Summary: reborn arrives in a most unsettling way. he is unsettled. he is so very unsettled. but if there's anything reborn is good at, it's settling in. and he does just that. maybe a little.. too much.

WARNINGS: absolutely nothing? nothing. yet. nothing yet. implicit nudity but not explicit. as usual, custom work skin is providing footnotes and other formatting things. update schedule will probably be sporadic, as i am known to be.

standard italian vs sicilian
famiglia - famigghia
nono - nonu
primo - primu
fratello / fratellino - frati / fratuzzu

Chapter 1: [oyster fortunes daily] you are always permitted to ask questions.

you are not, however, always permitted to receive answers

Sawada Iemitsu hasn't gone back to his infuriating Island in 3 years.

Which, usually, is par for the course for a man trying to keep his family out of the Cosa Nostra. And it wouldn't be the first time Iemitsu has gone so long without seeing his dear, darling wife and absolutely most adorable son in the whole wide world.

Timoteo had said the island was very... interesting. Very strange, but interesting. He couldn't for the life of him recount how he made it onto the island, or off of it. Was it by boat? By plane? Hadn't they taken a jet there from Palermo? To Tokyo?

Didn't Iemitsu say there was an airport on the island?

Reborn finds himself asking, for the hundredth time in his life and to no one in particular, why is Kakishima so damned weird?

Tsunayoshi, apparently, had been no such disappointment. Much to Iemitsu's disappointment.

"He's beautiful," Timoteo had said when he returned. A little older, a little younger. Reborn worried a little. "He's a lovely boy."

A lovely boy with no flames now. A beautiful child who apparently trips on nothing and can't even pass elementary classes. A wonderful son who can accomplish nothing.

My family is fine, says Sawada Iemitsu, when the agnelli di Dio give word (spread rumors) that a boy bearing his son's resemblance was killed by them in their efforts to retrieve a package from the island. My family is fine.

Xanxus has been out of the ice for a year and a half now. He's adapting. Catching up. Reborn made sure of it. That family is fine.

Mostly.

Timoteo hasn't made much progress in the Adoptive Dads department in regards to Xanxus, much to both his and Reborn's frustration. It takes incredible willpower not to force an Inheritance ceremony on Enrico and just drop Timoteo and Xanxus off on some nice island for a bit of bonding time. Preferably not one named Australia, which is Death Incarnate. Or Kakishima, since it's so weird and they still haven't been able to find it.

Timoteo did come by during Xanxus' physical therapy sessions, in the months following his release from that not-quite-icy hell. Timoteo had winced, or so Reborn thought, at the sight of Xanxus covered in scars. He hadn't offered an apology, and Xanxus wouldn't have accepted it.

(Though he might have appreciated one.)

He did ask about the progress Xanxus was making. Spoke with the coach more than with Xanxus, while Reborn stood by and monitored and made sure Xanxus didn't over-exert himself in ill-hidden anger.

It makes so much more sense now. To think about it as teenage rebellion, done in efforts to get some attention. Not from the world, but from a parent. One that isn't Reborn. Not that Reborn was ever anything like a parent to Xanxus, except in the formal sense of having custody and being the emergency contact.

...Okay, so maybe he's a bit of a parent to Xanxus. But probably more like the uncle who's actually there, as opposed to the father that isn't.

Like.. Timoteo. Like Iemitsu.

Reborn wonders if it's genetic. If Giotto had ever been there for his own kids, or they for theirs. If he'd left any whelps in Italy to be reared by unfamiliar hands while he went off to Japan.

Maybe Ricardo's line was just cursed to be unfair to adopted kids. Did Giotto ever adopt any? Iemitsu's parents?

So many questions. Things Reborn has never thought about before, because they never mattered before. Nothing ever really mattered before. It was just him, Timoteo, and Vongola. Everything in the present.

Luce never brought up trovami after that one time. And now it's too late to think to ask her if there was ever anything else she wanted to say about it. Anything else she ever saw in her little delusions of the future. Anything.

Anything to calm Reborn down as he rides a flight from Palermo to a set of coordinates somewhere in the Sea of Japan.

"I can't come with you," Iemitsu says with a strained laugh. Reborn wonders if Giotto looked like that when he aged, dumb tufty mustache and all. "I've had my visiting rights revoked for a while. Well, actually, my citizen status has been withdrawn and put on hold."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"It means, um. I'm on the island's blacklist? You know, like if Vongola didn't want someone in Sicily or visiting any of the towns. Barred from entry, something like that."

"We'd call that a shoot-on-sight order." Reborn raises an eyebrow. "But that's the most severe case and there's no way we can monitor every single person coming and going from Sicily. There's a dozen ports and twice as many landing points. Not to mention they're still trying to build a damn 17 kilometer bridgeacross the Strait of Messina." [1]

"Haven't they been trying that for a decade now?"

Reborn scoffs. "They've been trying since the 70s. The 1870s."

"Wow." Iemitsu actually looks a little impressed, though Reborn has no idea why. Damn persistent Italian government. The Messinese might have something to do with it too. Damn them. "Well.. Kakishima only has one port? And one airport. There's fishing docks but you can't use them for anything. It's really easy to monitor incoming and outgoing traffic. I mean, you can't even find the island unless.."

"Unless what?"

"Unless- oh right, unless I give you the coordinates for the landing site." Iemitsu starts digging for a sheet of paper and a pen. Reborn doesn't want to think about what might happen if he gone off without those coordinates. "Are you going by plane or boat? If it's boat you can grab a boat from Kanazawa. Guardian said you're permitted to arrive by plane if you want."

"What do you mean permitted."

"Plane ride it is."

Plane ride it is.

And Reborn can see now, what Iemitsu means by you are permitted.

