallenqueen2]

Combined Bloodlines [Katekyo Hitman Reborn]

Checkerface breaks a seal deep within Tsuna, revealing the secret of Nana’s bloodline.

Ao3 Link

Checkerface had just finished lifting the Arcobaleno curse and in a puff of smoke Lal was returned to her normal age while the others slowly and silently realized they were going to have to age like normal children.

The conscious Mist users quickly jumped into action, creating organs and limbs for those who had lost some during the battle with Jager and the others. Meanwhile, the Suns were healing the normal injuries the best they could, just enough to keep them alive until they get some real help. Bermuda had left with the new device to keep the new world power stable; everyone had assumed Checkerface would leave as well as his presence was no longer required. He surprised them all by staying put and staring down Tsuna.

Tsuna was breathing heavily, he was out of his HDW and he could feel himself swaying on his feet. He refused to pass out until he knew everyone else was safe and somewhat healed, but his head snapped up when Checkerface walked towards with an unnerving smile on his face.

“Sawada Tsunayoshi. You are a puzzle.” Checkerface mused, his words gaining attention. Reborn had Leon change into his gun form, he did not trust Checkerface and if he hurt Tsuna…

“I’m going to do you a favor and remove your seal.” Checkerface raised his hand slowly.

“Don’t you fucking dare!” Tsuna growled, surprising everyone around him. Before Tsuna could do anything Checkerface’s raised his hand plunged into the brunet’s chest. Tsuna coughed up blood as he doubled over the hand sticking in his chest. He could barely hear the shrieks of outrage, but no one was in any shape to help Tsuna. Even Chaos shots fired by Reborn and other bullets fired by Colonello and Lal had no effect as they just bounced off a small force shield that Checkerface had erected around the two.

“He’s breaking the first seal, I don’t think he’s stopping there. He’s going to force me to change fully! Damnit we don’t have a choice… I just hope I don’t disgust everyone. Or hate me for hiding this for so long.” Tsuna’s mind raced as felt the final seal deep inside of himself that not even Reborn knew about being broken. Checkerface removed his hand from Tsuna’s chest and grinned cheerily.

“It was going to break soon so I’m just speeding up the process a bit. I’ll be watching so give me a good show Sawada Tsunayoshi, the one cursed by the moon.” Checkerface faded away as Tsuna dropped to his knees, clutching his chest and head bowed.

“Tsuna! Tsuna! Are you ok?” Yamamoto called out worried from his place by Chrome and Gokudera, all of them trying to get closer to their boss.

“Stay back!” Tsuna ordered, his voice becoming deeper and more feral, his eyes squeezed closed.

“Shit!” Tsuna swore loudly as he slammed his hands against the ground, his fingers digging into the dirt, he could feel his nails turning in his claws.

“The one cursed by the moon… He didn’t mean…” Fon trailed off as he looked at Tsuna in shock.

“What? Fon, what’s going on?” Reborn spun towards the Storm flame user.

Tsuna let out a loud growl getting all their attention directed back to him. Tsuna’s head snapped up and his eyes opened. His pupils were now slitted, but what really drew attention was the large pair of fangs that were growing from his canines. A pair of brown wolf ears twitched on the top of Tsuna’s head; barely visible against his brown hair and a long bushy brown tail grew out from Tsuna’s tailbone.

“Werewolf.” Gokudera breathed out in awe, but everyone heard him and stared at Tsuna in confusion and shock.

“Tsuna!” Reborn started towards his student that he thought he knew so well.

“NO! Stay back! He broke both my seals! I can’t stop the change now! Please don’t move any of you, when I’m in the full form I’m not exactly in the right state of mind!” Tsuna choked out as his body curled in on itself as tremors wracked his body.

Tsuna’s shoes exploded as his feet turned into paws, the nails extending into sharp claws. His clothes were ripped off his body as he shifted into a more wolf-like form. Brown fur erupted from his skin, covering his body completely as a pained howl escaped from his mouth while his bones cracked and ground against each other as they changed into the shape of a wolf. His face narrowing out into a muzzle and his ears flattened down against his skull as he curled up into a ball riding the final stages of his change out. After a few more painful (for Tsuna) and painstakingly slow moments (for everyone else), Tsuna let out a soft purr as he settled down into his wolf form.

Tsuna stood up on his four legs shakily he stumbled towards Reborn. No one moved, having taking Tsuna’s warning before he turned very serious. Reborn didn’t want to hurt his student, but if he was going to be eaten well…

Tsuna stared Reborn down; familiar brown eyes met onyx eyes Tsuna tilted his large head for a moment like he was considering Reborn. It seemed like he decided on something and to everyone’s shock Tsuna’s large tongue lolled out of his mouth and swiped up the side of Reborn’s face in an affectionate gesture. Reborn spluttered at the gesture while there was stifled laughter from the others.

“Ugh, you’re going to regret that Dame-Tsuna.” Reborn wiped the wolf salvia off his face before taking a chance and patted Tsuna’s large black nose.

Tsuna just grinned, showing his razor sharp white teeth before he easily slunk around each of the ex-Acrobaleno’s like he was checking them over to make sure they were each ok. With a jerk of his head, Tsuna trotted over to where the injured were gathered. He surprised everyone by approaching Xanxus who was holding a rag to his bleeding stump; the Varia leader was sitting by the unconscious (would have been dead if not for Mammon’s illusions) Squalo.

Xanxus blinked his blood red eyes at the large wolf and took an intake of breath when Tsuna gently nudged his large furry head against his injured arm and let out a soft whine like he was saying it was his fault for Xanxus being hurt.

“Trash this isn’t your fault.” Xanxus huffed out rather harshly but was rewarded with a lick against his upper arm and Tsuna gently nudged Squalo’s head with his own before moving towards Mukuro and Hibari both of who were sporting bloodied and broken collarbones. Tsuna let out a low whine as he licked Mukuro’s hand.

“Kufufufu I knew there was something about you Tsunayoshi.” Mukuro blinked at the gesture, but gently rubbed Tsuna’s head and gave him a smirk signaling he was all right. Tsuna moved to Hibari and the two stared each other down before Hibari petted Tsuna’s head.

“Wao, so the Herbivore was a wolf carnivore after all.” Hibari shook his head, eyes glinting. Tsuna gave him a pointed look before the wolf rolled his brown eyes and moved over to where Enma was and nudged his nose against the bandages on the redhead’s face.

