Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

I'm hungry, I thought as I watched Tsuna fall down the stairs for the umpteenth time. It was a wonder how he hadn't gotten brain damage yet. I absentmindedly helped him up, then went into the kitchen, greeted Nana, and sat down at the wooden table, which was covered in Sawada Nana's famously delicious home cooked meals. As I shovelled the food into my mouth, I watched Tsuna wander in as well, rubbing a growing lump on his head, from the corner of my eye. My supposed twin brother greeted our mother, blinking blearily, then also sat down at the table. This was our happy little family, a mother, a son, and his twin sister.

Except I wasn't, not really. I wasn't supposed to be here. Not in this crazy, mafia and supernatural power filled world! Where had my normal life gone?! I was a normal person, who was just a little bit anti-social and liked spending an unhealthy amount of time on the internet, but who didn't, these days?! How the hell had I ended up in here, and as the goddamn main character's twin sister to boot?!

Tsuna watched a little fearfully as I began spearing and chomping my meat with way more force than was necessary.

"Um, nee-chan," he said tentatively, flinching a little when I forcefully stabbed the meat one last time, and glared up at him, "Y-You're going to b-break the plate if you continue doing that."

I loosened my grip on my fork and slumped in my seat a little.

"You're right. Sorry," I muttered, not very sorry at all. I quickly ate what remained of my mauled breakfast and placed the plate and cutlery in the sink, grabbed my bag, waved Nana goodbye, and then rushed to school, not wanting to be late or meet with Hibari. As I ran past the gate, something occurred to me, and I backpedaled frantically. Call it the famous inherited Vongola intuition (the only reason I didn't complain about being Tsuna's twin more, it was going to be damn handy), or just paranoia (I had been doing this every morning anyways), I had a feeling, that accursed flyer, the one that started poor, unfortunate Tsuna's crazy adventures and tor-training, would be coming today. Nana hadn't said anything at during breakfast, so I guessed it either hadn't come yet, or this was the mangaverse.

With some trepidation, I reached out to open the mail slot... There it was. A flyer, that would have looked perfectly innocent to anyone else, but for my poor, unfortunate brother, meant the start of his tor-trai - wait. I was his sister. Histwin sister no less. Did that mean I had to go through it all as well?

Nope, nope, nope. Can't make me. I refuse to get involved any further. Tsuna, my dear, sweet, amazing brother. Please, let your protection complex awaken a little earlier, and save me from being a candidate. Shitty dad, please have stuck with your gender roles and convinced Nono that his dear sweet delicate-as-her-mother daughter couldn'tpossibly become the boss of one of the bloodiest organisations in the world. Please, please, please, I begged whatever otherworldly being out there that was listening, let it all be loaded onto my brother and have Reborn leave me the fuck alone!

I knew this was definitely the mangaverse now. Tsuna would come home in the middle of school, Nana would scold him for doing so, and Reborn would come. I was so glad I had after-school activities, it would hopefully save me from meeting Reborn until much, much later, if I had it my way. I would also have to start leaving the house a lot earlier, and come back a lot later. What would I do in my time outside my house though... I might as well train, in case I ever got caught. And keep away from areas that had sounds of gunfire and terrified girly screams. I nodded to myself as I ran to school. Yes. That would be my plan. It was also time to start practicing my oblivious act. I was a pretty damn good liar, if I may say so myself, but who knew if it would fool Reborn. I briefly wondered if I was a Mary-Sue. It had never occurred to me before, but I did have pretty good grades, even without trying, and aced everything when I actually tried. Also, I got confessed to a lot.

Oh.

Normally, I'd curl up into a ball and cry, but today, I was slightly grateful. If I was a Mary-Sue, lying successfully to even Reborn would be possible, right? Right? Besides, my oblivious act had been honed and sharpened by the many confessions I got. Please go out with me? I tilted my head and said, Go out where? I really like you? I smiled and said, Let's be friends then! Please be my girlfriend? I blinked and asked, Aren't we already friends?

