Kawahira and Tsuna interlude
Tsuna had a crush on this girl in his school. He didn't want to, though, because he knew that it would adversely affect his brain and logic, and he really needed those two in order to find an alternative to the Arcobaleno thing. Hence, he asked Kawahira for advice.
"Imagine her defecating," Kawahira answered.
"Defecating?" Tsuna, who was only seven years old and did not know the meaning of big words, questioned. Kawahira sighed and tried to hide his flush of embarrassment.
"Pooping."
Tsuna scrunched up his nose as he imagined it. Nope, it didn't work. He relayed that to Kawahira and the man facepalmed.
"Your love is too pure for this earth," he muttered. "Alright then, imagine that she's a lizard in disguise."
"That's…" Tsuna started. Kawahira just shook his head and cut off his sentence.
"Just imagine it. Suspend your disbelief for a moment. Are you imagining it now?" At Tsuna's nod, Kawahira continued. "Good. Now imagine her as a lizard in disguise… pooping."
"…"
The matter was solved pretty quickly, even if Tsuna was too ashamed to look at Kyoko in the face for two whole weeks after that.
-o-
Back to plot
Random fact: Shishis were also called Koma-inus. There were a pair of them standing guard outside the kitsune's shrine, keeping evil out, and Tsuna always liked to visit them. It didn't take long for them to consider Tsuna as their cub. Despite being a totally different species, they really treated Tsuna as one of their own, and became very protective of him.
They really treated Tsuna like their own cub.
Another random fact: According to legend, Shishis would throw their cubs off a cliff to test their strength.
…
Somehow, Tsuna survived. This ordeal also helped him to discover more about his father's side of the family – or rather, more about the things that came with the bloodline of his father's side of the family.
-o-
Wrackspurts were always a pain to deal with, but Tsuna often left them alone. Most of the time, they didn't badly harm anyone so Tsuna just learnt to ignore them.
He shouldn't have ignored the Wrackspurts around Yamamoto Takeshi.
In a way, he felt that it was his fault. He was the only one in school that could see Wrackspurts. He knew the effect they had on other people. Why hadn't he done anything? Tsuna knew the answer to that question.
He had assumed that nothing was wrong. He had carelessly assumed, just like everyone else, that Yamamoto was fine even when every single evidence available showed that he wasn't. Tsuna had been too caught up in himself to realise and when he did, it was…
Tsuna stepped out of the crowd. There had been an invisible line that no one wanted to cross, afraid that if something happened to Yamamoto, the blame would be on them. At the same time, they were banking on the possibility that someone else would step up to talk Yamamoto out of it. Everyone thought that the other person would come out to say something. A diffusion of responsibility, Tsuna remembered. Kawahira called it the bystander effect, something he disliked in humans. Tsuna could relate.
"Yamamoto, please step away from the edge." Tsuna's voice hadn't been raised, but it was almost deafeningly loud in the silence that had swept over the roof. Yamamoto seemed surprised that someone would be bold enough to speak directly to him, but his expression soon clouded over. Bloody Wrackspurts.
"After the baseball god left me, I have nothing left," Yamamoto said. Tsuna had to try hard not to gape. Even if it was illogical, Yamamoto perceived this as a giant problem. Tsuna couldn't just discard it was unimportant, because it wasn't. Not to Yamamoto.
Tsuna took a deep breath, trying to think of ways to cheer someone up. Or at least coax Yamamoto away from the edge and danger of death for long enough to inject some happy thoughts into him. Happy thoughts chased away the Wrackspurts, after all.
"Before you do anything, let's have a talk. A simple talk. After that, you can do anything you want but I must say that the talk is over first, alright?" Tsuna tentatively offered Yamamoto a contract. Yamamoto hesitated, but nodded eventually and Tsuna gave him a shaky smile.
"What is the most important thing in your life?" Tsuna asked.
"Baseball," was Yamamoto's almost immediate answer. Tsuna did not let that discourage him, and continued to push on.
"After that?"
Yamamoto's gaze turned pensive as he thought. Suddenly, pain and guilt showed on his face as he whispered, "My father."
Tsuna watched in grim satisfaction as most of the Wrackspurts left Yamamoto's head.
"Do you feel better now?" Tsuna asked. Yamamoto's gaze immediately snapped to Tsuna, as if he had forgotten the boy was there, and he took a step back in surprise.
Compared to getting thrown off a cliff, falling off the edge of the school roof was nothing. Of course, that was for Tsuna and not Yamamoto.
