The Orphan

Tsuna woke up to the rumbling of his stomach. He looked at the clock and noted he had only half an hour to get to school. He leapt out of bed, washed as fast as he can and ran downstairs. There was a note on the table from Nana.

Tsu-kun;

Kojima-san next door just had a baby. Isn't that wonderful? But Kojima-san isn't feeling well enough to take care of him by herself so okaa-san will help her look after him. Breakfast is on the table.

Love Okaa-san

Tsuna nodded thoughtfully and looked at the toast on the table. As he was about to take it, he saw the clock say 7:45am and practically flew out of the house lest he would share yet another kiss with the head prefect's tonfa. He ran as fast as he could, but yet again said prefect was waiting for him at the school gates, looking very intimidating. As he limped to his classroom be absently wondered whether or not he had a permanent tonfa mark on his stomach now. He also noted he didn't have breakfast.

The homeroom teacher was late, which was good. Tsuna slipped into his seat noticed a murmur in the room. Rumour has it that a poor soul with a pitiful appearance and nobody to love him was constantly seen around Namimori, but he was also relieved because since the rumour started the bullies stopped picking on him. He hoped the boy was alright.

He failed his math test again but nobody said anything. Or at least Tsuna didn't think they did. He was too sleepy to care since he was feeling constantly tired lately. He barely noticed the lunch bell, but he forced himself to get up and felt a pool of dread in his gut as he realised he forgot to bring lunch. He'll just have to eat extra dinner tonight.

He went to the furthest corner of the playground where there was a dead tree with a hollow center. Tsuna was very small for his age and back when the bullies still liked to 'play' with him he used to crawl into the hole and stay there. Nobody ever noticed. He loved that tree because it was warm and continued to protect people even after it died. It was his sanctuary. Nevertheless he shivered slightly when a gust of wind blew by and got out reluctantly when the bell rang.

Tsuna was still tired after school, even though he slept all through science. By the time he got home the sun was going down and he was so tired he just went upstairs and collapsed on his bed. His last coherent thought was the little boy and he silently prayed he will find someone who loved him soon.

Tsuna woke up, feeling hungrier and more tired than ever. He was running late yet again and a piece of toast was on the table with a note from Nana saying Kojima-san wasn't feeling well enough to look after the baby. He dashed out into the street, fell over every five steps and got multiple bruises and scrapes in addition to his helping of tonfa. He fell asleep the moment he sat down, but not before feeling extremely depressed about not bringing lunch again.

Today was gym and game-of-the-day was baseball. The school's baseball star picked him to be on his team and despite their best efforts they still lost. The angry team members punished him by making him clean up the court. Yamamoto would have helped out but he was dragged away to prepare for the baseball game next week.

Tsuna fell asleep while looking for a broom and was woken by an extremely irritated prefect after school hours. Hibari was about to bite him to death, but decided to pity the guy for once and actually carried him home since Tsuna was in no condition to go back by himself. Tsuna thanked him and promised never to do that again while secretly wondering at the fact the bloodthirsty teen could actually feel sorry for someone.

He had not eaten for days.

Hibari was the first to notice something was wrong.

After carrying the herbivore back to his house (a prefect's still a prefect and he had to take care of the students somewhat. He would have gotten the other Disciplinary Committee members to do it but they were all in the hospital from a recent encounter with some yakuza.) He watched the boy for a while and discovered Sawada was constantly tired, almost always asleep and never ate lunch. He took an hour to walk home (it was only a twenty-minute walk) and Hibari was seriously contemplating not biting him for being late again since the herbivore looked like he was about to kick the bucket any second.

It was that worrying.

He hunted him down one lunch break.

"Lunch time is for consuming food, not hiding away like a pathetic little herbivore," he said. "Why are you not eating?"

Tsuna shuffled tiredly. "I-um, forgot my lunch. It's okay though, I'm not hungry." However, his stomach had other ideas and protested. Loudly. Hibari sighed.

"Here." He tossed him a rice ball.

Tsuna failed to catch. He scrambled out of the trunk and picked it up slowly, sighing in relief as the rice ball was wrapped in cling-film. He handed it back to Hibari.