It's early dawn when they pass over the Sea of Japan. The waters are still dark and foggy, clouds billowing past. He'd stopped by the cockpit and asked where the coordinates were supposed to be and he's been keeping an eye on that part of the horizon for a while now.

The mist rolls in. No, the Mist rolls in, because the plane is starting to veer off course as his pilot tells him they'd gone a little off course a while back.

Reborn marches back into the cockpit to tell the pilot to remain on course, only to find her fixed on a point in the horizon while the plane's instrument readings spin and fluctuate wildly.

"What's going on, Airò? Where are we going?" Reborn hops onto the dashboard, being careful of the buttons and controls (he'll curse himself later but thank Christ for his small size right now), and snaps his little fingers in front of her face.

No change.

Her eyes are suspiciously hazy and misted over, but Reborn doesn't recall her coming into contact with anyone strange between boarding the private jet and now. Something's going on. Something strange and dangerous.

"Airò!"

"Off course. We're off course. Returning path-" And she says something unintelligible, a string of letters and numbers, something about a new altitude and clearance height? A flight path. "-Destination, Tokyo."

"Airò, we're going to the island. The coordinates." He frowns, as much as his baby face can frown. Iemitsu hadn't mentioned anything like this.

But when he looks out the cockpit window he can sort of understand why she's turning the plane away. He hadn't noticed it much from the passenger window where he was sitting, but the Mist is so prevalent, so widespread. It's just a patch on the water right now but it must stretch formiles. It will, if they can get closer.

Reborn has heard of the Devil's Triangle[2]. The Nuevo Family in New York knows something of it, but won't say much more. Or can't say much more. It must not be an Underworld phenomenon, then, as this one is. Or isn't. He has no proof that there are or aren't members of the Underworld on the island.

No one else would have knowledge of Dying Will Flames, after all. No one else should have knowledge of it. The Underworld does its best to keep it unknown to as much of the public as possible.

(Xanxus' mother comes flitting into his mind. Delusional, they say. As Luce was. Seeing things that weren't there. Delusions of grandeur, thinking,believing that her son was also the son of the leader of Italy's greatest Cosa Nostra family.

It's a shame, but it's necessary. Christ knows the Nuevo already have issues enough with the CIA trying to go after them for being, as they call it,mafia and a liability to the country's security. They don't need this to become any more of an international issue than it already is.)

And yet.

And yet.

Here is an island, so far completely unaffiliated, researching Dying Will Flames. Experimenting with flames. Using flames on their own people, on their entire island, because Reborn has no other explanation for the pile of indigo-colored dust and haze sitting on the surface of the water that must be what's making the jet's readings go haywire.

Nothing comes back from the Devil's Triangle, though. Or so the legend goes.

"Coordinates, Airò," he says, because Iemitsu said he should when this happens. Repeat. Repeat until they get a response.

"Coordinates." The pilot stops. Stiffens, just like Iemitsu said she would. Should, if they were heading in the right direction. They are, and she does. The voice that comes out is not her own. Italian, but not Sicilian, just like what Iemitsu uses. A little less now. "Coordinates. Please state your destination."

"Latitude, 37 degrees, 12 minutes, 12.3 seconds. Longitude, 135 degrees, 13 minutes, 50.6 seconds. Off the coast of the Ishikawa Prefecture." [3]

"Coordinates received." A pause. Reborn imagines a computer processing information. "Destination, invalid."

"What do you mean invalid, that's the coordinates that idiot gave us."

"Altering course. Destination, Tokyo."

Airò's eyes are still hazy. Still turning the plane, steering it pointedly away from where they should be going.

Reborn repeats the coordinates. "Latitude, 37 degrees, 12 minutes, 12.3 seconds. Longitude, 135 degrees, 13 minutes, 50.6 seconds. Off the coast of the Ishikawa Prefecture, Airò."

"Destination, invalid. The season today is: summer. Landing is not advised."

"Why isn't it advised? Airò, snap out of it!"

Airò looks straight at him. Her eyes are clear, but she is most certainly not. And when she speaks again, she says it in perfect, if horribly accented, Japanese.

"Today's weather is: summer."

At least, that's what Reborn thinks she's trying to say, because what he really hears is 'kyou no kiisetsue wa: naatsu-tte'. He can only really catch half of the words she says and that's only because she's been saying the same thing over and over.

And, first of all, how does Airò even know Japanese? She's pure Sicilian. She's been living around the main port in Catania for ages, he's pretty sureshe's pure Sicilian. And what sort of horrendous accent is she trying to imitate, anyway?

No, wait-

Reborn has heard that accent before. It's not an accent. It's from Iemitsu.

It's Kakishima dialect. [4]

"My name is Reborn," he growls, though he shouldn't have to, and repeats what Iemitsu had told him to say. Well, more like strongly suggested, and Reborn is starting to see why now. "I am here on behalf of Sawada Iemitsu. I am here for Sawada Tsunayoshi."

He forgets to say it in Japanese. It doesn't seem to matter, because whoever Airò is right now, she turns back to the window and, surprisingly enough, swings the plane around again.

And he quite literally means swing. The sudden jerking motion leaves Reborn stumbling off the dashboard and neatly into the co-pilot chair.

"Permission to land, granted. Destination, Kaki Kuukou [5]. Time to destination: 1 hour, 27 minutes. Please fasten your seat belts and expect turbulence. The season today is: summer."

He'd buckle down, but the buckles are too big. He settles for an improvised Leon-seat belt instead.

"Who are you?" he asks the person who is definitely not Airò.

Because Nicola Airò has lived in Catania for her entire 28 years of life, does not speak a lick of Japanese, and also absolutely hates summer.

Airò lets go of the wheel. The plane steers itself back on course, nose pointing straight at the cloud of Mist hanging over the water. Reborn can see a bit of the coast of Japan beyond it.