Ah, it was cruel, but also so satisfying to my true sadistic nature. No-one suspected either. My innocent and oblivious demeanor could rival Kyoko's. Speaking of her, we had become good friends, despite my resolve to not get involved. She was just too genuinely innocent and nice, and besides, it would draw too much attention if one of the school 'idols' clearly avoided the other. Yamamoto, however, I could get away with avoiding. Hibari too. Ryohei was a little harder, being Kyoko's brother. But I had done enough, hopefully, to not be dragged in.

I rushed past the gates, into the building, and swept into my classroom a moment later, dumping my bag on the desk behind Kyoko's. I started my day by launching into a conversation with the orange-haired idol and her snarky dark-haired friend, all the while planning to avoid the Mafia for the rest of my life.

Of couse, I failed.

Chapter Text

The bell signalled the end of the school day, and I stretched my arms up and back to get rid of any stiffness in my body. True to the manga, Tsuna had left school in the middle, leaving me to pick up his homework. My brother was probably reading manga right now. He would be introduced to Reborn later, a little before dinner. I planned to have a little talk with Tsuna and make myself scarce before then.

I bid goodbye to my friends who still hung around, exchanged my shoes, and exited the school, planning the little speech I would give to Tsuna to manipulate him into thinking that it was his duty to make sure his precious twin sister would never get involved in anything dangerous such as, oh I don't know, the mafia.

I mentally cackled to myself in glee, and a maniacal grin unconsciously spread itself across my face. Somehow, the prospect of manipulating someone was just so exciting. A mother pushing her child in a stroller took one look and immediately moved to the other side of the street. When I noticed, I quickly schooled my face back into a carefree, air-headed expression. Kyoko mode: On.

I hope Reborn didn't see that.

I could feel Reborn watching me from somewhere, probably a tree, and wondered for how long I could postpone our meeting. As a consequence of acting too air-headed, I walked into a pole.

Shit. I hope he didn't see that either.

Oh who was I kidding, he definitely saw that, along with everyone else on the street, as evidenced by their strange looks directed at me. Well, that was embarrassing. Hopefully it would convince Reborn that I was just a normal, ditzy, walking-into-poles girl, who knew absolutely nothing about the Mafia, Flames, or my brother being a Vongola Decimo candidate.

I reached home, running my fingers across the nameplate, and skipped up to the front door like the ditz I was pretending to be. For a moment I wondered if I was laying it on a little too thick, but then pushed the thought to the back of my mind as I opened the door and announced to the house that I was home.

Nana welcomed me back from the living room, and a muffled greeting came from Tsuna's room, which I bounded up the stairs towards. It was time to start Operation: Keep Me Out Of The Freaking Mafia.

I finished my bullshit speech of duty and protection, and could see Tsuna's weak resolve strengthening as he became determined to do whatever it would take to protect me in the future. He really was too adorable sometimes, I thought, as I resisted the urge to squeal and glomp him. I had inevitably grown fond of him during our years together; I still had no qualms about throwing him into the deep end though.

Barely holding back a smirk, I kissed him on the cheek and told him I was leaving the house for a while, and to tell mum if she asked. He looked at me, slightly concerned, but before he could offer to come with me, I leapt to my feet and was out of his room in a flash, running back to my own room to change. Once I had changed out of my uniform, I walked out of the house again and to the nearby woods.

Concentrating on my surroundings for a minute or so, I confirmed that there was no one around to witness and be blinded by my awesome (read: fail) training. I wondered if I would be able to summon flames without a ring or any other sort of medium. I had never really seen many people in the actual series do it, but hey - I was probably a Mary-Sue, I could do anything, even summon flames with a half-assed will, right?

Fifteen minutes later, I was on my way to the library. I could, and did summon flames with a half-assed will, and confirmed that I was a indeed Mary-Sue. I even had all the bloody flames. All of them. If that didn't make me a little miss speshul snowflake, I don't know what did. The fact annoyed me, so now I was heading to the library in order to smother and drown my irritation in the smell of paper and pool of words.