"No," said the prefect. "Eat it."

Tsuna took a step backwards and looked at the rice ball apprehensively as if it was cooked in arsenic.

"You are not getting enough energy and thus you cannot concentrate in class. I do not tolerate herbivores that cannot even look after themselves properly."

"Um," said Tsuna, but un-wrapped the rice ball, sniffed it and promptly destroyed it while Hibari watched in morbid fascination.

The herbivore ate like a starved lion.

As Tsuna was about to finish the rice ball Hibari was curious to how this frail, timid boy could devour something like a wild animal and gave him another one. It was demolished within seconds. Hibari would have kept giving him more, but he was already down half his own lunch. As he turned away he noted the herbivore bowing at him and whispering a 'thank-you' before climbing back into the tree and did not show up for class in the afternoon. He let him off since he gave him an interesting sight to see.

Interesting, but also very worrying.

The next day Tsuna woke up feeling like death warmed over. He wobbled downstairs, saw the note from his mother, and couldn't eat the toast as he was already five minutes late. He sped down the street as fast as he could but still took another forty minutes to get to school. He already missed the first period, but thanked the heavens Hibari was apparently in a good mood today so he wouldn't end up being bitten to death.

Nezu-sensei called him a lot of degrading names but he was used to them all, so he just laid his head on his math textbook and fell asleep. He was getting weaker and weaker, and he didn't know why. Maybe he was ill?

At lunch Hibari left him a rice ball in his tree trunk, so he ate it quickly, curled up and fell asleep again. The day passed by like a blur and before he knew it he was on his way back home with another two failed tests. Kojima-san was at the front porch with her baby.

"Hello there Tsuna-kun," said Kojima-san, "Say hello to Nana-san for me. She was a great help last week."

Tsuna was confused. "Last week?"

"Yes," Kojima-san replied, bouncing the baby on her lap. "I don't know what I could have done without her."

Nana still wasn't home. 'Probably out shopping', thought Tsuna and went to bed. 'She's been really busy lately.'

One Sasagawa Ryohei was the next to notice there was something wrong.

One fine morning, the boxer woke up at five, ate his breakfast, and then went out for his morning run around town. As always he got a tad lost and only by hearing the sound of the nearby school's bell did he know he was going to be late.

As he ran in a random direction at an extremely fast pace, he failed to notice his surroundings and knocked over a boy a little younger than him.

"Oh, I am extremely sorry!" Cried Ryohei and lifted the boy up, "Are you okay?"

As the boy stood up with a noticeable tremor around the knees, Ryohei noted with a small sense of horror that the boy was extremely light for his age. Heck, Kyoko was heavier than him when she was ten.

"You look extremely ill," said Ryohei in a surprisingly normal tone of voice, since he knew from experience talking normally (read: yelling) hurts a lot when you have a headache. "You should go home and get some extreme rest."

"mm-fin," murmured the boy-Sawada, Ryohei noted- and staggered a couple steps. "I'm already failing my classes."

Normally Ryohei would have gushed at that extreme determination and ask the guy to join the boxing club, but he could barely walk. So the teen decided to add an extra bit of training, hoisted Sawada on to his shoulders, sped towards school, dropped him off at the nurse's office and went to his classes. Tanaka-san would take care of things.

He pushed the thought about Sawada's dangerously light weight to the back of his mind and battled with equations instead.

Although Hibari was the first to notice Tsuna's plight, Yamamoto actually subconsciously kept an eye on Tsuna from the very beginning.

Since kindergarten Yamamoto was in the same school as Tsuna. He always saw the way Tsuna was pushed and kicked around but Tsuna always did his best make Yamamoto feel better, lent him his crayons, offered to play tag and so on, even if Tsuna would be It permanently.

Then he got into baseball.

He barely had time for his homework, let alone some boy he barely knew; however in those seven years they knew each other they were never quite friends. As time went on he saw Tsuna's declining health and noticed the way his eyes drooped and heavy bags stretched under them. But he didn't know what to do and since Tsuna still managed to go to school every day he was probably fine. Though the rift in popularity drove them apart, Tsuna would offer to do his classroom duties if Yamamoto had baseball and he could tell everything Tsuna said, he meant.