Enma was frozen in place before that movement, then he smiled and nudged his nose back at Tsuna in a way he had seen dogs (when they weren’t chasing him that is) do. Tsuna gave an approving purr before he moved over to Dino and growled at the large slash on his chest and resting his forehead on Dino’s uninjured shoulder.

“So my little brother is a werewolf, how cool is that?” Dino asked teasingly and was rewarded with an annoyed puff of air.

“I’m fine Tsuna I swear.” Tsuna let out another puff of air before he moved over to Byakuran and stared at the white-haired teen, the teen had always given Tsuna a weird feeling and now he could tell why in his fully shifted form.

The teen was a Werefox and the way Byakuran’s eyes narrowed and teeth bared as the two glared at each other and a growl escaped his throat. Byakuran gave a low hiss before he bowed his head, submitting to the wolf. Tsuna preened happily at this and gave Byakuran a gentle nudge with his nose and got one in return.

Tsuna than half ran over to where Gokudera, Yamamoto, Chrome, Basil, and Ryohei were together. Seeing the injuries on his best friends Tsuna let out a pained whine and dropped to his belly.

“Awe Tsuna you’re too cute!” Yamamoto laughed and sat next to the wolf form of his best friend before he leaned against Tsuna’s flank making himself comfortable against the warm and soft fur. Tsuna let out a pleased purr at his Rain accepting him so much and so easily with no fear.

“Bossu is so beautiful… Can I pet you?” Chrome asked softly, Tsuna gave a small yip and leaned happily into Chrome’s gentle touch as she petted his furry face. He licked her hand and felt pleased when he heard her giggle happily. He glanced at Gokudera and tilted his head to the side, his heart beating faster hoping beyond hope that his right hand and Storm would accept him.

“My boss is a werewolf. Juudaime is amazing!” Gokudera cheered with stars in his eyes as he bounded over to Tsuna. Tsuna leaned his head up and let his teeth gently grab onto the edge of Gokudera’s sleeve and dragged Gokudera down onto his other flank. Gokudera blushed and snuggled into the warm fur while Ryohei, who was supporting Basil came closer.

“That is extremely cool Sawada!” Ryohei gushed looking just as excited as Gokudera did.

“Sawada-dono.” Basil smiled softly at the wolf and brought his hand up a bit, Tsuna took the invitation and licked at the offered limb grinning when Basil laughed looking happier than he had been in a while.

Suddenly a weight settled on Tsuna’s head, the brown eyes turned upwards to see Reborn perched there, not acting like anything was out of the ordinary.

“So I take it your father has no clue huh?” Reborn commented casually.

“No, he does not and we both want it to stay that way.” Nana’s voice called out as she, Bianchi, I-Pin, Lambo and Fuuta emerged from the surrounding forest.

“Tsuna-Nii!” Lambo, I-Pin, and Fuuta cried out seeing the large brown wolf and rushed over to the wolf, Tsuna gave a yip of surprise when the three children barreled into him, clinging to Tsuna’s head/neck. Tsuna felt relieved at seeing his pups alive and safe after all the chaos of the day. Tsuna gently pinned the trio down to the ground and contented himself to licking the kids over in his own way of cleaning and making sure they were truly alright.

“Waaahh, Tsuna-Nii that’s gross!” Lambo cried as he squirmed before his face was licked with the long tongue, the little Lightning mumbled in disgust but settled down.

“So that is your secret hm Maman?” Reborn turned to Nana who was kneeling next to her son, stroking the fur of his head absently.

“It was a dormant gene, his first turn happened before Iemitsu brought home his boss and they did something to Tsu-Kun. He couldn’t shift anymore like that part had been sealed away by something powerful, he could feel that side of him but no longer could access it.” Nana said sadly but her lips were turned up in a smile as she watched her son bathe his pups and provide a place for the rest of his pack to rest comfortably.

“Hn I understand.” Reborn really wanted to shoot Iemitsu that dumbass.

“I knew you would, now Tsu-Kun is going to have to take some time to adjust to having full access to his senses again. I trust you all will look out for him while that happens.” Nana rose to her feet, brushing off her knees as she did.

“Of course Maman,” Reborn agreed as he noticed Tsuna’s Guardians starting to doze off from their places around Tsuna and the others were starting to gather to head to the hospital for proper treatment.

“I best be off before Iemitsu wakes up and notices I am gone.” Nana winked at Reborn before heading out of the battle zone.

“Maman is scary sometimes,” Futa said wisely from his place under Tsuna’s paw.

“It would be wise to remember that, Baka-Iemitsu really has no clue.” Reborn felt a stab of pity for the man before he remembered what happened between Tsuna and Iemitsu and that pity disappeared instantly.

“How long are you going to be stuck like this Dame-Tsuna?” Reborn asked as he settled back on the top of Tsuna’s head. Tsuna let out a puff of air and Reborn rolled his eyes.

“Of course you don’t know, well I guess we’ll all just stay here until you turn back and then go to the hospital with the others. We will be training with your new senses and see how we can work them into your Flames.” Reborn warned and Tsuna whined and flicked Reborn playfully with his sharp ear.

“Relax Dame-Tsuna, we’ll take some time off first,” Reborn promised his student who settled completely at the promise and Reborn just smiled as he settled down as well content to wait.

[writing-frenzy]

SI-Rasiel for everyone who still cares for this tired boy.

Okay, for those of you who like my SI-OC reborn as Bel’s twin brother in KHR, from my insert dump is where you can read about him here. and here. and here. Anyways, me and @darkriver101 got to talking about my guy, and with their permission, I decided to post things.

Here we go: 

The bet they were talking about in the last one was about if Hibari could get married; Rasiel is in disbelief/horror, Spanner is surprised, though his bet was that Hibari would get with a cute girl because the world isn’t fair, and Shouichi said it would be someone just as crazy as him, if maybe in a different way

(we decided the pairing would be Hibari/Haru, for anyone interested :3 )

Bel... I see him being this odd state of possessiveness toward his twin; He's always been told to be better, stronger, faster then his brother, who was basically most of the time just cold to everyone, and yet was still the kindest person to him. These two certainly have a better relationship then in canon, but it is very bumpy and tension filled. So, while possessive, Bel is still wary and watchful, because while this is his brother, it's still someone who is very much an unknown. (Though he probably won't try and kill him again; stab and threaten, maybe, but not kill. )

Rasiel hated their parents of this world; he doesn't blame Bel for snapping, just wishes he could have done more for their brother then he did. He is a pretty chill storm when he isn’t cursing his life.