I arrived at the still open public library and smiled. Nothing like a comfy sofa and a few books to soothe the soul. I ran my fingers across the bookshelves and scanned the titles with my eyes, hoping to find an interesting read and not something that shouldn't be there. At the rate things were going though, I honestly would not be surprised if I suddenly found a book dictating the misadventures and adventures of Sawada Tsunayoshi and co.

I found a book dictating the misadventures and adventures of Sawada Tsunayoshi and co.

A librarian found me at closing time, banging my head against the surface of the table at which I sat at.

I got over it though. There were worse things in life than being overly perfect and discovering a book that told the future. Such as being told that either you or your twin sister would become the tenth boss of the most powerful mafia family right after you swore to yourself to keep her out of similar situations. Or confessing to your crush in only your underwear in front of everyone. Or gaining a sadistic baby hitman as a live-in tutor. Or being challenged to a rigged fight by the Kendo club captain. I could go on forever. Incidentally, these hypothetical situations were ones that Tsuna had experienced or would.

Yeah, there were worse things in life.

I cheered Tsuna on as he tore out Mochida's hair. It really was a sight to see, a half-naked boy straddling another wearing full kendo armour and tearing his hair out. The whole gym was awash with laughter, not at Tsuna for once, but at his opponent.

Afterwards, I saw him practically bursting with happiness when Kyoko congratulated him, and chuckled, feeling happy for him. I ran towards him and tackled him, whooping.

"You did it, bro! You actually won!" I put him in a headlock and gave him a noogie, not caring that it was out of character. I was just really happy for him. This was the point where he would start to gain more self-worth. Tsuna flushed and started struggling to get out of my grip.

"Nee-chan, you saw that?" He sounded incredibly embarrassed.

"Heh, damn right I did! Are you embarrassed?" I grinned some more, still not letting him out from the headlock. "Don't be! Those puns were pretty nice!"

"Um, t-thank you?" he said, not entirely sure how to respond. "Can you let go of me now?"

"Hmm..." I pretended to think about it, "No."

I dragged him along with me as I retrieved my bag from the sidelines, and then waved to everyone in the gym.

"Goodbye, everyone. Hope you enjoyed today's show!" The smile I had on radiated innocence, contrasting with the tight grip I had on the boy under my arm. "We'll see you all tomorrow then!"

I bowed and left the gym, still dragging the protesting future mafia boss along.

Chapter Text

On the day of the volleyball tournament, I decided not to attend the match. Sure, it would have been entertaining to see Tsuna's manhood get crushed, except that only happened in the anime, and I was currently in mangaverse. Tsk. What a shame. That would certainly have made beautiful blackmail material. On the other hand, the loyal puppy would be coming soon. And he would be dear Tsuna's first real friend.

But first, Tsuna would have to survive all the dynamite being thrown at him. I wondered if I could find a nice vantage point to watch the show, while still avoiding Reborn (I'd have to face him sooner or later, I knew, but I'd rather it was later). Hey, just because I didn't want to interfere with the storyline anymore than I already had, it didn't mean I didn't want to watch it. I was already here in this world, so I might as well enjoy my stay, right?

The future puppy was here, standing in front of the class. I couldn't blame the girls around me for swooning; the guy was hot, with his celadon green eyes and 'bad boy' attitude. I wondered for a few seconds whether I should pretend to (or actually) swoon as well, but in the end, I just followed Kyoko's example and settled for smiling happily while resting my head on top of my folded arms. This position also hid me pretty well from his line of sight, Kyoko in front shielding me.

I didn't know if he had been told about me, but I didn't want to risk him kicking down my desk as well, for fear that it would bring him unwanted attention from the student populace for ill intention towards one of their 'idols'. They were ridiculously loyal in that way. In any other situation, I would be gathering the masses together to create my evil world dominating army, but alas, I couldn't, as that would draw to much attention. Plus, dominating and ruling the world took true dedication and effort, which I didn't have.

Tsuna glanced at Kyoko, worried that she might be falling for the transfer student, then glanced at me. I smiled obliviously at him, and watched as he relaxed visibly. I felt mildly insulted though. We had spent our whole lives together, he had glimpsed my true personality, and should've known I wouldn't fall so easily. Still, his worry was endearing.

