AN:/I'm not done MOC, CC and SSWT, although I'm not at a point where I'm willing to continue either. This was a compromise, where I'm trying to drum up enough KHR motivation to continue. Unfortunately, I don't think I have enough understanding of the characters at this point, nor do I have anyone to share muses with while writing, so this might be break time.

On a completely unrelated note, I've hit my "Terrible Canadian" faze and have about 3 horrible, horrible Hockey RPF fics saved under the "guilty pleasure" folder, so who knows where my writing is going now a days.

-/

Time snaps like a thread.

There's the sensation of something fraying, of an unmooring of reality all around her, and then before she can take a breath there's a snap and she's falling to the ground. The wind whistles past her ears, buzzing through her skull. The white noise blocks out anything she could have seen in the descent, and she's almost grateful. The cold grasp of something in the dark almost has her heart bursting out of the embrace of her ribs.

She's gasping on her stomach, vision blurring through the vertigo, watching the dirt waver. There's shouting going on all around, though she can't make out words. Instead, she concentrates on taking a breath.

One. Two. Steadies her head against the pounding behind her eyes.

She's just shifting back onto hands and knees when a pair of small dark shoes enters her point of view. The leather is scuffed with dirt and something shiny like blood, but they still look outrageously expensive. A small hand finds itself on her shoulder.

The smoke finally lifts enough that she feels like she can breath, and she struggles to lift her head.

The small face of Reborn, still a child, stands before her.

It's not the strangest thing the strongest hitman in the world has seen, not when lined up against the Arcobaleno and Checkerface, but it ranks up there.

The woman falls out of the sky, a dead weight that just pops up in between the two fighting factions. There's a pause as black suited men take in the new arrival, waiting for an attack, before one enterprising gunman tries his luck in the surprise.

Gunshots soon burst forth once again.

Reborn ignores them for the most part, instead taking out the nearest idiotic Mafioso and steadily making his way to the centre of the fray. Considering the tech some of the opposing family is lugging around, he doesn't want to take a chance on the randomly appearing woman as a fluke. Considering his luck, she's probably a bomb.

As he gets nearer – and the fighting sparser the closer he gets to it, men falling like flies – the woman starts moving a little, sluggishly. Not dead then.

He gets there just as she starts lifting herself up, flower dress sticking to the mud and chipped nailed hands shaking as they try and find purchase on the ground.

He taps one hand on a skinny shoulder and keeps one eye of the chaos around them while the other does a quick inventory. Japanese, possibly a mix, middle age, older then he originally thought up close, with light brown hair cut near the chin and the sort of leanest that usually means either hard times or entertainment industry. There's a scar peeking out from the back of her dress, and despite the pastel fabric she's wearing sensible shoes, so he upgrades her from "potential civilian caught too close to flame active experiments" to "possible assassin".

He's still a gentleman though, so he lets her lean back more and blink blurrily around. She's shaking, and not really responsive, so he feels comfortable enough stowing away his gun and using his other hand to settle her further.

"Steady." He says, keen eyes watching as the fog lifts from her eyes a little, only for the deeper sort of confusion to fill it.

"What?" The woman says in Japanese with what sounds like numb lips. He makes a note of a possible concussion and tries a charming smile before responding in kind.

"You're a little knocked up, took a little tumble. Do you have a husband I could call to pick you up?" He asks, all innocent guile. The fighting has died down, in Vongola's favour of course, so he feels confident in playing the concerned citizen helping a fallen housewife.

"No. No." She says, lifting a hand to her face to rub her forehead. There's a tan line where a ring would sit on it. "He's dead."

Reborn nods, mentally filling that away a long with a projected timeline. Not wearing mourning clothing, nor the ring, but still sporting a thin band of paler skin around the ring finger.

"A son maybe?" He asks next, shifting and subtly signalling Caullie, his second on this mission, to call it in. His nervous subordinate scrambles to locate a phone while the rest of the men go about cleaning up the surroundings of groaning men and broken windows. The street is empty except for the Mafioso and the woman, so it's easy to see where their attention is currently directed. A few of them are fiddling with guns, although they have enough of a mind to keep them pointed away from where Reborn is trying to do damage control.

She shakes her head, before looking ill at the motion.

"He's – No." She mumbles, before her eyes find his and her face clears a little.

"Where am I?" She tries pulling away, going to stand. He lets her make it to her feet, a little annoyed at the height difference, but shakes his head at his men behind her. No danger for now.

"Naples, Italy." He says, correctly guessing that isn't the answer she's looking for by the downturn to her lips.

"And the date?" She asks, still shaky but looking more and more stable the longer she's on her feet. Reborn feels a shiver work itself into his core, but keeps his smile through it.

"June third." He responds. He gets a wobbly nod in return, before the silence descends thicker then before. Her eyes are quickly turning glassy again.

"The year?" She says, sounding like it's an afterthought.

Reborn feels the shiver grow and lets the smile fall. He narrows his eyes at dishevelled but blank face of the mystery woman and silently signals the surrounding men. He's suddenly reminded of the Bovino family, and their supposed research into time altering ammunition. There was a lot of gunfire from experimental weaponry going on.

"What's your name?" He asks instead of answering. The woman blinks at him a few times before smiling.

"Sawada Nana. But just call me Mama, everyone does."