But one day, he noticed.

He transferred from Italy and scared half of the Namimori shitless on his very first day. The other half undressed him with their eyes. Upon his arrival in Yamamoto's class, Gokudera Hayato was rather annoyed at the fact Tsuna was sleeping through his entrance and kicked his table over, terrorising the teacher and scaring the students thus reinforcing his delinquent image further if the sloppily-worn uniform, cigarette smoke, constant frown and large number of jewellery were anything to go by.

Tsuna didn't wake up.

Yamamoto was the first to go to Tsuna's side. He popped him back into his seat-he had fallen over with the table and Yamamoto finally saw how thin Tsuna was- and lifted the desk back upright. Then he picked up all of Tsuna's books, placed them neatly on the desk, as well as his pencils. Most of the pencil tips snapped so he sharpened them, zipped up the pencil case and told the teacher he was going to take Tsuna to the infirmary.

Gokudera went with him, if only to yell at Tsuna for being such a pussy.

He woke up in the afternoon, apologised the two of them for bothering someone as worthless as him and failed to stand up. Yamamoto knew where Tsuna lived, so he took both their bags and headed towards the Sawada residence.

But Nana wasn't there.

The house was the same as ever, but with noticeable differences. There was a thin layer of dust on every surface. A dry piece of toast on the table left untouched with a note on the side, hastily scribbled in in. The living room and kitchen looked exactly the same, save the dirty dishes.

As Tsuna fell asleep, Yamamoto called his dad to tell him he was looking after a pal and would be late coming home. He figured he could at least help out a bit. He didn't know why he was doing this, but he felt it was right to look after a sick person in his heart. He did his best, tidying and stashing things away, and then he came to Nana's room. The door was open, revealing a whirlwind of chaos.

Overturned drawers. Clothes crumpled on the floor. The shattered window, holes in the wall.

The blood stains.

Sawada Nana died a week ago.

Reborn came a little after Gokudera, as he was curious how Nana didn't contact him after seeing his tutor advertisement. He saw the broken window.

Nana would have repaired it by now.

He inspected the surroundings and smelt gunpowder.

This was not good.

He heard noises inside the house and was about to shoot when he saw a teenaged boy kneeling over the Decimo candidate with a wet towel and a bowl of icy water. There were another two near the window, one staring holes into the ceiling and the other sweeping the floor in an extreme fashion.

"He's sick," said Yamamoto Takeshi as he tucked Tsuna in. "He hasn't woken up for a while."

Hibari Kyoya handed Reborn the note from Nana and swept out of the room.

Sasagawa Ryohei went downstairs to fetch Kyoko's homemade porridge. She was worried since Tsuna's desk fell over in class and didn't wake up.

Reborn felt the beginnings of a migraine.

From that moment on, Iemitsu refused to see, hear, or feel anything about his no-good son. Reborn, in the knowledge that Yamamoto Tsuyoshi would look after Tsuna to the best of his abilities, paid Iemitsu a little visit with some high-calibre firearms.

"He is the Vongola Decimo, future boss of the Famiglia," said Reborn. "And your family. What use are you to the Famiglia when you can't even look after your own flesh and blood?"

Iemitsu ignored him. He broke a lot of bones.

How could they miss something as devastating as this?!

Reborn isn't one to give up easily but he knows a lost case when he sees it. So he flew back to Japan, called Gokudera over and explained the case to him. The police won't find about this, because if they did the Vongola would have a lot of unwanted questions, such as 'why will assassins target an innocent housewife'.

"His mother was killed right in front of him," Reborn explained as Tsuna was transferred to Namimori Central Hospital. "He's been living his days in an endless loop, not eating, barely conscious and refusing to believe she is dead. He's traumatised, his bastard of a father refuses to acknowledge his existence, and he has not one friend."

Gokudera immediately felt a stab of guilt enter his heart.