As Gokudera kicked Tsuna's desk down, I buried my face in my folded arms, hearing Tsuna's yelp and the whispers sounding around the classroom. I couldn't wait until the fight.

After classes ended, I rushed up the rooftop and found a spot from which I could see everthing and hide myself from view. I counted on the Mary-Sueness to keep Reborn from noticing me. To be honest, it wasn't even Mary-Sueness anymore. It was more over-poweredness than over-perfectness. And Mary-Sueness was really too long, and it didn't sound nice. I nodded to myself. From now, I would be referring to it as OPness.

I was so absorbed in musing over the pros and cons of Mary-Sueness and OPness, that I forgot why I was hiding away in the first place. An explosion followed by a high-pitched scream brought me back to reality. I watched, amused, as Tsuna desperately ran away only to end up facing a dead end. Then Reborn shot him, his clothes burst off, and he ran around madly in his boxers yelling, "Defuse!" and doing just that. It had already been plenty ridiculous when I had been watching it in the anime, but seeing it in person was even better.

Shaking with barely contained laughter, I lifted a camera and silently took pictures. They wouldn't do much good as blackmail as I never intended to involve myself further in the storyline, and by extension, the Mafia, but they sure as hell would cheer me up on an off day.

The battle ended, with no real differences from the manga, and I breathed a sigh of relief. That was good. My dear twin brother had gained a loyal friend and subordinate. I looked on as Gokudera chased off the upperclassmen with a satisfied smile. But then Reborn looked straight up at me.

I flinched back, not expecting it, and wondered why the hell I hadn't used mist flames to disguise myself instead of relying on a flimsy hiding spot. But after a moment, the arcobaleno turned away again, seeming to find nothing wrong. But I knew better than to think that the baby had dismissed it. He had probably sent one of his insect/bug/whatever spies up here in order to see whoever was hiding up here.

Smart baby. But I was smart too. I wove an illusion with mist flames and absconded. Hopefully that would draw him off my trail. And if it didn't... I was just going to have to be more careful.

The next day in class, our science test results were being handed back. I sent a pitying look at my brother as I went up to receive my marked test. His results were next, and with it, humiliation. I held my tongue as the bastard of a teacher verbally beat down Tsuna with his 'hypothetical' situations, but discretely sent him a murderous glare, clutching my paper in a death grip and repeating Lambo's catchphrase in my head like a mantra.

To... ler... ate...

Then a bang sounded throughout the classroom as Gokudera slammed open the classroom door. Nezu-sensei tried to berate him, but was silenced with his glare. No longer grinding my teeth in anger, I watched, amused, as Gokudera's personality turned from lone wolf to puppy dog and then back again in a matter of seconds.

Tsuna looked like he wanted the ground to swallow him up. I thought the whole thing was hilarious and fought to hold back my giggles.

Later, explosions would rock the school, and a massive fault line would open up in the ground. Then Nezu-sensei would get his comeuppance as he was fired and the boys would be safe from expulsion. For now, though, I just watched along with the rest of the class as Gokudera scared the living shit out of the teacher and pushed Tsuna beyond mortification.

Chapter Text

I caught an cold. A freaking cold. Seriously. All I did was fall into the river accidently during one of my afterschool 'avoid Reborn' sessions and today I was laid up in bed with what felt like a ridiculously high fever. There was no way I could avoid Reborn today. And after managing to evade him for so long he would be curious.

Time to face the metaphorical music.

I dragged myself out of bed and stumbled down the stairs, managing not to fall, and cursed my throbbing head. Tsuna and Reborn were already at the table, eating. (Or trying to get his food back, in Tsuna's case)

"G'mornin'," I groggily greeted the other three occupants of the room.

Nana cheerfully turned from her cooking to return the greeting, but gasped when she saw how horrible I looked.

"Dear, what happened to you?" She rushed over and helped me over to my seat at the table. "Tsuna, go get the medicine."