"My name is Jeong-Seo Kaede," Airò says. There's Mist leaking into the room, leaking out of Airò's body. How did it get in here? When did it get in here? "I am Kokuyo Leader."

"I'm afraid I have no idea what that particularly means."

Airò's eyes flutter shut and she slumps over to the side, held up only by her seat buckle. Reborn starts forward, only to remember he buckled himself down not minutes ago.

The Mist gathers and piles up, swirling like a miniature twister. Within moments, a figure in military dress garb that is very much not Japanese is looking back at him. The person doesn't look Japanese, either.

"It means we will issue a formal apology if you remember this when you wake up in a few hours."

"And if I don't?" He doesn't like the implication of waking up, being that he will have to fall asleep in the first place. Or be knocked out. Reborn doesn't like that. Hitmen generally don't. "What happened to my pilot?"

"If she remembers as well, we will also issue her a formal apology."

Then Jeong-Seo Kaede leans back against the dashboard, reclining on one elbow as though it were a counter at a pub instead of the dashboard of a jet currently several thousand meters above nothing but the dark depths of the open sea. He hates this so much.

She, because Reborn is quite sure now that Jeong-Seo is a she, has a grin like a shark's, like that squalino [6]. It's not terrifying. Reborn thinks it's kind of cute- on Squalo, anyway.

On Jeong-Seo, it looks infuriating.

"Have a good nap, signor Reborn."

"Wait-" Too late. He's already starting to feel sleepy. Mist clogs his throat like sleeping syrup, thick and heavy. There's an underground drug being peddled in from Djerba, in Tunisia lately. They're calling it Lotus-eater [7]. It smells sweet, like a lotus field, like a fruit tree. Tastes like citrus and honey. It makes him want to gag. "-the plane.."

He hears, distantly, while fighting a drowsiness capable of knocking out an elephant, something like reassurance. Something his mamma would have said, something his papa told him when he was a boy. A very very small boy. It's okay.

It's okay.

"Worry not. All systems are under my control."

. . .

Nicola wakes with a start. She knows this feeling.

They had it in combat training in the Vongola, working with flames. No one is entrusted with any jobs of security rank C or higher without being made resistant to Mist flame manipulations. She's pretty confident she can withstand anything up to rank B.

That probably explains why she can vaguely remember Reborn being just fine while her head was being screwed with. He's the World's Greatest Hitman. He's Vongola Nonu's most trusted hitman, Nonu's closest friend, Nonu's frati. Of course he can withstand a paltry Mist manipulation like that.

So what does it mean when she wakes up in a hospital-like room and there is no hitman next to her? She doesn't hear his voice anywhere. Nothing is decimated. No bullet holes in the walls that could indicate his impatience in waiting for someone to wake up. It's stark.

This is the feeling of Mist being purged from her system. Adrenaline. Stimulants. Drugs to simulate lucidity, to drag the mind back from a chemically altered high.

At least, that's what Vongola's trainers say. All Nicola knows is this is a good thing, probably. It means someone wants her alert and awake, rather than that the effects are wearing off due to neglect or negligence. It's a lot of money to force someone out of a Mist-induced suggestion with medication and drugs, even more than it is to wake someone up from Rain overdose.

Nicola calculates a small fortune in her head while something beeps alongside her pulse. Nice and steady. She wonders how long she's been out.

On the next bed over, someone else groans pathetically and stirs. And she says pathetically because it's not even a groan, it's more like an aborted grunt, like they're not even trying. She'd like to tell them to do it with more gusto, more oomph, but. Nicola does not know a lick of Japanese, which is probably where she is right now. It's where they were headed, anyway.

"Awake, princess?"

Except, lo and behold. A fellow Italian.

"I feel like a drugged mule," Nicola slurs, remarkably able to stay within the confines of Standard Italian instead of the apparently unintelligible dialect of Sicilian she picked up in Catania. "A drugged mule full of.. drugs."

The other person laughs. It's muffled. Pathetic. She feels pathetic too.

"So," Nicola licks her dry lips and tries again. "What are you in here for?"

"Flame exhaustion." She feels her breath catches in her throat. Oh, bad. Meanwhile, the other person just lets out a muffled laugh. "Can you believe it? I let my crew run things for a while just fine, and the first big thing I have to step up for drains me dry. This is what a prune feels like."

Nicola lets out a small, tittering laugh. Funny.

"I've been your bedmate for a few days now, but I didn't snore. You had plenty of beauty rest."

"I'm, uh. Pretty sure I wouldn't have heard you even if you did. Snore." Wow, Airò. Good job sounding natural there. This is why she went into piloting and navigation and not something like, say, infiltration and deception. "Flame exhaustion huh? That's gotta suck."

"Doesn't it?" A chuckle. Little less pathetic-sounding there. Nicola exhales shakily. "They had a hell of a time refilling your Storm flames though. We don't have too many Storms on the island."

Wait, what?

"..What do you mean refilling my flames?"

"Flame transfusions. I assume you don't have that in Italy yet."

Flame transfusions sounds both amazing and also like something way beyond Nicola's technical understanding. How. What? Where is she again?

Ah, right. Japan.

"N..o. No we don't. We, eh... we still do it the old fashioned way." What. "Plenty of fluids and bed rest. Haha."

Haha. That's for a damn cold, Airò.

"Is that so? Ours is more of a.. banana milkshake and generous servings of tapioca pudding."

Nicola gags. Oh. Gross. That doesn't even sound nutritious, but then, she isn't a doctor.

"Oh, there's okayu too, if you prefer that."

"What's.. that?"

"A bit like gruel, I guess. Porridge? With rice."

"Oh, yeah, I know it. Sounds way better than banana milkshakes."

"I'm partial to the tapioca pudding myself.

Nicola makes an extravagant sound and face of disgust. "Euugghhh."