I like to think Ras met Spanner early on, the two of them actually working together to make the organization

Rasiel wears his hair in a short pony tail most of the time, showing off his indigo eyes for the world.   

Now onto the little drabble; no one outside the family should be around right now because tsuna is a baby sky and the internal conflict going on. Rasiel is understandable, an element running from a toxic bond is common sense, not to mention they're neutral. The chasing Sky does not have that excuse.

Bel is the one who deals with the Sky, right in front of everyone :3 (unsure if he kills him or not though.)

Rasiel will not be getting out of the that easy though; they will be under a sort of hourse arrest for a while, though Vongola has to be very careful if they don't want an organization that is patron to both Vindice, Cervello, and multiple shady and legal angents on their ass, so they can't exactly cut him off. (Of course, very few know he is the leader, some thinking him just very high in the ranks, so this provides interesting situations) 

And like I said before, he's very chill when not wondering about his life and FMLing it. Probably be catching up on his games in this time. (He is such a gamer, he absolutely adores them to bits, so being trapped for a while is like a vacay for him. 

After a time of desions, it is decided Reborn is the one to watch over the Storm; not only is he a neutral force, but he has no personal reasons to be bothered by Rasiel like the Varia do. They don’t want him watching the ring battles, but Reborn can’t always watch him, so Rasiel sneaks out occasionally when he can.

Of course, with being under Reborn’s watch, this means they live in the same place; this means Nana adores him to bits, though it doesn’t hurt that Ras is charming when they want to be.   

This also has the effect of putting Rasiel in contact with Tsuna and the gang, unintentionally getting their respect and awe because Ras is sane, Ras is calm, and he is kind. Tsuna appreciates that influence in his life after all the chaos. Besides, he actually teaches everyone things, along with tips and tricks in a wonderfully constructive way.

Which is a very good thing, as with knowing Ras being alive, Bel could be effected in multiple ways; could make his motions more wild along with his emotions, as well as make him more aggressive.

Rasiel made sure that this Byakuran would be sane; he does have Kawahira indebted to him, so he would have the man look at the mare rings, Not mention with the Arcobaleno curse balanced out, everything works.

Future Arc is actually an alternate futures that pulls them in; they know this when an uncursed Reborn comes through and all, the Rasiel later after the alternate has kicked the bucket.

The kids are protective of him, while SI Rasiel is a smug blackmailing, bribing, and sweet talking young man manipulating everything and one.

If Rasiel does get a Sky, it will either be an OC Sky, Crossover Sky, Xanxus (though very, very unlikely, because Bel is possessive) or maybe, strong maybe, Dino  

And here we go! Thanks again River, it was fun talking about the boy.

[khrsecretvalentine]

Happy Summer Holidays !

Ohay, I hope your summer is going great, I didn’t know what to do exactly so this gift goes..a little wild, I’m so sorry about it, I really hope you’ll enjoy it nonetheless !

Tsuna – Undertale A.U ♪ The, long-awaited, day off finally arrived and Tsuna counted on it to rest and recharge after the endless trainings Reborn loved to inflict him under the crushing sun. The comfy hammock seemed to be well tied to the trees rising in his garden and he took place on the outstretched piece of fabric with a satisfied smile on his face, the pleasant little wind brushed his hair off his face as he closed his eyes and sighed with content to the incoming nap. An uneasy feeling stroke him hard in the guts as the sleep began to engulfed him and a frown painted his face when he realized he wasn’t able to open his eyes anymore, the mesmerizing words of Morpheus danced around him as he choose not to fight against the troubelsome feeling, how wrong he was. The nervous sensation eventually faded and he found himself walking in the dark, a cold fresh air hitting him as if winter was coming, finally, a faint but warm orange flame appeared few feet ahead of him, so close but so far as well. Tsuna extended his arm, ready to catch the flare as his speed increase and without any warning, the source of light was nowhere to be seen and this frightful sens punch him in the stomach again; he felt his feet leave the ground followed by a no-end fall. After what seemed a whole decade, his back hit the ground with a dull sound and a groan escaped his lips as he lifted up on his elbows, looking around him questioningly. A bitter smell of mold stuck to whatever dark cavern he found himself in, and he got up as quick as possible wiping his dirty hands on his pants a disgusted look on his face. He pondered, for a minute or two if he had to sit here and wait for someone to rescue him, after considering ten types of possible and awful death in this place, he breathed deeply, and with a sharpened ear, he took the decision it was way better to go find the exit himself but before he could entered the only noticeable corridor, a little voice caught his attention. «May I ask where you’re going without any instructions Tsuna idiot?» After a jump and a swallowed scream, Tsuna scrutinized the empty room in order to spot the so-unwelcomed-baby-voice, until his eyes landed on a throat-clearing grunt to his feet.Here he was, in all his glory, the Arcobaleno dressed like a sweet and radiant sunflower in a pot, before the young man could open his mouth, the blossom peeped again. «Howdy-ssu. And welcome to our marvelous world, if you want to get out of here, there’re several things you should be informed about;First thing first I’m your best friend, I only want your well being and I dare you to think otherwise. Then if you want to return to your world safe, there’s only one solution..Kill or be killed. - Whaaaa- Re-reborn what the? What are you talking about, why are you in this outfit? Where the hell am I ?!» At the sound of his name and the hint of untrust in Tsuna’s voice, the ground began to tremble under his jar, his leaves contorted and withered in frightening way, as pointed rows of teeth bloomed on his less-sympathetic face. The Vongola Boss took a step backward, stumbling on an impressive root slowly wrapping around his leg as the creepy mouth made his way toward his calf. «Got you!» What seemed like Yamamoto's voice echoed in the cave and two strong arms caught him by the middle as he was lifted and threw on a large yet soft shoulder, he watched the horrible figure shrink on his field of view unable to catch the smirk she was sending their direction, while his rescuer didn’t stop to flee. After few turns and bridges, the cold fresh air of the outside hit Tsuna’s face and relief invaded him as he glimpsed at the end of this nightmare, his savior dropped him harshly on the ground, and Tsuna’s coccyx would definitely remember the shock. He passed a hand in his messy brown hair, before letting a smile play on his lips, he lifted his head, ready to thanks his friend as he stopped on two hairy feet. His hues followed a massive body to reach a horny face with two long goaty ears ornamenting a Rain guardian smiling face, Tsuna couldn’t hold back his scream this time and backed away far enough to be out of range from this inhuman-Yamamoto-being adorning a questionning look on his face. He ran, ran until he wasn’t able to breath anymore, he walked throught these ruins for an ungodly amont of time, ignoring the creepy noises from the stones and red bushes, he didn’t look once around him, and he was certain he already passed these stairs two times.He finally stopped his race in the middle of snowy woods, his feet roughly sinking on the white powder which didn’t seem real in the middle of summer, his chest heavy, his eyes closed, he let his back slipped against a tree trunk, trying to catch his breath, repeating like a mantra in his head; «It’s not real. It can’t be. Come on, you’ll open your eyes and everything will be back to normal, take a deep breath, two, and three, it’ll be okay.» His heart beat calmed down a bit and he opened his eyelids slowly, how he wished to find himself back in his room, but he regreted quickly to not have whished to see again the plenty of firs surrounded him. His hues were welcomed by a toothy grin, litterally, under a plaster covering what looked like a hole, and two deep dark cavities, digged in naked skull, were piercing his soul few inches from his face. A long bony finger came to touch his chin as a loud and excited cavernous voice came out of this bone heap. «Kyoko-Sans guess what I found!» With a terrifying scream, Tsuna wake up on the soft grass of his garden, matted between wires and stuck like a mummie in his shakedown. A hoarse laugh made him stop in his track as he was stuggling to free himself from his fabric-jail, someone was visibly trying to help him get out of there and when his face reached the air, rays of sunshine prevent him to see the helpful hand, he squinted as much as he could, to only decrypt the dark letters on the shirt above him.. «Jog Boy». When realization stroke him, he got up still wrapped inside the hammock, jumped above the fences and ran in the middle of the street sshouting from the top of his lungs, leaving behind him, a dumbfounded Ryohei who was just passing by while warming up for his training.