The brunet had gone into shock when Gokudera came hear him and recognised the smell of smoke. The smell of tobacco and fire and death. It was only a second, but it was enough to unlock the memories he was suppressing with what little strength he had and suddenly his mind was clouded with images soaked in an ugly red.

"Don't hurt Tsu-kun! Please!"

There was fighting. Gunshots.

"She'll sell for quite a profit."

"Kaa-san! Okaa-san!"

"Leave the boy. Probably just a bastard child of the CEDEF head."

It had hurt.

And everything hit him at once. Trauma, shock, malnutrition, sleep deprivation; it was enough to send him into a deep, dark abyss of despair, unable to get out.

"But those guys only take virgins. What should we do?"

"Kill her."

They knew what Tsuna had gone through. They knew what Gokudera's part in it was. But they understood. It was not something they could control.

Ryohei brought food. From baskets of fruit to home cooking, they were always the easiest on the stomach. They were offerings to someone with a will so extreme he could keep even memories at bay. Reborn taught him how to release a little of his sun flame and he held them close to Tsuna in the hopes they would help. Kyoko followed when she had time and brought some get-well cards from classmates who wanted their useless classmate back. At least with him around nobody else was last.

Hibari rarely visited since it was nearly the end of the school year and the students were overstepping their boundaries. He did, however, bring some rice balls via Kusakabe.

Yamamoto brought flowers. He too had lost a mother and knew it was not going to be easy. He had laid down his baseball bat; not for good, of course, but he needed to protect his family and someone who was sincere and trustworthy. He brought in flowers like heather and lavender since they smelled nice, and colourful lilies to brighten up the room. Tsuyoshi came along occasionally to play the part Iemitsu never took.

Gokudera changed the most.

When he looked at Sawada's pale yellow face, all he could see was his mother. Her weak, yet gentle smile on her lips when she guided his hands over the keys. And now that he is confronted with another weak, gentle person who needed help, he won't let go again. He was an asshole, but he was an asshole with a heart, dammit. 'If you feel remorse, then try to fix it.' Reborn ordered a grand fucking piano into Tsuna's spacious (Vongola-standard) hospital room along with several classic piano scores, pointed a nice sleek pistol from his CEDEF adventure at Gokudera's head and demanded him to play something and it had better be good.

He played his mother's favourites. Soft, melancholic melodies that once you immerse yourself into it you can't come out until it ends. Peaceful and harmonious, just like Gokudera himself used to be before everything changed. When he plays he is more like he used to be and he is more relaxed. Music was one thing he could offer, from one orphan to another. The other was cutting down to two cigarettes a week instead of the two packets.

He and Yamamoto came to a sort of silent understanding as they spent the most time with each other in Tsuna's hospital room. Gokudera would play something calm, soothing and light-hearted while Yamamoto talked about his day and replaced the flowers. Then when visiting hours were over Yamamoto would help Gokudera tidy up the music, arrange Tsuna's covers, and head out together.

Hibari came over to listen during the holidays.

"You play really well," Yamamoto would say. "How did you get so good?"

"I practised," said Gokudera as he absently fingered one of his cigarettes. "Stopped playing when I was eight. Got back into it recently."

"Hahaha, seems like we both gave up something important to us huh?" Laughed Yamamoto. "I just gave up baseball. My old man knows some sword techniques and it's pretty fun!"

"You'd think anything is fun," Spat Gokudera.

"I guess," said Yamamoto. "Life's kind of like an RPG isn't it? Like, you're the Player, your friends are the Party, everyone else are NPCs, and we battle with other players at tournaments and stuff! I think it's pretty cool, actually. Hey, maybe we're actually in an RPG. I wonder if we get treasure chests. It would be kind of bad if we just went into random houses and taking their stuff-"

"Stop talking before I start strangling you to death," Gokudera growled. He was starting anger management classes and he really didn't want to blow it. Thankfully no permanent damage was done and the two got back home in one piece.

His music unknowingly brought a girl named Nagi to Tsuna one night as she wandered the halls.

Reborn was a hitman. Hitmen do not need emotions.