Her roommate laughs. Cackles, maybe. She doesn't know what this person's laugh is normally like, maybe it's always this sharp and meaningful and delighted and just this side of a touch crazed.

It's a cackle.

And, Christ, this woman has the most wonderful sounding laugh Nicola has ever heard. It's giving her shivers.

Weird.

"So, what's Italy doing in these parts of the world?"

"I'm Siciliano." Ah. Oops. "..We're sightseeing. My friend and I."

"Your friend who happens to be an infant?"

"What? No he's not."

"Isn't he?"

What kind of question is that?

Nicola is still wondering when the door opens. It's not a doctor who comes in though, or a nurse, but someone else in uniform. Military-like. Reminds her of the time when she saw the carabinieri march through town.

"Kokuyo Leader. His condition has stabilized."

The woman in the other bed answers and it makes Nicola jump to hear the authority in her tone, the easy way command seems to come out, even if she understands nothing that's being said. "Is he awake?"

"Not yet. He hasn't woken since we brought them in."

"Dr. Koji still can't figure out what's wrong with him?"

"Ah.." The other woman fidgets in the doorway. "...well... it, um. It's a little complicated. It turns out this.. isn't really Dr. Ueda's area of expertise."

"He covers pediatric medicine and he's a Fiamma Specialist. How is this not his area of expertise?"

Hey, she knows that word!

"I- I think you should.. have a look, Kokuyo Leader. I don't really know how to explain it."

She looks nervous. Nicola sympathizes, sort of. She's a hardline Vongola supporter but she knows what it's like to be facing down one of the upper echelons of Vongola's hierarchy. Eyes like hawks, they have. Killer's eyes.

Her roommate shifts on the bed and moves out from behind the curtain that had been obscuring her from Nicola's view. She catches a glimpse of burn scars, crisscrossing and stretching the length of a bare arm up to the shoulder and neck, just before the tell-tale sweet-sick scent of Mist obscures it from sight. Smooth skin.

Maybe all those models that Nicola sees on magazine covers are actually Mist flame users.

The other woman is shrugging on a similar military-like uniform over the black tank-top, probably (also?) military issue. Maybe they're on a military base. But Nicola hasn't heard any thing like titles or ranks being used. She's sure she would recognize them even in another language.

Not that Nicola knows anything about the military, but some of Vongola's people were old enough to have been conscripted before. They still tell stories of it now, and Nicola loves hearing them.

They're old and dreary. They're sad, mournful, hateful. They're proud, they're angry, they're happy. They're all sorts of things, these stories.

Reborn never had any stories like that to tell, in the few years she had known about him. No one has any stories that he told them to tell her either. Some even wonder if he'd killed everyone who came by to conscript him into the army.

"Can you move yet, Nicola Airò?" She definitely does not remember telling this person her name. "We need to send you back soon. Before they start to worry."

"Send me back?" But, yes, she can move. A little. Her toes, if she rreeeeaaally wants to. She doesn't. It's so cozy. "Send me back where?"

"Back to Sicily."

"..I'm not going without my, uh. My friend."

Not to mention she might kind of get in trouble for leaving him here? Even though her job was only to fly him here and back, when it's time to leave. Doesn't that mean she has to stay until it's time to leave? She could always come back to pick him up...

"That's too bad, since he won't be going with you."

"Excuse me? You can't keep him here."

Mmm yeah. No good at infiltration and deception. Good at guard dog. Guard dog Airò, that's her. Guard dog Airò who could probably crash a jet into any house you wanted crashed into with pinpoint accuracy. She'll have to remember what this building looks like from the outside once she's in the air.

"We won't be keeping him here.. or should I say, we won't be the ones keeping him here." Nicola probably looks still confused and bristling and guard-dog-like, because the other woman sighs, just ever so slightly. She looks very... proper. In her uniform. "Come. We'll show you."

Very strict. And regal. Yeah.

It takes about 10 minutes for Nicola to manage to get to her feet. She tries to hurry it up- they're being patient enough as it is without making it awkward -but whatever they'd given her a shot of is making her muscles weak. Storm flames can only do so much, and apparently she'd exhausted her own natural supply for the time being? Vongola's doctors have said that she has a large reservoir of them, but actively using and generatingthem really isn't her thing.

Tenacity, however, is.

With a pair of crutches that are sitting conveniently next to the bed, Nicola hobbles her way across the room. She can feel her hospital gown sticking to her skin, already sweating from something as simple as getting up. It's ridiculous.

"Okay," she finally says, grunting and sucking down a few lungfuls of air. She's got this. "Okay. Let's go."

The other woman gives her a once-over from head to toe. The one who reported in has already left, shuffled off with a murmur 2 minutes into Nicola's struggle to remain upright.

She receives a nod and they set off down the hall. Nicola's tap-taping of the crutches is staccato at first, then falls into a more rhythmic beat as she accustoms herself to using them. It's not long before she's moving at a normal walking speed.

No longer preoccupied with making sure she doesn't tip herself over, Nicola watches the way the hospital orderlies react around this person. Is she the leader of the island? Wasn't there supposed to be a mayor? Were they overthrown? Is this the mayor?

There's no great amount of fear, but no great amount of respect either, that she sees in the eyes of those who look at the woman in front of her. They give a nod. Some of them smile. Others simply give them a wide berth and continue with their work. There are few who wear a similar uniform, but most are in hospital garb. It feels a little.. surreal.

Not abnormal though. It's crazy to think about, but she doesn't feel out of place, even though she technically is. No one looks twice at her. Some even smile! At Nicola! Nicola, who gets laughs and fingers pointed at for having a boy's name! Nicola, who can't do subtlety worth a damn, who looks terrible in anything that stops above her knees!

Nicola, who still gets people playing Marco Polo with her name to the tune of a Ricola commercial. In Vongola. (Arguably) The Strongest and Greatest crime syndicate in Italy.