As this Undertale story wasn’t too summerish, here are some additional little stuff (:

Xanxus - ♫ Xanxus closed his eyes, inhaling softly the bitter scent of salty sea and wooden fire which will probably coat his clothes with a not-so-nice smell, but he didn’t care at all. The sound of the waves softly dying on the bank and the distant ruckus of the party rocked him slowly as he enjoyed even more the little break he gave himself. Toes in the sand still warm from the day, he sighed comfortably sitting in the back of his chair like throne, drinking one more gulp of his scotch, leaving an empty glass in the crook of his hand. When he opened his eyes again, he let his hues wandered around the leisurely moves of the sea enlightened by the moon, cold and shiny rays kissing each mount and valley she had to offer. He stopped on the curvy figure in the water, the white dress she was wearing fitted her forms perfectly as she ondulating graciously like the flame of the campfire to his feet, no splash was heard as she danced to the rythm of the soft breeze and she disappeared in the depht with a beat of eyelashes. He scrutinized the horizon, unable to discern the chimaera who charmed him, after a while, he let out a curse and plunged the hand in the frozen bucket to retrieve the bottle and pour himself a new full glass. With a full swig and a wince, he closed his eyes again, letting the clear movements of this bewitching mermaid haunting his mind until the end of the night.

Daisy - ♪ Children don’t understand what’s different, but it doesn’t excuse them. Children are mean. Children are stupid. The sun was shining brightly when the institute decided to took all the young patients to the beach, as most of them were already running in the sand toward the water or making team to play with a ball, Daisy didn’t pay attention to the crowd movement around him, focusing on the hermit crab at his feet, blinking under his straw hat. After long minutes of studying the environement, the little child got up, a bucket and shovel in one hand, his pink bunny dragged behind him in the other, he fell on the ground with a muffled ‘thud’ and turned his attention fully on the plan stucked in his head. Hours passed as the nurses relayed themselves to pass sunscreen on his back and nose as Daisy never lost his concentration, eyeing from time to time the returned pail next to him above whom throned King Bubu, spotted by the sand. A smile crept to his thin lips as he got up and admired, proudly, his fortified castle perfectly executed, built in the image from his favorite book. After double cheking the solidity of the foundations, he drew near the not-forgotten bucket and lifted it slowly, he carefully slipped tiny fingers below to retrieve the small crab. The little guy struggled as much as he could, pinching whatever skin he could reach, leaving bleeding scratches from time to time, but the boy never let him go until his claws touched the main room of the vast mansion. Daisy got up, wipping the sand off his knees, he hugged the plush back against his body, before adressing a last sentence to the curious shellfish visiting his new dwelling. «It’s not funny to wander around all lost and alone.. here, a home just for you, I hope you could finally be happy in there.» With those final words, he turned his head to the sound of his name toward the accompanists waving in his direction, he threw one last glance full with envy to his new friend before joining back the crowd, dragging feet, never letting go of his only friend.

Fon - ♫ He was a man of passion and simple things, listening to the tiniest sensation of his body triggered by what the world has to offer and he couldn’t have asked for a better lazy day. The slothful wind of the hot summer throught his yukata, the sensation of the fresh grass on the bare skin of his feet and the juice of the tasteful fruit he was chewing were the only things that matter for Fon at the moment. He always loved Summer as far as he can remembers, celebrations and festivals, mild night temperatures that allowed him to sleep on the ground of his garden, clear starry sky and laugh of kids running everywhere in the streets. The sound of the slamming door echoed in the house and reached the yard, informing the return of friends and family, without a word, Luce took place on the wooden floor of the terrace, crossing her legs as she positioned herself under the sweet rays of sunshine humming a soft tune. A tired smile touched Fon’s face when the first few notes reached his ears and he opened an eye, welcomed by the true beauty of the sincere blue sky ornamented with the delicate branches of the cherry tree above him. He grabbed the last piece of mango, bringing it to his lips as he closed his eyes again, rocked by the lullaby, enjoying the peaceful time before the incoming raging storm.

From @in-the-name-of-the-holy-reborn to @quietsilenceus

[peerless-soshi]

Since you are rewatching KHR, let's go with the old but good Bel/Mammon plus, of course, as always from me, Reylo! :)

When I saw your ask I felt that I’m coming home. What a nice feeling. 