Without missing a beat, Tsuna vaulted over the fence (which shook precariously but did not fall. Tsuna had to thank the good luck charm the kitsune gave him for that) and grabbed a hold of Yamamoto's hand.
"Tsuna?"
"We haven't finished our talk yet. You went back on our terms," Tsuna accused good-naturedly. He was smiling. Yamamoto looked at him as if he was mad.
"You're still talking about that at this time?" he yelled back hysterically. "We're going to die!"
"No we aren't," Tsuna answered quite honestly. "The cliff I fell from was a lot worse than this, and I'm still here aren't I?"
"Cliff?!" Yamamoto wanted to say more, but Tsuna cut him off by giving him a large hug.
"Don't worry, we'll survive," Tsuna said. "I promised someone something and I'm not going to break my promise via death."
"You—"
They reached the ground and bright, bright orange temporarily blinded everyone who was looking at the scene. Everyone but Tsuna, who had enough common sense to shut his eyes before the flare.
They survived, of course. Reborn very much wanted to know how.
-o-
When Gokudera heard to Tsuna's 'near death experience', all he could do was bow and apologise profusely. He seemed to take it personally that he hadn't been there to protect Tsuna. Tsuna wanted to convince him that it wasn't Gokudera's fault but no matter what he said, Gokudera would just feel guiltier and try harder. In the end, Tsuna just hugged him until Gokudera stopped crying, after which he slipped a cheering charm onto him.
Tsuna had to take back the charm the next day when he saw Gokudera beat up students who insulted Tsuna was the happiest smile on his face.
Tsuna now knew what Kawahira meant when he said that there were some things in life that should not be meddled with.
-o-
Yamamoto wouldn't leave him alone. Whenever Tsuna asked why, Yamamoto would state that they hadn't finished their talk.
"Alright then," Tsuna said. "Our talk's finished."
"Eh, really?" Yamamoto pouted. "But I don't think it is."
This happened a few times until Tsuna just gave up and let him do whatever he wanted.
-o-
Reborn was happy that Tsuna had obtained two dedicated guardians. He began his plans to acquire Tsuna's third guardian – Sasagawa Ryohei.
-o-
When Reborn came home, he found Nana and Tsuna waiting for him at the dining table. The atmosphere was rather ominous and Reborn couldn't help but feel wary of the entire situation.
"Tsu-kun, you should tell him what he wants to know," Nana said. Tsuna nodded, a determined look in his eyes.
"I'm sure you want to know how I accessed my father's bloodline," Tsuna said. Reborn narrowed his eyes but he nodded. So, Tsuna told him.
Reborn didn't take it very well.
At least he believed him.
-o-
Tsuna didn't quite know what to think of Lambo. On one hand, Lambo was so irritating and loud and strange. On the other hand…
Tsuna knew what it felt like to be excluded and made fun of for being strange.
It didn't take long for him to come to a conclusion, and Tsuna never regretted it once. It certainly helped that Lambo never made fun of Tsuna, and always believed his precious 'Tsuna-nii' about the strange creatures that other people couldn't see.
-o-
To this day, Tsuna still didn't know why Sasagawa Ryohei was so fond of him. It was probably a Reborn Thing, he theorised, because Tsuna had absolutely no contact with him before.
Of course, there was the time Tsuna patched him up after a fight, using that opportunity to put to use the medical knowledge he had learnt from the kappa, but surely Ryohei didn't remember that, right? The boy was so oblivious all the time, always forgetting things left and right; it would be strange if he was able to remember Tsuna.
"Ryohei-senpai…" Tsuna trailed off when he saw what Ryohei had in his hands: an orange handkerchief with a white sun pattern. Tsuna remembered that handkerchief; it was the one he gave to Ryohei the day he patched him up.
"Sawada?" Ryohei looked confused and Tsuna quickly turned away. It probably didn't mean anything.
"It's nothing. I just got distracted for a while."
The two of them were silent for a while.
"You were looking at the handkerchief weren't you, Sawada?" Ryohei asked. Tsuna jumped, surprised. Ryohei grinned. "Don't you recognise it? It's yours, after all!"
"You…"
"I've always wanted to give it back, but…" Ryohei looked uncharacteristically pensive. "I've grown too attached to it. It's like my good luck charm; I'll win any fight as long as I have it!" He laughed freely. "So I'm sorry, Sawada, but I can't give it back to you."