This? This is nice.

It's quite obvious she's an outsider, but no one seems to want her gone? At least, not that she can tell. She is awful at subtlety, after all. That includes the reading of it.

"They don't seem to be all that concerned with me being here," she confides in the woman before her, in Italian. From the reactions of those around them, no one else seems to speak it. But they're not surprised to hear another language, either.

"You're with me. They have no reason to be concerned."

"Oh." Okay? "..Why is that?"

"Ah, I haven't introduced myself yet." They stop in front of a door with the initials R. S. written on the placard, along with some Japanese squiggles she can't make heads or tails of. Nicola looks up. "I am Kokuyo Leader. I was the one who brought down your plane."

She's taller. Which is weird, because Nicola has heard that Asians are supposedly pretty short, except for men who always seem to adhere to some rule of extreme sexual dimorphism. It's a little odd. Nicola hasn't had to look up at a woman since.. since she was still a girl.

It's kind of neat.

Wait-

"You- you took down my plane? Is it okay? Oh my God, that plane belongs to-" To Vongola oh shit "Please tell me it's okay."

"We landed it safely," Kokuyo Leader chuckles. She's wearing a small grin and the tiny flash of teeth reminds Nicola of something. Something else. Something a little dangerous. "Look through the window."

First Nicola spends a minute to stop panicking about the potential state of one of Vongola's private jets. It's probably worth more than her life and she's not sure how she'd be able to make it up to the Don if it was destroyed.

Then she takes the chance and hesitantly leans over and peers through the slot on the door, squinting. She can't see much, even though everything is brightly lit. Maybe a little too brightly.

"..I can't- I'm not sure what I'm.. looking at."

Kokuyo Leader lets out a hum. She turns the door handle and nudges it open, beckoning. Nicola pushes it further open and steps in-

and is immediately hit with a wave of Flames, Sun, definitely, glimmering and washing over her like a confetti gun full of pixie dust. She almost expects to fly. The air is so thick with flames it's like she's breathing it in. It feels great. She feels great.

There's a dozen more odd machines in here than there were in her own hospital room. Nicola recognizes a normal contraption, a (probably) regular old heart monitor, and something that's probably that flame transfusion thing. And another thing with a glass jug full of something so bright and yellow and glowing that it casts shadows over the opposite walls.

On the bed is a small form. There's a hat on the tableside. One that she very, very much recognizes.

"..That's.."

"Your friend."

Ah. Reborn. Definitely his curly sideburns there. Wasn't there supposed to be something like a pacifier, too? He's always wearing it.

"...He's very small? He shouldn't be that small."

"He has always been this small, Nicola Airò. I imagine he has been actively projecting his larger form onto others by activating parts of his brain and others' with Sun flames, altering perceptions of himself. But now that he is unconscious, the effect has mostly abated."

"But if he's really that- that small, that... I've never even noticed!" Nicola stumbles back just a little bit. "I mean.. I've seen him leaning on a window sill a few times- or I thought I did, but if he's- really that size, then he'd had to have been. Standing on the sill itself? And no one ever thought that was strange?"

"Love does strange things to the mind," Kokuyo Leader says smoothly. What? What does love have to do with this? "It makes you see what you want to see. Hear what you want to hear. It is an oversaturation of hormones and chemicals that makes everything seem normal. Like your friend here, and his size."

Reborn is covered mostly by blankets and his face obscured with an oxygen mask and his eyes are closed and he just- he looks like a gangly kid. Someone you'd pick up off the streets, if not for the suit carefully folded on the table next to him. With the hat. And-

"What about- he had a, um, a pet. A chameleon I think."

"Oh, yes." Kokuyo Leader crosses over to the wall opposite the bed and Nicola realizes there's a glass tank there, with its top open to the air. Inside, one shape-changing chameleon named Leon is snoozing away. "We weren't sure what it would eat at first, but it seems to understand human speech and changed its form whenever it was hungry. Took days to get it to stop sleeping next to the patient."

Of course, Nicola wants to say. They're partners.

Instead she's a little bemused by the careful.. care being given to a chameleon.

"How, um. How is he? Not that I have any idea what's going on here, but-"

"Flame exhaustion," is the answer she gets before she even finishes asking her question. "The usual ordeal. We're quite accustomed to it- rooms like this are specially equipped to deal with flame transfusions. The patient, Reborn, is exhibiting symptoms of far more severe exhaustion and depletion to the point where it's affecting his body. Dr. Ueda thinks it's reason why his form is so small, but we can't be sure. It was smaller, actually, when we brought him in. He's stabilized now, but he won't be fit to go anywhere for a few days. Which is why you'll be leaving alone."

"Smaller? He already looks like a- a kid. What was he like before?"

"Like your average 2 year old."

"Oh my God," Nicola whispers, unable to take her eyes off the bed, from the slight rise and fall of a chest too small for the World's Greatest Hitman. "I've been flying a plane with a 2 year old in the back seat and no infant-safe seatbelts."

"His chameleon changes shape, you know."

"Yeah I know, what's that have to do with- oh, right. Oh thank God. I'm not going to lose my piloting license."

"You worry about the strangest things, Nicola Airò."

"And another thing!" She rounds on the other woman, this Kokuyo Leader. "How do you even know my name? What's with the initials on the door? Or those Reborn's initials, his real name? How do you know that? Everyone in- in Sicily has been trying to find out for years."

God, she'd almost said in Vongola again. She's so not fit for undercover duty. At all.

Kokuyo Leader raises an eyebrow.

"Nothing in Vongola is a secret from our Guardian."

Well never mind then. She's just been trying to keep it a secret for no reason.

. . .

Trovami, said the words carved into the inside of an oyster shell by Luce herself. Luce, their leader, who is known as a Shaman with a penchant for vague precognition.