(it’s long so I pot it under ‘read more’. I offer condolences to mobile users who must scroll through my wall of text) 

SEND ME A SHIP AND I’LL BREAK THEM DOWN 

How did they they meet?: They probably met for the first time when Bel joined the Varia. Rewatching KHR reminded me about few things, for example that Akira Amano’s timeline doesn’t make much sense, but I assume Mammon joined the squad shortly before Bel. Considering that back then Bel was still a kid, he most likely felt better with another member who looked young. 

Who developed romantic feelings first?: Bel, I guess? Mammon appears to be a person who shelters themselves from any feelings or emotions (or at least tries but often fails), so I don’t think they would reflect much on the romantic life. On the other hand, in Bel’s case “developing feelings” would be equal to immature games or something

Who is their biggest “shipper?”: I’m hesitating. Lussuria is a possible choice as he’s that Varia “mom” and searching for potential affairs seems to be something he would do. But I also want to mention Fon because the whole “conflict” with Mammon came from the fact that Fon considered Mammon to be too materialistic. I think he would be way too proud if he noticed Mammon thinking about something other than money and Mammon would be once again very annoyed

When did they have their first kiss and under what circumstances?: Obviously we need the “Akira Amano is not afraid of plot and actually lets the curse to be fully broken” AU. I can’t think about anything  serious here… I imagine them playing together a video game (I still love that official art with them playing games) and out of boredom coming up with a bet saying that the loser must do whatever the winner asks for. Then Bel proposes a kiss because it’s funny, and Mammon agrees because for an assassin it’s still less humiliating than avoiding the lost bet?

Who confessed their feelings first?: Bel, but I don’t think it would be very serious either. Bel is so megalomaniac, he would most likely say that he really likes Mammon because with them the great prince is not bored and Mammon would just react with “fine, fine”, but pretty much ignored him?

What was their first official date?: Expensive. It’s pretty obvious that if Mammon agreed to go on a date, they would demand the most expensive entertainment. Nonetheless, I believe Bel would be rather OK with it. After all he’s a prince, he wouldn’t spend time like a beggar

How do they feel about double dates/group dates?: I doubt they have enough friends for double dates ;) Mammon for sure would hate that idea but Bel? Why not? In the end Mammon may agree because this way the date is cheaper. However, Lal and Colonello are the only pair that comes to my mind so I do not think the double date would be successful 

What do they do in their down time?: Killing people. Playing games. Trying to survive while living with Xanxus and Squalo. Normal stuff. 

What was the first meeting of parents as an official couple like?: Unfortunately, they don’t have parents so I can’t say jokes about mothers-in-law. Lussuria and Squalo are the only mom friends. So, Lussuria would be more than joyful and Squalo would come with all existing insults, adding that the world is ending. 

What was their first fight over and how did they get past it?: They fight a lot in canon but it’s always about some stupid stuff and I don’t think it would change. They argue about everyday life and because both Bel and Mammon are objectively nerve-wracking people. But again, it’s never so bad that they need to make up. 

Which one is more easily made jealous?: Mammon has that “I don’t care attitude”, I just must pick Bel. He would probably repeat that nobody can get what belongs to the prince and Mammon would again simply ignore his moods. 

What is their favourite thing to get to eat?: Remembering how the Varia dinner looks like, I think eating anything is an achievement :) They look like people how like junk food. Bel is a lazy brat and being raised in the palace, he would consider snacks to be something new and fun, while Mammon eats it just because it’s cheap. 

Who’s the cuddly one? What their favourite cuddling position?: Bel liked to, uhm, squeeze Mammon is the Arcobaleno form so I guess it would stay the same. What’s more, Bel comments that adult Mammon is really short so they have the proper height to be hugged in every form 

Are they hand holders?: Probably yes, but only because Bel likes to show everyone that Mammon is with him and Mammon doesn’t care enough to stop him 

How long do they wait before sleeping together for the first time? What’s the circumstances?: I’m sure it would take much time. Mammon looked like a child for too long to just ignore it 

Who tops?: I guess they would be pretty equal 

Who does the shopping and the cooking?: No one. Bel’s name comes from the devil of sloth and it’s enough for me to headcanon his as lazy. Mammon would think that servants are paid to take care of them

Which one is more organized and prone to tidiness?: Again, no one. But Bel looks like someone who lives in total chaos so Mammon is probably a little more organized than him (not that it’s hard)

Who proposes?: Mammon, explaining that if Bel wants to continue their relationship, he first should give Mammon his account access and half of fortune. 

Do they have joined Bachelor/Bacheloette parties or separate?: I believe Mammon would totally hate the idea of a party but Lussuria doesn’t take no as an answer. So joined, because Varia organizes it

Who is the best man/maid of honour? Any other groomsmen or bridesmaids?: This is the moment when I realized that they don’t have any friends. Hmm… Bel would most likely say that he doesn’t need anyone and Mammon? Let’s just take the Arcobaleno as groomsmen and bridesmaids, even if Mammon doesn’t want to see them. Fran and Uni can be children with flowers :)    

Big Ceremony or Small?: Big if Varia founds it, small if Mammon must pay even a little

Do they have a honeymoon? If so, where?: Japan, of course. The best mafia location 

Do they have children? How many?: The realistic part of my soul tells me that no, they don’t, but nothing here is realistic and Varia would be better in rising children than they think so yes, at least one :)

2) Reylo 

How did they they meet?: Of course we can stick to the canon material, but personally I like the theory with Rey being born in a Jedi family and meeting Ben when she was still a child 

Who developed romantic feelings first?: I think Rey would be faster to show some kindness to Kylo Ren, accept his changes, but Kylo would probably develop romantic feelings first (and keep it secret for a long time)

Who is their biggest “shipper?”: Hmmmm…. unfortunately, I can’t think about anybody who would be supportive of their relationship. Rey’s friends could at most tolerate it but they would also remember that Kylo Ren was their enemy and Kylo’s allies are out of question. Maybe Chewbacca? Even if he’s angry at Ben, for sure he would like him to change  

When did they have their first kiss and under what circumstances?: Dramatic scenarios don’t suit them, the couple is pretty dramatic anyway. I think they would kiss only when the war is over, if they took care of their personal matters, find peace etc. Then Kylo Ren can visit Rey again and love can bloom  

Who confessed their feelings first?: Rey. As I said, Kylo Ren is an angsty kid and he would never admit that he has feelings for Rey. On the other side, Rey was living on her own for years and now she has problems with building relationships, so they would need time to fall for each other 

What was their first official date?: Considering that Rey spent her childhood on a desert, I think Kylo Ren could take her to see some green places or to the sea. Yeah, she was training on an island but relaxing on a beach is not quite the same 

How do they feel about double dates/group dates?: They would rather dislike it. I think both Rey and Kylo Ren would be very self-conscious when it comes to feelings and they would be simply ashamed of being more intimate if someone was watching them

What do they do in their down time?: Kylo Ren looks like a fun guy, I’m sure spending time with him is interesting. But honestly, Kylo Ren seems to be that person who doesn’t have free time because he’s always busy with plotting and being cunning. And Rey was working really hard, I doubt she had much time for herself. So I think together they would try different things to find something they like?   