As Tsuna complied, glancing at me with concern, I answered Nana's question.

"I fell," I stopped to cough, "into the river last night. That's why I was soaking wet when I came home."

Nana tsked.

"I do wish you wouldn't stay out so late." She perked up, remembering something. "Ah, Reborn, you've never been introduced, have you?"

She turned to Reborn. "Reborn, this is my daughter. My son and her are twins, as you can see."

I could feel the baby scrutinizing me. I raised a hand in greeting, mouth stuffed with breakfast. "Yo."

Nana turned back to me. "Don't talk with your mouth full. And this is Reborn, Tsuna's new tutor. You may not know because you've been leaving early in the morning and returning late at night these past few days, but he lives here with us, tutoring your brother in exchange for food and board."

Reborn nodded to me. "Ciaossu."

I feigned surprise and said, "A baby as tutor? That's a new one."

Tsuna returned, miraculously without tripping, with the medicine in his hands. He placed two capsules on a tissue and poured a glass of water, then placed it all down in front of me to take after I had finished my breakfast.

"Nee-chan, you shouldn't stay out so late. What were you doing anyways?"

"Oh, you know, a little bit of this, a little bit of that. Nothing life-threatening." I waved my hand at him dismissively. "And don't worry, I won't be staying out so late anymore. Speaking of late," I said, while glancing at the clock hanging on the wall above the doorway, "Shouldn't you be getting to school now?"

Tsuna also looked at the clock, and shrieked. "HIE! I'm going to be late!"

He started rushing around and tripping over his own feet, gathering his school supplies. When he was done, he hugged me goodbye, said, "Get better quicly, nee-chan," then rushed out the front door, Reborn hopping onto his shoulder and ordering him to run faster. Tsuna complained, and got whacked on the head for his troubles. Nana looked after them, almost wistfully.

"They're so lively," she commented, picking up my finished plate and putting it in the sink to wash later, "It makes you kind of jealous, doesn't it?"

I nodded in agreement while swallowing the medicine, even though I didn't envy Tsuna at all for being forced to become a mafia boss. Nana told me to stay in bed and rest for the day, so I trudged up the stairs to my room and promptly conked out on my bed.

I learnt later that I had missed Yamamoto's suicide attempt, and was suddenly very glad that I had caught that cold.

Kyoko came over the next day. Tsuna was on cloud nine when he saw her. I, on the other hand, was still sick, and therefore grumpy and unable to be as cheerful as I usually acted at school.

Kyoko was pleasantly surprised when she found out this was where I lived.

"Ah, hello!" she greeted me cheerfully. "I didn't know you two lived here."

I stared at her for a moment, before saying, "Hello to you too, Miss Sparkles. What the hell you doin' here."

"Nee-chan!" Tsuna was horrified, and quickly tried to explain my grouchy behaviour to his crush. "I'm sorry, she's just really sick today and isn't dealing with her headache all that well."

Kyoko waved her hands around. "Ah, no, that's fine! I can see that she's not in the best condition today."

"Stop talking 'bout me like I-" A fit of coughs racked my body before I could finish my sentence. Kyoko patted my back, while Tsuna got me a glass of water from the kitchen.

I reached for the cup and greedily gulped the cool, sweet water down, before wiping the stray drops away from my mouth and saying in a business tone, "Right, so what did you come here for, Kyoko-chan? You didn't know I lived here, so I doubt it was to wish me better."

Before Kyoko answer though, Reborn - that tiny fedora wearing terror - suddenly appeared and kicked Tsuna in the head.

"She came here because I asked her to." He announced, then proceeded drag a complaining Tsuna up the stairs and into his room. Kyoko and I followed.

I fell half-asleep as Reborn explained everything and Nana came in to deliver tea and tease Kyoko and Tsuna. I would have fallen asleep completely, except something - my intuition? - was nagging me, making me unable to drift off into la-la-land. It wasn't until I heard the words, "Russian Roulette." that I realized.

Oh. Nope. Nopenopenope. Just, no. Imma get outta here rightaway.