Of the group, only Reborn seemed to care about the Madreperla. Part of it might have to do with the fact that he hadn't told anyone else what Luce had said, about the words she wrote into the nacre lining, that this is the answer. An answer. Not a cure, perhaps, but something to go off of. Somewhere to start.

Reborn flexes his hand, palm too large and fingers too long. Far more elegant than he remembers them being. Maybe he's a narcissist. Waking up naked under a hospital gown with lingering growing pains does wonders for his self-confidence. In the very best of ways.

Having to wear standard, if slightly fashionable, street clothing instead of his suit though, does not. It's awful. He misses the bullet and flame proof fabric. Tear resistant, heat resistant, capable of hardening under stress to protect his then softer-but-harder-than-normal infant body. Still soft now.

But muscle hardened. Muscles. Christ, but he's forgotten how wonderful it feels to have a good set of abs.

(Reborn is most definitely a narcissist. He loves it.)

This is the answer. This is an answer, a cause, a correlation. Flames. Life.

He feels alive. He feels so alive that it's almost stifling.

(At least the fedora still fits.)

"You're cleared for release, signor Reborn," The woman known as Kokuyo Leader tells him from a few feet away, looking up occasionally from the medical clipboard while Reborn gets dressed. Not a lick of shame from either of them, just the way Reborn likes it. Though he does miss terrorizing anyone nearby with his confidence and arrogance. "Sawada Tsunayoshi will retrieve you outside."

Oh, will he now?

The doctor (can you believe it? A doctor. Not a scientist but a doctor!) explained what had happened to him in the past few days. He can't say he understands it all- Reborn may be the World's Greatest Hitman and carry several degrees in mathematics and is legally certified to teach at any grade level, but flame research is not his area. He still can't believe there's a doctor who specializes in it.

"In children, anyway," Dr. Ueda Koji had said, with the warm smile of a doctor, or an uncle. Someone familiar. "Which, it seems, you most decidedly are not. Anymore. Or ever have been? A strange thing, this curse of yours. I should like to study it some more, but I suppose that is not possible. And I am not a scientist."

Maybe someone else can explain it better and in layman's terms.

Something beyond atmospheric flame disturbance and flame osmosis, flame displacement. How the hell does this island know so much about flames?

It's the kind of questions Reborn has always wanted to ask Iemitsu about but never got the chance to, or if he did ask, he never received a decent answer out of the boy. Man.

(20 years later, and he's still a 19-year-old brat.)

Jeong-Seo Kaede doesn't give him so much as a second glance once he's dressed. She leaves the clipboard there, probably for him to look over if he wants, or for an orderly to collect. He does. It's all words and numbers and terms in Japanese that he doesn't recognize, but he memorizes them.

"Hello."

Reborn looks up and reaches for a gun too small for his hand. It's more like a Swiss mini than a Beretta. Tiny in his newly large grip.

"My name is.. Nagi. I am a Kokuyo Agent-in-training assigned as your interim guide."

The girl can't be more than 15. 16, if being generous. She has a young lady's eyes, large and wide and innocent, untouched by age, and a Japanese shade of black. Her voice is light, airy, almost shy. She might almost seem timid, if not for the shock of violet streaks in her hair. Her uniform is similar to that of Jeong-Seo Kaede and the associates who answer to her directly.

Her shoes, though. Those heels could probably kill someone. Reborn does not want to be that someone.

"..My interim guide."

"Until you are accustomed to your host family."

So, like a transfer student. "I'm sure that won't take long."

She nods, slowly. "..And until they are accustomed to you."

Ah. Maybe that will take a little longer. If Reborn was still able to use his flames as usual, it wouldn't be problem. But it's all wrong now, his balance is off, has been off for something like 30 years. Flame control is less a reflex and more like a muscle. You can ride a bike years later, but you have to get used to longer limbs, heavier limbs. A higher perspective. A taller bike.

It helps that he doesn't have to power that damned pacifier anymore. though. And it's great. It's like he's spitting in Iron Hat's face. That's Kokuyo's problem now.

(Until he leaves, anyway. Apparently they're only willing to hold onto it for as long as he's on the island. Reborn does not relish the idea of having to put that thing on again and reverting to his... smaller form.)

Leon climbs up his hand and onto his shoulder. The mini suit he collects, making sure the sealed missive from Vongola Nonu is still inside. It is. There's also a briefcase with his nametag on it, though Reborn doesn't remember packing one.

"Alright then, signorina Nagi-"

"Just Nagi is fine." There's little shift in her posture. Her Japanese is standard, textbook even, but a little stiff. Like she's trying hard to sound that way. "Don't worry too much about honorifics. I would advise especially not to use Italian ones, though. The only ones who speak it regularly are the Sawadas and Kokuyo Leader."

"..And that's a problem because..?"

"No one else is supposed to know Italian."

..That's bizarre. He'll have to find out why at some point.

"In that case, Nagi-kun... what now?"

She lifts a shoulder in a shrug. "Do you have any questions? Normally my job would be to keep you confined to the eastern half of the island, but you've been authorized Level B security clearance."

"And that means what, exactly?"

"It means that you are permitted travel to and from both sides of the island, with certain restrictions. It also means that I am permitted to answer your questions, short of personal questions regarding any residents or anything regarding sensitive or classified political matters."

"Okay." They're heading down the hall now, towards the front lobby. Jeong-Seo said it was the Main Mansion of the Miura Household. A mansion with a massive hospital wing. A hospital wing that probably has its own address. "First question. Where is Sawada Tsunayoshi?"

"He'll be here to meet you outside in a few minutes."

He notes that she doesn't even hesitate to answer.

"How do you know that?"

"Classified, Level A."