What was the first meeting of parents as an official couple like?: I… probably shouldn’t laugh so loud…. We don’t know anything about Rey’s family so who knows, maybe Kylo Ren will have a chance to meet them? So far Rey liked Kylo Ren’s parents, too bad that she won’t have a father-in-law 

What was their first fight over and how did they get past it?: They had their first big fight long before they became a couple, I don’t think any quarrel can compare to their beginning. But I assume they would argue a lot, considering that they both have strong personalities and don’t like listening to others. 

Which one is more easily made jealous?: Kylo Ren was introduced as a pretty… unstable… person, I guess he would be the jealous type. But I doubt Rey would let him behave immature, she would immediately scold him

What is their favourite thing to get to eat?: We know that Rey was forced to eat awful food so I headcanon her as a person who later loves eating and tries all possible tastes. Maybe fruits? A desert girl would surly love them and it would make Kylo Ren happy 

Who’s the cuddly one? What their favourite cuddling position?: As much as Rey is distant with others, I believe she would be the cuddly one. She was lonely for too long, then she would seek company and physical contact

Are they hand holders?: Hmmm… yes, they are. After something as awful as the war, holding hands would seem like the most normal thing and they both would need it 

How long do they wait before sleeping together for the first time? What’s the circumstances?: Long, because their relationship wouldn’t be easy and for sure Rey would need time before letting someone to be so close to her 

Who tops?: Rey? I think Kylo Ren would be too angsty 

Who does the shopping and the cooking?: I can’t imagine either Rey or Kylo cooking. Rey was starving, Kylo Ren had his subordinates. So I guess they would both do it because they both need to learn 

Which one is more organized and prone to tidiness?: Kylo Ren, because he is the leader type and likes when everything is under his control

Who proposes?: Kylo Ren, although he would be pretty nervous and hesitate a lot 

Do they have joined Bachelor/Bacheloette parties or separate?: I feel they wouldn’t like this kind of things. Kylo Ren is not the social guy, Rey has two close friends. They would probably find it unnecessary 

Who is the best man/maid of honour? Any other groomsmen or bridesmaids?: Rey doesn’t have any close female friend so I think she would ask Finn. And Kylo Ren… maybe the best man is also a stupid idea, just like the bachelor party 

Big Ceremony or Small?: Small, just friends 

Do they have a honeymoon? If so, where?: On a calm planet where nobody knows them 

Do they have children? How many?: Once I created for you a Reylo daughter, I’m gonna pick Luce again :) 

[hopeswriting]

FANDOM: Katekyo Hitman Reborn!

EVENT: Flufftober 2020

PROMPT: “Oh No, They’re Hot”

AUTHOR: @hopeswriting​

RATING: G

PAIRING: Adult!Colonnello/Adult!Skull

SUMMARY:

Colonnello officially meets Skull for the first time, and he finds him way more hot than a could-be, easy, bully target.

TAG WARNING: Swearing, Sexual Innuendos, Implied/Referenced Bullying

WORDS: 1603

*

How hard could it be to be a punctual human being?

Surely not that hard, seeing as Colonnello was one all his life.

You’d think he would have mastered the art of waiting by then, but if this Skull guy doesn’t show up in the next five minutes, he’ll just leave without looking back.

Or maybe he’ll stay until he shows up, so he can give him a piece of his mind, depending on how long he can make his drink last.

Colonnello rolls his eyes, bumps his head against the wall.

This whole “meeting the Arcobaleno one-on-one as your now teammates” is ridiculous. What is he, a new student at school trying to win the favor of the popular kids?

Colonnello was always among the popular kids, thank you very much. He can’t believe Lal would support this idea, but no matter now.

He just needs to meet the Cloud to be done with it all for good.

Colonnello hears it long before he can see it.

A black and purple motorbike rounds the street corner in a very sharp turn, an equally black and purple driver riding it.

He speeds past the cars in no time, driving around them but keeping so close it’s a wonder they don’t make contact, the sound of the engine revving and the tires against the concrete drowning everything else.

He speeds right past Colonnello, then makes an abrupt u-turn, his motorcycle tipping sideways so low Colonnello doesn’t comprehend how he doesn’t fall, switches lanes, and smoothly parks right in front of him on the sidewalk.

Is this guy… trying to show off to him?

Because it’s working alright.

Colonnello laughs breathlessly, goosebumps up his arms. A chill runs down his spine, adrenaline running through him from just watching.

Oh, he absolutely needs to earn himself a ride.

Skull casually walks up to him, not seeming to care about all the eyes on him. “Hi, I’m Skull. Sorry, I’m not too late, am I?”

Colonnello glances at his watch. Thirty five seconds before five minutes.

This fucker.

“Hi, I’m Colonnello. You are late. I thought we both agreed on the meeting time?”

“I know, I know, I’m sorry. I got stuck in traffic.”

Colonnello subtly narrows his eyes. He just can see Skull grinning despite his helmet, and he sure as hell heard it.

This little shit.

“So. You met all the others already?”

“Yeah.”

“Right.” Skull puts his hands in his pockets, fidgets uncomfortably. “Well, I’m sure you heard all kind of things about me from them, but, you know, I wouldn’t exactly call them Skull specialists.” He shrugs, raises his hand to his head. It bumps against his helmet. “Oh right, my helmet. Hold a second.”

Colonnello’s drink goes down the wrong pipe. He doubles over in a coughing fit, his drink slipping from his hand entirely.

“Woah man, what the hell?”

What the hell?

This guy is hot.

“Are you alright?”

Colonnello pushes his helping hand away, still coughing a little.

Skull’s purple eyes watch him with amusement, highlighted by his purple smokey eye, with heavy mascara on his eyelashes that somehow only draws the gaze more to his eyes.

