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elarawritingtrash · 6 years

Text

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.

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