"…"
Kawahira-san, you're right. We humans are a very unpredictable lot.
-o-
I-Pin tried to kill Tsuna at first sight. However, she stopped after Tsuna gave her a charm to ward off the Wrackspurts. It was too bad that the charm only worked for children; the entire world could have benefited from one.
-o-
Tsuna decided to introduce Lambo and I-Pin to the Shishis. The Shishis took to them rather well. Almost… too well. So well that they all but adopted them into their family just like they had with Tsuna.
Lambo and I-Pin did not appreciate getting thrown off a cliff.
-o-
Tsuna tried to track down I-Pin's wayward teacher in his spare time. If his suspicions were right, I-Pin's teacher should be another Arcobaleno like Reborn. With another Arcobaleno in the midst, perhaps Reborn wouldn't feel so alone.
It was kind of annoying, though, that I-Pin's teacher was so sneaky. Even with the help of everyone Tsuna knew (both human and not) they still weren't able to find him. Also, now that Tsuna thought of it, I-Pin's teacher had probably already left Japan by that point.
Kawahira refused to help them in their "pointless endeavour".
In Tsuna's strictly professional opinion, Kawahira needed to lighten up.
-o-
Tsuna was happy to stay off Hibari's radar. It was too bad that Reborn did not feel the same way.
Hibari was lounging around in his room without a care. Tsuna tried his best not to let fear show on his face.
"Herbivore, tell me more of these… creatures you see."
It turned out that Hibari really liked hearing about all sorts of creatures, both real and made up. Tsuna never knew that he was an animal lover. Honestly, the small brunet boy really didn't know what to do with such information.
-o-
Fuuta de la Stella was in a whole other category of 'strange'.
Of course, this meant that he fit right into the Sawada household.
Tsuna really wanted to know how he made things float. Nana said something about his maternal grandfather's family knowing people who could do things like that and Tsuna dropped the subject. They weren't a part of the world his grandfather had once been in, and they weren't welcome. Tsuna didn't want to waste time bothering with them.
-o-
When Rokudo Mukuro showed up, everything, quite literally, went to hell. Or something like that, at least.
The creatures in Namimori started to complain about feeling cold and ominous every time certain cloaked people came near them. They also brought along the smell of despair and death, making Tsuna apprehensive. Those descriptions sounded a lot like dementors, and they were a species his grandfather was afraid of.
His grandfather wasn't afraid of many things, even when he should be.
Dementors were literal soul-sucking creatures that would track a person through emotions before sucking every positive thing out of them, including their soul, until the person became an empty husk. Tsuna couldn't blame his grandfather for being afraid of them.
While Tsuna was logical, he was only human and he wanted to protect his friends more than he cared about common sense. That was the reasoning he used for trying to track the 'dementors' down.
Tsuna was very, very lucky that the beings in Namimori weren't dementors.
They were just the Vindice.
-o-
The Vindice had flames too, from what Tsuna could see. However, their flames were black and tinted with hate and despair. Those flames definitely weren't something an ordinary human could create. Tsuna had a feeling that apart from the Vindice, he would never be able to find another person who could create such flames.
And that was really inconvenient because Tsuna knew that those black flames could come in handy to create the Arcobaleno cure!
-o-
Alright, so he heard from Reborn that the Vindice was in Namimori because they were looking for an escaped convict. That was really easy; all Tsuna had to do was to catch the convict, make a deal with the Vindice, and then obtain a sample of their black flames! After that, he and Kawahira would try to find a way to recreate those black flames and lo and behold: an alternative to the Arcobaleno curse would be made!
Of course, that was easier said than done, but Tsuna had a plan.
-o-
Using the Nargles – they basically treated this entire thing as a giant prank on the convicts – Tsuna found out that they were hiding in Kokuyo Land. Tsuna had gone through plans with Kawahira and the both of them had agreed that a surprise attack would be the best way to go.
Tsuna was alone, which allowed him to be more silent than normal. He hadn't told Yamamoto or Gokudera or Ryohei or even Reborn where he was going, since Kawahira advised against it. And it wasn't as if he was overestimating himself, either. Tsuna knew he was strong, especially with his flames.
He didn't survive getting thrown off a cliff for nothing, you know.
-o-
Tsuna crash-landed into a room full of sakura and immediately froze everyone.
Once no one but Tsuna himself was able to move, he allowed himself to survey the area. Three escaped convicts: one blonde, one with a beanie, and one with the weirdest hairstyle, check. Hibari on the floor, also check.