But he did do the most. He hired top-of-the-line doctors and nurses, transferred Tsuna to the most comfortable room there was in Namimori Hospital, ordered a Grand Piano in so Gokudera wouldn't sulk, called in a favour Lal Mirch owed in the old days to shoot Iemitsu at least ten times a day, informed Nono about Tsuna's progress, made sure no assassins got within four miles radius of their location, organised a schedule for Tsuna when he woke up, and that's for after weekly meetings with a psychiatrist and an expert on Post Traumatic Disorder.

Within him, however, was a miniscule spark of pity.

No child should go through what he had, much less a boy of thirteen.

Such was the life of a Mafioso.

Nagi couldn't do much.

She snuck into the room after hearing some beautiful music, and saw a boy, just as sickly as she was, lying on a bed with several tubes attached to his body.

'He couldn't have played that', she thought. He's too sick. So was she. Her liver would shut down tomorrow and soon her intestines would be beyond repair. Neither of her parents would donate their organs to save their child. They wouldn't even pay the money for any organs. They didn't want her. She was going to die. She didn't notice Reborn behind the curtains, tipping his fedora and making a phone call. The next day Vongola Medical Association donated some organs 'for charity' to the hospital and Nagi was saved. She still needed time to get used to them, but she visited Tsuna every day after recovering from the operation. Her parents never came to visit, but she didn't care.

He was like her guardian angel, and if a hopeless case like her could get better, so could that sickly boy.

Lambo was found by Ryohei when he was jogging past the Sawada residence.

"Oi kid, what are you doing here?" Yelled Ryohei,"Nobody's in there!"

"But Lambo-sama needs to assassinate Reborn!" Lambo yelled back.

"I know a Reborn," said Ryohei and grabbed the cow-child. "Come on, I'll take you to him."

The next hour was filled with explosions, tears, Ten Year Later bazookas and a surprisingly emotional future Lambo.

"He was really nice to me," said future Lambo softly. "He was the brother I never had. I remember I was really happy when he took us to ice cream and there was the local carnival-"

He never got to finish the sentence as the five minutes were up and Lambo returned, sucking on a sweet. He saw Tsuna, pale and thin, nearly transparent skin after almost two weeks of no nutrition and suddenly burst into tears. "Why is the nice nii-san asleep?" He cried. "He was awake and gave me grape candy. Nobody else was that nice or gave me grape candy. How does nii-san know Lambo's favourite candy? Why won't he wake up? Lambo wants more grape candy! Lambo wants the nice nii-san to wake up! Lambo doesn't want the nice nii-san to be sick!"

Reborn noted Lambo's future self was wearing the Lightning Vongola ring and the current Lambo was so upset he even forgot to tack the '–sama' on the end of his name. Tsuna must have been a really understanding person.

God he needed a drink.

Reborn had decided that those six children would be Tsuna's guardians. He could feel flickers of flame from each of them and Ryohei had already unlocked his, which made things infinitely easier. The main problem was for Tsuna to get over Nana's death and trust his guardians, which is difficult because one was oblivious, one had a temper, one was just stupid, one was anti-social as hell, one was obnoxious and the last had serious depression. To make matters worse, Tsuna barely knew half of them.

Then there was the issue of Iemitsu abandoning his son.

Reborn 'borrowed' Lambo's Ten Year Bazooka and fired it at himself. Tsuna woke up sometime in the future and he had to see what kind of man his student would become. It was an interesting sight.

Lambo was on the floor with Nagi, Fon's apprentice and Fuuta de la Stella playing a card game. They were betting on candies and Lambo was losing. Hibari was perched on the windowsill, looking over the gardens. A man with a pineapple hairstyle whom Reborn was sure he had seen somewhere before was scribbling away at some paperwork and glaring unhappily at the three on the floor. Gokudera was attempting to teach Ryohei chess with little progress. Yamamoto stood behind the bomber with an amused face and kept him from killing everyone in the room.

And in the midst of it all, Tsuna sat with a content smile on his face, sipping at a cup of coffee and looked every bit as radiant and compassionate future Lambo said he would be. Then the time was up and Reborn returned to the present with a puff of smoke.

They would be alright. They had to be.