He nips at the piercing on his bottom lip, linked with the one on his earlobe by a silver chain. Plump lips smeared with purple lipstick spread in a smug smile, emphasizing the teardrop tattoo under his left eye.

His purple hair points in every direction in a stylish mess of a haircut, a fringe falling above his left eye.

And really, it’s a lot of purple, but holy shit the guy is gorgeous.

How did that not come up even once during Lal’s briefings?

“I’m fine, I just swallowed wrong.”

“Yeah, I noticed.”

Colonnello straightens himself up, shakes his hand from the drink that spilled on him. He licks off the last of it, and oh, he knows that look in Skull’s eyes.

Good. Now they’re even.

“Sorry about that by the way,” Skull says. “These kind of accidents just keep happening around me, and I really just can’t figure out why.”

“Yeah,” Colonnello says, trying to play it off as casually as he can, “can’t imagine why either. I really don’t see anything that could provoke these kind of reactions.”

“Sure.”

“Listen, I’m a really smooth guy, alright?”

“I guess I’ll just have to take your words for it.”

“Fuck off.”

Skull snickers, something purposefully meant to rile him up further. Colonnello doesn’t take the bait, and bites the inside of his cheek to not laugh too.

Shit. Are they flirting? Colonnello can’t have that.

He has a reputation, and standards, and this guy... could very easily meet them, actually.

But he wears leather jumpsuits, chose purple as his defining color, and going on with the design on his helmet, octopuses of all things could get involved at some point.

And unfortunately Colonnello knows for certain it’s not just the symbol of the Carcassa famiglia.

“Oh shit, Immortal Skull?”

They both turn to the pair of teenagers, wide-eyed at the sight of Skull. Skull’s face lights up. He waves his hand excitedly, and poses for them to take a picture.

Colonnello raises his eyebrow.

Right. Stuntman shows, death defying stunts, famous guy.

He snorts. “Isn’t that cute? You have fans.”

Skull’s smile dims, and disappears entirely once the teenagers are on their way. “As a matter of fact, I do. It kind of comes together with being famous.”

“Yeah,” Colonnello scoffs, “famous for riding bikes.”

Skull doesn’t wince, not quite, but Colonnello catches his face twitching. He puts his free hand in his pocket, hunches his shoulders.

His voice is carefully neutral. “Yeah, for riding bikes. With hundreds upon hundreds of hours of training behind the handle, but no big deal right? Listen, can you...” he sighs deeply, meets his eye again “... just not? We literally just met? Or at least don’t come for the literal greatest passion of my life right off the bat, maybe? I don’t know man, just cut me some slack.”

“Sorry.”

Skull blinks. Colonnello blinks.

Well, that came out embarrassingly easily. And it did sound an awful lot sincere, if Skull’s more open face and posture is anything to go by.

Fucking hell, what is he doing? Playing nice? Is he actually trying to get on Skull’s good side?

“Thank you, I really appreciate it.” Colonnello watches the last of Skull’s hesitance disappears in his eyes, a smile slowly pulling at his lips until he grins at him again. “So, should we wrap this up? Or maybe we could keep meeting each other for a bit?”

Colonnello peers above his shoulder, at the sleek black and unfortunately purple motorbike.

Now, how much does he really want this ride?

“Sure,” he says, walking past him. He puts a leg over the bike, and sits comfortably on the back seat.

Maybe if he’s really good, Skull will let him drive it.

“Excuse you,” Skull splutters, “do you think I just let anyone ride my baby?”

“Excuse you,” Colonnello shots back, “take another good look at me and maybe you’ll realize I’m not anyone.”

“Right, you’re doing me a favor, is that it?” Skull crosses his arms on his chest, in what Colonnello supposes should have been an intimidating move. “I mean, you’re really hot alright, but I meet plenty of hot people on a daily basis. Don’t flatter yourself.”

“Take another really good look at me, and maybe you’ll realize I’m a category of my own among hot people.”

Skull laughs, very clearly despite himself, the hard-to-get act nowhere to be seen. He chews on his lip a bit, but Colonnello knows he already won the argument.

“You just doesn’t have any will, do you?”

“Oh, hush.” Skull rolls his eyes, shoves him playfully. “Maybe I’m just weak for pretty people.”

Colonnello mournfully watches him puts his ugly helmet back on, and rethink his life choices. Really, this goddamned Curse just might have affected his tastes too.

“You know, I did hear things. And I must say I don’t understand.”

Skull throws his hands up in the air. “I know right? You’d think I would have gotten laid with, I don’t know, at least three of them by now. Well, minus Luce of course.” Colonnello gets whiplash. What even—? “No offense to you. I know you have a thing going on with Lal.”

“No, let’s stay focused. That’s where your priorities lie?”

Skull shrugs, takes his place in the driver seat. “I mean, in exchange of all this shit I didn’t sign up for? I think it would have been the barest fucking minimum.”

Colonnello bursts out laughing, because really, what else is there to do?

Not that he doesn’t strongly share the sentiment. He met the others too, and does vividly remember what they look like.

Skull revs the engine, and hell yeah, here they go.

Colonnello wraps his arms loosely around his waist, leans a bit too comfortably maybe against his back, rests his chin on his shoulder.

“Tell you what.”

Skull catches his eye in the rear view mirror. “I’m listening.”

“If you impress me really hard right now—”

“What, with my driving skills you mean? Is that supposed to be a challenge?”

“—and make me spend a really nice time with you,” Colonnello continues, ignoring him, “I just might do an exception for you to the “not on the first night” rule.”

Skull chuckles low in his throat, crinkles at the corners of his eyes. He lowers his visor.

“This better be a promise, because I’ll hold you to that.”

*

The anime watchers only might not know that, because the anime did him so dirty, but Skull is straight up handsome.

I, for one, at the very least, find him very pretty, really handsome, and yes, straight up gorgeous. And it’s a hill I will die on, and I won’t hear any criticism on that.

Also I enjoyed myself writing this so much. Could you tell? Because this is my khr otp as of now, and I wish they’d be hundreds more fics about them for me to read.

Rarepair hell is, well, hell lmao.

Thank you for reading! Any and all review are appreciated ^^.

[hopeswriting]

FANDOM: Katekyo Hitman Reborn!

EVENT: Flufftober 2020 

PROMPT: Going out for Coffee

AUTHOR: @hopeswriting​

RATING: G

PAIRING: Adult!Fon/Adult!Reborn

SUMMARY:

Reborn is going through a rough time, and nothing cheers him up better than their morning coffee dates.

