Summary: Tsuna hasn't heard it yet, but one day Mammon will say something that sort of helps him make sense of his "life".

Pairing: Gen

Chapters: 12

Beta: —

Spoilers: KHR

Warnings: canon mangling, time skips, vague crack, alternate dimensions

Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by Amano Akira, Weekly Shōnen Jump, and Viz Media. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Notes:

0. This story is completely written and is now in the posting phase. Also, I would like to give Shadowblayze a shout-out for the usual.

1. Haha, more cynical! I am all about cynicism right now! Fuck yeah.

2. Based on an idea prompted by the Varia Mist Scramble Battle that I had back in 2016 and only just now got around to bothering with seriously.

3. It's jumpy and it's intentional and things come out of order, sort of, though still generally all moving in the same direction. Due to the nature of the story, chapter lengths are wildly inconsistent.

4. Say what now? Details? What are these pesky details people keep rabbiting on about? I'll have none of that nonsense here!

5. It also gets progressively weirder, in a sense, and cracked in places. Tsuna gets progressively weirder, actually.

6. λ7 is … ugh. I knew there was a reason why I hated dealing with the Inheritance Arc. Parts of it I'm really happy with, but the whole sequence of confrontations was more of less phoned in while I pointed out shit that made me throw up my hands in frustration at the mangaka's plot holes.

7. Fucking translations. Having put the name into Google Translate so I can hear it spoken says to me it's spelled "Shimon", but of course the translators say "Simon". Then there's the issue of "si" in Japanese and how it's not there. The only symbol I could find in the manga shows "Simon". Seriously, WTF. So I'll go with how it was pronounced, and use Shimon.

v2018-1.0
July 2018
(07 09 2016 - 10 07 2018)

"My real job is to make you a mafia boss."

"Wha—!? A mafia boss?"

"I was assigned by a certain man to train you to become an astounding mafia boss."

Tsuna gaped at the baby—toddler?—in front of him. The suit Reborn was wearing did nothing to detract from the absolutely huge gun he was holding, aimed right at Tsuna's face. "Hey!"

"Should I shoot you?" the baby inquired casually, sighting down the length of his gun.

"Helloooo," he drawled. "Is your head okay?" Who could possibly take a little guy like this seriously? The gun probably shot water.

"The method was left up to me," the baby continued, ignoring what he'd said, then paused when his stomach rumbled. "But not right this moment. Later."

Tsuna watched as Reborn whipped his bedroom door open and strolled off, then heard him thumping down the stairs. 'Maybe it was just a joke?' he wondered. Even so, he was feeling even worse than he already had. The thought of eating dinner with his—at times—obnoxiously cheerful mother turned his stomach.

He got up and headed downstairs. As he approached the door to the kitchen he heard, "Tsuna? What about dinner?"

"I don't want it," he replied, stopping just before he would actually be at the doorway. "I'd prefer to eat out today, so can I have some money? And about that tutor…"

"Hm?" his mother said. "Oh! The contract states that Reborn-kun will live here until your grades go up."

His eyes went wide and he shifted forward to look into the kitchen. That baby was sitting at the table with his mother, tucking in to a meal. His heart sank down even below the level of his feet. The gods must hate him.

. . .

"We have a new transfer student who was studying overseas in Italy, Gokudera Hayato."

'Huh,' he thought, 'Reborn's homeland.' The girls in the class were all giggling and whispering to each other. 'Hm. Girls are interested in that type?' Gokudera looked sullen, almost angry. He was the sort you did not want to meet in a dark alley. His hair was silver which, even in Japan where people were wont to dye their hair odd colours, was fairly odd.

He was startled out of his wits when Gokudera strolled down the aisle toward the seat pointed out to him and, without so much as a pause, slammed his knee into Tsuna's desk and tipped it to the side.

'What the hell?' he thought shakily. 'I know I'm a loser and all, but is it written on my face? Come get me?' He tried to get his heart to stop racing as he fixed his desk and listened to the students around him. They were already talking about forming a fan club.

Class finally ended and he was free to take a break from not paying attention in the first place. As he walked down the hall to stretch his legs he accidentally bumped into an older student, one of the third years. His eyes went wide as the older boy turned to look at him, and Tsuna dashed off around the corner and through half a dozen hallways, miraculously not tripping, bumping into anyone else, or slamming into a wall.

He fled through an exterior door and flattened himself against the wall out there. "That was close," he muttered. "I could've been beaten to death."

"Your pathetic behavior was an eyeful," a voice practically snarled.

His head whipped around to see a silver-haired person lighting a cigarette. "The transfer student…?" he murmured. "I'll just be going now," he said and started to edge away. The last thing he needed was to be attacked by yet another person. Why the new boy seemed to hate him was a mystery, and he saw no point in hanging around to give the kid the chance to do something worse than he already had.

"If a coward like you were to become the Decimo, the Vongola Famiglia would be finished," Gokudera said nastily.

'What the—?' "H-how do you know about that?" he asked. 'Does everyone over in—?'

His thought was cut off when Gokudera snarled, "I refuse to accept it. I'm the one who's fit to be the Decimo!"

"Then be it," he cried. "I don't want anything to do with it!"

"I've been watching you since the volleyball tournament," Gokudera said, turning to face him properly, though his hair swung down to obscure parts of his face. It only made him look more menacing. "It's a waste of time to further evaluate a weakling like you."

'Kami-sama, I have a stalker!?'

"You're a nuisance." Gokudera shoved his hands into his pockets and brought out—was that dynamite!? "Die right here." The boy's cigarette was put to use in lighting the fuses.

The next thing he knew those two sticks were headed his way. Naturally, he froze up like an ice statue and a small part of his mind began gibbering in fear, along with sending out multiple prayers. Then he heard a gunshot and landed on his ass. The sticks hit the ground near him, but the fuses had been—

"Ciaossu."

'Kami-sama, it's him again. I should have known things would only go from bad to worse.'

"You came earlier than I expected, Gokudera Hayato," Reborn chirped, a ridiculous smile on his face.

"Wait! You know each other?" he said, his gaze darting back and forth between them.

"Yes," Reborn drawled in his child's voice. "He's a member of a famiglia I called over from Italy."

"Then he's—" He eyed Gokudera again, even more unhappily.

"It's my first time meeting him, as well, though," Reborn added.

"So you're Nono's highly trusted assassin," Gokudera said, his voice a mixture of suspicion and something else that Tsuna couldn't quite interpret. "You weren't kidding about me becoming a candidate as the successor if I kill Sawada, right?"

His eyes widened in shock and fear.

"That's right. Well, let's get on with the killing, then."

Gokudera someone how managed to produce a whole lot of dynamite, and whatever Reborn said next was not something Tsuna heard, as he was too busy fleeing for his life. Unfortunately, in his panic, he ended up in a dead end, a little courtyard of sorts created between two extensions off the main building. He looked back in time to see all that dynamite flying his way.

"Fight with your dying will," he heard distantly, right before he felt something impact his forehead.

'I regret ever getting out of bed this morning,' he thought, right before he fell asleep. He never even felt it when the dynamite exploded and tore his body to shreds.