…
Why was Hibari on the floor?
-o-
Tsuna unfroze Hibari first. When Hibari growled and tried to take Tsuna's face off, Tsuna froze him again on pure instinct alone. The next time he unfroze Hibari, Tsuna made sure to be very much out of reach.
"Don't hit me I'll explain everything later!" he squeaked out and waiting for his sentence. Hibari contemplated his words before nodded.
"You will tell me everything," Hibari said. Tsuna readily agreed.
Now, it was time to unfreeze the convicts.
-o-
Tsuna wasn't stupid, contrary to popular belief. Therefore, he only unfroze their heads. It was probably uncomfortable, but there had to be a reason why beings as scary as the Vindice were after them instead of, well, normal human beings.
"So, you're Rokudo Mukuro?" Tsuna asked. The one with the weird hairstyle narrowed his eyes.
"And you're the Vongola Decimo," he retorted smoothly. Tsuna faltered for a moment.
"Man, I forgot about that," he muttered under his breath.
Mukuro looked a little incredulous. "How do you forget that you're the heir of the biggest Mafia syndicate in the world?" he demanded. Tsuna shrugged rather sheepishly.
"I ignore it, kind of like my mum whenever she's faced with something she can't be bothered to deal with," Tsuna admitted.
Nobody knew what to say to that.
-o-
After a while, Mukuro told Tsuna of his past in an attempt to get Tsuna to sympathise with him and let him out of this thrice damned ice so that Mukuro could attack him. He succeeded, in a way. Tsuna did sympathise with Mukuro, but Tsuna also had common sense and would not fall for such a transparent ploy.
Hibari really couldn't care less about Mukuro's angsty villain past.
-o-
"So, what did you plan to do once you captured me?" Tsuna asked, morbidly curious.
"I would possess your body, of course," Mukuro replied, too done with everything to even try concealing his motives. Ken had already fallen asleep and he suspected that Chikusa was sleeping with his eyes open.
"Possess… my body? As in, you'd enter my head through my ears?" Tsuna asked, the oddest expression on his face.
"Something like that," Mukuro replied tiredly. Tsuna's eyes seemed to light up. And then he moaned in disappointment.
"Argh, I can't hand you guys over to the Vindice now! First was your tragic past, which already made me waver. And now… This is so unfair."
Tsuna never thought that he'd meet a humanoid Wrackspurt in his entire life. If only his grandfather were here, he'd be so happy at Tsuna's discovery. But now that Tsuna had found out that Mukuro was a humanoid Wrackspurt, he felt duty-bound to protect him, if only for the sake of his grandfather.
Mukuro, on the other hand, just felt very confused. And somewhat scared.
-o-
The Vindice finally showed up three hours later, along with Reborn, Yamamoto, and Gokudera. They found Tsuna playing eye-spy with Mukuro and Hibari. Well, more with Mukuro because Hibari didn't want anything to do with them at the moment.
"Tsuna!" Yamamoto breathed a sigh of relief.
"Jyuudaime!" Gokudera looked on the verge of happy tears.
"Dame-Tsuna…" Reborn looked like he wanted to murder him. Tsuna quickly hid behind Mukuro, to the illusionist's amusement.
"I can explain!" he wailed desperately. And then he caught sight of a stone pacifier peeking out of one of the Vindice's coats. He logically put two and two together and realised, with no small amount of horror, that the Vindice used to be Arcobaleno.
"Explain. Now," Reborn hissed. Tsuna opened his mouth to do just that but instead, something else came out of his mouth.
"I think I've found an alternative to the Arcobaleno Curse!"
Reborn froze up, shocked into stone stiffness, while the Vindice discussed something among themselves. Finally, one of them stepped forward.
"Explain," they said, and Tsuna did.
Logically, he avoided all mention of Kawahira. He didn't think the Vindice – and Reborn, for that matter – would take the fact that he was working with the person who cursed them very well.
-o-
After explaining his theory, one of the members of the Vindice twitched, and chains shot forward to wrap around Tsuna. This startled Reborn into motion, and he quickly fired some shots at the Vindice. They were easily deflected away as the Vindice pulled Tsuna close to them. And into a black portal of fire. If Tsuna's brain hadn't been stunned into silence, he would be screaming his head off at the moment.