WORDS: 1115

*

Fon pauses in his morning stretches at the sound of a gun being fired. He breathes deeply, because it became a recurrent sound these days.

Fon speed walks to the kitchen, to Reborn glaring at the coffee machine—or what is left of the coffee machine—scattered along the counter top and still fuming.

He glances at the mug in Reborn’s hand, his favorite mug, and would rather see it on the solid wood of the counter top, because Reborn better not even think to drop it to indulge his dramatic self.

Reborn shoots at the coffee machine again, which apparently managed to upset him again even in death.

“You do realize I paid actual money for everything in this apartment?”

“It was broken.”

“Was it?”

Reborn rolls his eyes. “It was broken before I shot at it, obviously. You wouldn’t question it if you were the unfortunate one who took a sip of this… brown liquid.”

He spills it in the sink, a displeased and judging look on his face, and Fon purses his lips to not smile.

He indulged him enough. Today is the day he draws the line, and will get him to talk about whatever is upsetting him.

“Reborn, sweetheart—”

Reborn holds his finger. “No, no pet names. We literally just established I didn’t have my morning coffee yet. Please pay more attention to the tragedies of my life.”

Fon smiles his ‘I’m not dealing with your shit right now’ smile, and turns around to get back to his stretches.

Reborn follows him to the bedroom, drags him to the wardrobe, throws it open in a grand gesture.

“Make yourself pretty for me, darling. We’re going out for a morning coffee date.”

Fon walks in the coffee shop dressed in a three-piece red pastel suit, tailored specifically for him, Reborn’s arm around his waist. His loose hair fall alongside his back, held together at the bottom with a red ribbon.

They get stared at, but only by the people who know to drink in pretty sights whenever the opportunity presents itself.

They’re regular clients, and Fon is sure everyone thinks they’re business partners who have heavy make out sessions on their office desks.

It never fails to make him laugh. That’s as close to the truth as they’ll ever get, which is actually close.

Reborn removes his arm from his waist to lean on the counter.

“Reborn, Fon, good morning,” the cashier says, in a sweet tone Fon knows he doesn’t use with anyone else but Reborn. “The usual?”

“You know it,” Reborn says in a sultry tone. “And they better be perfect too, because I just might kill you for real this time for any mistakes at all.”

The cashier laughs, as if Reborn doesn’t mean every word. He licks his lips, runs his hand through his hair. “Noted. Cash or card?”

Reborn smiles, leans his head against his hand, gazes up at him, blinking slowly. The cashier blushes.

Fon wants to roll his eyes hard.

He can’t believe this guy doesn’t have any sense of how dangerous Reborn is. Sure he stepped up a few times already to save him from a bullet through his head, but he certainly wasn’t trying at all, not even once.

“Reborn, sweetheart.” Fon curls his fingers around the back of his neck, and leans in to whisper in his ear. “If you don’t stop flirting with him right now, I’ll kill him before you have the chance to.”

He goes look for a table, Reborn’s laugh sounding in his back, smiling at the weight of his eyes on him.

Reborn sits across from him, puts his fedora aside on the table, a smug expression on his face.

“I thought you’d never notice. Do you know how many people I ruined the life of for even looking at you?”

“If you want me to play in your games more often, then maybe you should have more tastes while choosing the background characters.”

“And yet my poor tastes lead me to you. Fon, darling, I assure you I don’t need help to insult you, but I appreciate the sentiment.”

Fon tilts his head. “I’m obviously the exception to the rule. You do need your morning coffee to function properly, don’t you?”

“Thanks for finally noticing.” Reborn crosses his legs, plays footsie with him under the table. “Come sit next to me.”

“Come sit next to me?”

Reborn scoffs. “No, thank you. It’s not that bad yet.”

Fon smiles. “That’s good to hear.”

Reborn rolls his eyes, but doesn’t comment. Fon leaves it at it for now, but more importantly it’s better for everyone in the shop he drinks some coffee first.

Their server arrives, a new one, and he puts both espressos in front of Reborn, and the cup of tea in front of Fon.

Reborn slides one of the espresso to him, and he puts it aside with a grateful smile.

Today is still not the day he’ll allow that awful drink inside his body, but he appreciates the sentiment.

“Want to talk about it?”

“I don’t think so.”

“You’ve been… on edge lately, Reborn. I think it would help you to let it all out.”

Reborn smirks. “Do you mean sex? I’d like that.”

“I meant emotionally on edge.”

“Do you mean sex? I’d like that.”

Fon purses his lips, willing his laugh not to come out. This will stay a serious conversation, whether Reborn likes it or not.

Reborn laughs, childish-like and proud of his own joke, and he can’t help but chuckles alongside with him.

“Is it work?”

Reborn sighs, either relenting or done with the conversation. He drinks his coffee in silence, looking at Fon straight in the eye.

He relents.

“Yes. I’m a bit… overworked right now. But nothing to worry about.”

“And nothing you can’t pull through either, I’m sure.”

“Well, obviously. Who do you think I am?”

Fon grins. “The Worst Man on Earth.”

“Aww, darling. Why don’t you just propose already.”

Fon bursts out laughing. It prompts Reborn’s own laugh, light and honest like he didn’t get to hear since days on end now.

He leans on the table once it passes them, cradling his drink in his hands, a ghost of a smile still at the corner of his lips.

Fon plays footsie with him under the table.

“How can I help?”

Reborn’s eyes shine with mirth, and he straightens up. “Flirt with me. Seduce me. We only just met and you couldn’t help but madly fall in love with me.”

The fondest of smiles spreads Fon’s lips. He tilts his head. “Is that what happened? Because I remember it the other way around.”

*

I have mixed feeling for this about the setting. I didn’t write it to be in the same verse as prompt 2, but it could be very easily in the same verse, even if they’re softer with each other in this one. But they are softer with each other in this one, so it could happen either pre-canon or post-canon after the Curse is lifted, but not anywhere close with the whole Arcobaleno Curse business in any case. Or, and it’s single-handedly because this happens in a coffee shop, but I feel like it could also be a Modern!Flameless!Coffee Shop!AU lol. Anyway, I never wrote for this pairing before this serie, but you know what? I think I like it. I love the Soft Power Couple dynamic I have going on here anyway haha. Thank you for reading! Any and all review are appreciated ^^.