Reborn blinks. He'd been an answer along the lines of 'he called ahead'. Instead he gets Nagi flashing a smile, nice and sweet. Oh, boy.

"..How did your Kokuyo Leader commandeer my jet and how did she manage to land it remotely?"

"Classified, Level A."

"How do you people know my real name?"

"I'm going to say Classified, Level S, but I'm also going to say that our island's Guardian is very intimate with the Vongola."

"Vongola doesn't even know my name."

"That's why it's Classified." She says the word like a song. Like it's so infuriatingly fun to deny him these answers. "Next question?"

Reborn is trying not to let too much irritation show. It was easier as a baby. Not quite developed facial muscles. He probably looks a little scary right now.

Nagi, for her part, does not so much as shiver.

"Why is this island so damned weird?"

It's a crackshoot. He's asking himself more than anything. Actually, he must be really unsettled by all if he's talking to himself out loud. At least, Reborn is pretty sure he's just talking to himself and not trying to get some answer, any answer.

He sighs. And looks up to see his guide giving him a head-to-toe sort of glance. Her eyes land on the mini suit he has tucked between his side and his elbow.

"Your infant-sized clothing seems to be constructed of fiberglass interwoven with threads of ceramic, titanium, para-aramid synthetics, about a dozen other materials as well as an unknown organic compound that seems to originate from your pet chameleon."

"You can't have Leon," is the first thing that comes out of Reborn's mouth, and he's so fucked. God. Fuck this island. This island is so weird. "How do you know what my suit is made of?"

"Classified, Level A." She peers up at him, flashes another smile. Honestly, he thinks he'll fit right in. "We don't want your partner, but we'd like a sample of that suit."

"It's my only suit." Who knows if he's going to stay this size forever? Also he's going to want to have Leon recycle it to make him an adult sized one. Waste not want not. Leon's gifts are not for research. "I'm not handing it over."

"Then, next question."

She's not even bothering to mention that fact that it doesn't fit him right now.

Reborn stops in the lobby. It's mostly empty, since tourist season is over, and they're alone except for the receptionist. Somehow it feels like if he doesn't get one more clear answer to something before he meets with the Sawadas, he won't be getting many straightforward answers ever.

He'll have to choose them more carefully.

"What happened with the agnelli di Dio?"

Nagi blinks. Straightens. Smooths down the front of her uniform with trembling fingers.

"Case designation AGNUSDEI is classified under Personal Information. Clearance must be obtained from Sawada Tsunayoshi, Honorary Member of the Namimori Precinct Disciplinary Committee, and Yamamoto Takeshi, Sworn Member of the Namimori Precinct Disciplinary Committee."

Hm.

"..I had heard they were dead," he chances. Iemitsu had already more or less admitted as much that Tsunayoshi was alive.

Her shoulder twitches, and she smiles again. Mist drifts around her, sweet like lotuses. "They are not."

And isn't that just peachy.

"What are the limits to your answering my questions like this?"

"I will accompany you throughout your stay upon the island, for as long as required. You may ask questions at any time. I am only able to answer those of security Level B or lower."

He nods. Alright. He can deal with that. Probably should have asked that first, though he can't see what difference it would have made unless he actually knew what was considered A or S or answerable.

Reborn pushes the door open and steps outside-

-only to be run into by the smallest, fluffiest, brownest blur he has ever seen before.

(He says smallest, but given that he has just cleared 190 centimeters[8] again, everything seems tiny.)

Then this tiny blur, this little child- and, wow, Reborn barely felt that. Thank God for his chest and abs. He doesn't know how muscle mass translates over with the curse but somehow it does and it's what keeps him from yelping and stumbling back like the boy is doing right now.

He is reminded of Timoteo's dream, all those years ago. It is a boy, with hair not flaxen but bronzed in the sun. Hair that seems to glow in the light of the dying day. Eyes too dark, too wide, too young. Too wise.

He looks just like his father. But smaller. Way, way smaller, and somehow also more irritating?

No Good Tsuna, was what Iemitsu had said about him. His darling No Good son.

"Tsuna."

"Ah- Nagi! Hi." Tsunayoshi beams at the girl peering around Reborn's side. He waves a little, then peers up at Reborn. "Are you with him? That means this is our guest, right?"

"He is, yes." Somehow Nagi manages to slip through the space between Reborn's elbow and the door frame. "Reborn-san, this is Sawada Tsunayoshi and his mother, Sawada Nana. They will be your host family."

"Thank you for hosting my stay, Sawada-san. Sawada-kun."

"Just Tsuna is fine," Tsunayoshi quips with a smile. "My mother loves having more people around the place. You're coming too, right Nagi? They've already dropped your things off."

"Of course."

"Oh, it will be so nice to have some more company around the house," Sawada Nana coos as she comes up behind him, hands latching onto her son's shoulders. He doesn't seem to mind it. "It's been so quiet since you started junior high, Tsu-kun. You never bring that lovely boy around anymore."

Tsunayoshi splutters. Very Iemitsu-like, but with more red on his face.

"M-maman!" Well that's definitely French. "Takeshi has baseball practice, he- he joined the club, remember? He has summer practice! I can't pull him away from baseball practice. He loves baseball."

"I thought he loved you."

Tsunayoshi makes an aborted whining sound and tries to avoid all eye contact.

"Is Tsuna having boy problems?" Nagi drifts over, brightening. "I can give him the Talk."

"I already had that in school," Tsunayoshi says in a rush. His ears are pink now. His mother looks absolutely giddy.

"Then I can give you Advice."

"I have Kyouko-chan for that!" That's practically a squeak. He must be part mouse.

"She's barely 16. I'm almost 18, I have far more experience."

"You have long distance relationships with someone in Namimori and another one halfway across the world!"

"Friendships. Yes. So." Nagi brandishes an arm to the side, gesturing to a nearby bench.