-o-
It took an entire day to finalise the Arcobaleno alternative. Twenty-four hours of non-stop experimenting and application. However, Tsuna made it. Now, he just needed to constantly feed the sky one with flames so that enough sky flames would be generated to indefinitely sustain the sky part of the Arcobaleno curse. The Vindice were happy to find the rest of the flames, a fact that Tsuna tried not to let bother him.
(Because where were they going to get the flames from—
No, he wouldn't think about it. He wouldn't.)
-o-
His return to Namimori was met with much fanfare. Everyone, including Kawahira even if he'd never admit it, had been worried about him.
Tsuna gave Kawahira an extra big smile to show that the Arcobaleno curse was finally resolved. He got a small, but real, smile back, and it filled him with an immense amount of joy.
And then Reborn kicked him into the ground.
-o-
Since the Vindice were too busy with the Arcobaleno alternative, they basically just dumped Mukuro and his friends into Tsuna's custody until they got themselves into order again.
Throughout the two months they spent with each other, Tsuna grew on Mukuro like some sort of moss or fungus. Around the one month mark, when Mukuro caught himself actively thinking about Tsuna and how nice it would be to make him smile, he gave up. Tsuna was a force that had a category of its own, and Mukuro was a fool to try and influence it.
All he could do now was just hang around in the background and watch as Tsuna unknowingly messed with the entire Mafia world. He wondered what it said about him when he realised that he would prefer that over instigating the next world war.
He didn't really want to know.
-o-
The Vindice came back after two months. Tsuna was prepared to try and convince them to hold onto the Arcobaleno alternative for a while, just until he could find a substitute to the black flames – night flames, they called them – when they surprised him.
"We don't mind holding onto the Arcobaleno alternative for the rest of our lives," the Vindice, the one who was still in baby form, said. Tsuna gaped at him.
"But why would you—"
"It's revenge!" the Vindice crowed triumphantly. "We have taken the Arcobaleno pacifiers away from Checkerface; we have humiliated him! Of course we would want to have control of the Arcobaleo alternative for the rest of our existence!"
"But that's not very benefi—" Tsuna quickly cut himself off. It wasn't his problem if other people didn't have common sense. Besides, it was a win situation for Tsuna and that would be enough to placate him. In the meantime, he probably should continue working with Kawahira to find another alternative to the Arcobaleno problem that didn't involve the Vindice's help. Just in case they came to their senses and realised that spending all of eternity taking care of pacifiers in glass jars wasn't good enough for their revenge. Or wasn't actually revenge in general.
Tsuna was logical enough to try and cover all his bases, after all.
-o-
With the problem of the Arcobaleno thing solved, Kawahira decided to focus on other things, like getting the rest of the Trinisette back together again. He decided to start with the Mare Rings, seeing that Tsuna would, sooner or later, come into possession of the Vongola Rings and he trusted Tsuna with as much trust he would give a human.
(There were times, however, that Kawahira suspected that Tsuna wasn't quite human himself. At times, Kawahira thought about the strange earthling he once knew, one of the only other earthlings that had sky flames as their dominant flames. She was rather flighty, and tended to talk to things that weren't there. Perhaps he was a descendant of hers? Probably not; it was just a theory after all, an illogical theory that bore no merit. He had much better things to do than to investigate about that.)
This path Kawahira took helped saved the entire world from the reign of one Byakuran Gesso. Since Kawahira took back the rings, it meant that it wasn't his destiny, in this world at least, to inherit the power of the Sky Mare. Hence, he was unable to communicate with his other selves.
Still, Byakuran was Byakuran and nothing could take away his destiny of annoying Sawada Tsunayoshi, one way or another.
He met Tsuna when he was taking a holiday in Japan, and immediately became enamoured with the petite brunet and his 'unpredictable' actions. Tsuna didn't understand what was so unpredictable about it. Surely there were plenty of other people in the world that were logical, right?
Right?
…
He was afraid to find out the answer.
(Kawahira didn't have the heart to tell him that logic and common sense died out along with the rest of his race – another reason why he detested human beings. They just didn't make any sense.)
-o-
When the Varia stopped by Namimori, they were met with a very big, somewhat unpleasant, surprise. But that would be another story for another day.
-o-
Author's note
Yay it's done. A proper one-shot, not like the incomplete 'I do not love the colours of the sky' thing.
There is space for me to write more, though, if I ever get the inspiration. If there anyone you would like Tsuna to interact with in this verse? (Like Dino. And a multitude of other characters I skipped.)
(This is very sloppy writing aha)