"Why don't we leave that for when we get home, hm?" Nana says, her fingers tippling along Tsunayoshi's shoulders like fluttering wings. It doesn't seem to comfort him any. "I'm sure Reborn-san is tired from his flight and ordeal, and it's a bit of a drive back to the house."

"That's a great idea, maman!" Tsunayoshi squeaks again, looking relieved. "I'll-"

"I'll go tell Hibari-san to pull the car up. You three get to know each other, okay?"

Tsunayoshi looks crestfallen and accepts his fate. Nagi slings an arm over his shoulder (Tsunayoshi is so small that she clears him by a full head) and pulls him up in front of Reborn.

"Reborn-san, you're here to report back to Tsuna's father about him, right?" For all that she has the air of a shy gentle princess, Nagi seems... vicious. "Let him know his kid has a boyfriend and he should come by to give this boyfriend the shovel talk, okay?"

"Takeshi is not my boyfriend," Tsunayoshi whispers, face still red and in vain, because Reborn is already agreeing to do just that.

He doesn't know what it is that Timoteo wants him to do here, but he figures it's gotta be fun if it has something to do with Sawada Tsunayoshi.

. . .

Reborn opens the letter from Timoteo once he's set up in one of several spare guest rooms in the Sawada house. The Vongola Sky Flame flickers at the head of it, harmlessly offering light with which to read by.

His guide, Nagi, has pulled Tsunayoshi aside after a quiet dinner affair, murmuring in that odd lilting island dialect of theirs that Reborn is trying to pick up as quickly as possible. He had graciously helped with the dishes and now Nana is curled up on the living room couch watching a Korean soap with a box of tissues next to her.

What a strange household he's found himself in.

To Reborn, my dearest brother,

I am sorry to spring this request upon you so suddenly. From what Iemitsu has told me, by the time you read this letter you will have likely been questioned as to the nature of your visit on the island.

Oh, yeah. Right after he regained consciousness properly and could do more than slur his way around words.

We have decided it would be best that you arrive on the island under the pretense of checking up on Tsunayoshi's state on Iemitsu's behalf. Once there, you would read this letter and be assigned your actual mission and contract. As you already know, there is no way to refuse. Iemitsu tells me it will not be a simple matter for you to depart the island once you have met Tsunayoshi. There is only the path forward.

But you are quite good at that, aren't you, frati?

Forgive me if this letter becomes long-winded. I prepared it in the event that you truly would not be able to leave the island any time soon, so it may say more than I would otherwise write.

I'm getting old, frati.

Reborn sucks in a breath. The paper crinkles in his hands, too large and long now, but it is resistant to tears and water and flame alike.

I am getting old, frati. My time will come soon, I can feel it in my bones. It speaks to me when I walk the streets of Catania, when I visit my Dania[9]and hold her hand. She waits for me, frati. I wish I could say that my Blood Oath to you comes first, but I cannot. I cannot.

You are my greatest friend. Not my first, but perhaps my longest. You have told me many secrets and kept from me many more, as I have done to you. Perhaps after this we can do away with all our formalities and be honest with each other. Man to man, eh?

"Man to man." Reborn feels a small smile curling on his lips. He's suddenly glad now that they've all got separate rooms.

The letter is pretty long. Timoteo probably fished out the longest single sheet of paper he had lying around from the Stone Age and filled it to the brim. Reborn skims the few following paragraphs, chuckles a little, and skips down as far as he can until he finds any mention of an assignment. Maybe he'll read the rest when he isn't as jetlagged.

...I will continue on to your assignment now, Reborn. Normally I would fear you had fallen asleep by now, but if I know you, I know you of all people would not tire from reading anything I write. Also, I know you would have skipped down here after the first few passages. I do hope you will go back and read the rest, perhaps even write back. Your progress reports are always so brief and dull.

Oh, fine then, Timoteo. Maybe Reborn will write the longest damn report ever. He'll make it a dozen pages long and fill it with his observational studies of the island's insect species.

Iemitsu and I have decided to leave the matter of Inheritance to Sawada Tsunayoshi. Now, I do not necessarily mean that I wish to make him my heir, frati, but such a thing will suffice if it is what he makes of it...

[1] people have actually been trying to link sicily to italy since rome was still an empire. it's just too far away.
[2] devil's triangle: also known as the, uh, bermuda triangle. haha.
[3] these are real coordinates and you are free to look them up 8') it's still destination invalid.
[4] kakishima dialect is actually going to be niigata dialect with a few twists (or as close as I can manage since I've only found a few sources for the dialect so far). there's a few other cultures and languages mixed in on the island that will have some effect on the dialect in weird fictitious ways (I am not a linguist). why niigata? why anything? /twiddles thumbs, whistles innocently
[5] kaki kuukou: literally means 'oyster airport', because everything is oysters. a private airport and the only one on the island. has no commercial airlines and is operated completely by kakishima residents for private flights only, inbound and outbound. must be 'pre-approved' for landing and take off, as reborn found out.
[6] squalino: (italian) dimunitive (or so) form of squalo, shark. meaning, baby shark. baaaaby shark.
[7] legend has it that djerba was the island of the lotus-eaters where odysseus was stranded on his voyage through the mediterranean.
[8] 190cm: about 74 inches, 6'2"
[9] dania: short for daniela, timoteo's wife (which i just remembered is the name of his mum too, that's gotta be a little creepy. but. no. not the same person.)

it's always so hard to choose what to footnote and what to say 'haha not telling yet you'll find out later'. it's also difficult to tell myself to be patient stick to the outline and not find reasons to shove xanxus or other arcobaleno onto the island early.

as usual feel free to ask questions and if I can clarify without revealing stuff then I will! my tumbles is vongolastic I am open to all pms and asks. i'll get character profiles up there soon hmmmm.