I stood up suddenly, startling Tsuna and Kyoko. Reborn just looked at me impassively.

"Like hell I'm playing that. Do whatever the fuck you want, but I am gone."

I walked straight out of the room, not caring about the stares I got. When I got to my room I collapsed on the bed and curled up, tightly holding one of the many pillows on it. That was way too close. I felt like sleeping and never waking up again. So I attempted to do just that. I was so dead to the world, not even the explosions and panicked screams and shrieks of my brother could wake me up.

Chapter Text

It was the weekend. I woke up to the sound of explosions and a certain Bovino Mafioso yelling, "Die, Reborn!"

Nope.

I went back to sleep.

I woke up again, having slept the whole day away. My empty stomach growled, forcing me to take action and get some food from downstairs. I almost tripped on the stairs, but managed to save myself from doing a Tsuna just in time. A soft explosion sounded from below, but I ignored it in favour of the idea of sating my hunger.

"Oi, Tsuna," I said as I took a step inside the kitchen, "Wh-"

I stopped short at the scene in front of me. A ten years later Lambo was clutching his horns to the side of his head, glaring at an impassive Reborn, with Tsuna in the background looking horrified.

I turned around and stepped right back out.

Then went back in, took my plate of food and cutlery, then stepped back out again, waving the cutlery dismissively in my hand, saying, "I honestly don't give a shit. Continue on."

A moment of silence reigned in the room I had just exited, before the yelling and general mayhem started up again.

I pretended I was deaf and ate in my room.

It was a school day, and I was well enough to go back to that wonderful paradise of learning and education. I left early to avoid walking with Tsuna, and reached school way before it started. I still had plenty of time before classes started, so I decided to go over what I had dubbed, 'The Book'. The Book being the 'written or printed work consisting of pages glued or sewn together along one side and bound in covers' (according to Google) that I found in the library (but didn't belong to the library, so I just took it), and which told the story of the world I was living in now. I had put off reading it, but now seemed like a good time to see what had changed and what would happen. I spent the entire time before classes reading it.

School itself was normal, and nothing much happened (if you didn't count the time where Hana and I almost cracked the skull of the guy making Kyoko uncomfortable with his shameless and unwanted flirting).

After school, in the courtyard, pointy objects had been thrown, bullets were being shot, explosions were going off, and Tsuna and Yamamoto were running for their lives, the latter having fun while doing so.

I had stopped on the sidelines, watching the chaos with a blank face. Tsuna turned and paled when he saw me.

"Nee-chan!"

The chaos was paused, and everyone turned to look at me. Reborn spoke up.

"Do you want to do the test too?"

Tsuna hastily turned to him. "What?! I-"

"Fuck no."

I turned and headed for the school gates, not caring what reactions I got.

I watched as a beautiful woman with rosette hair exited my house. Inside, a hysterical Tsuna was complaining to Reborn.

Ah. Bianchi's arrived.

I decided to pretend I didn't live there and walked past the gate, not giving the property a second glance.

"We'll give the rice balls we made in home economics class today," the girls in my class cheerfully said, "to you boys!"

The boys cheered. "Whoo!"

Ah. This was the scene where Bianchi would swap Kyoko's rice balls with poisoned ones, and Tsuna would get shot and eat all the rice balls in the room. I wondered if I'd be able to stop him from eating mine.

I watched as Kyoko offered hers to Tsuna, somehow not noticing that they'd been replaced, and Tsuna panicking when his friends picked them up and yelling, "If you eat it, you'll die!" while smacking the poisonous rice balls out of the two significantly taller boy's hands. Gokudera, Yamamoto, and Kyoko stared at him in surprise.

Then Tsuna was shot and went on a mad eating spree. I somehow managed to not laugh and keep mine from being devoured at the same time, like, 'Nah, bro, you ain't gettin' this.' People looked on, speechless, as I skilfully and gracefully evaded his attempts. Then the five minutes were over and Tsuna was back to normal again, left embarrassed in only his underwear.

I kept a carefully blank face and handed him a spare uniform, which he gratefully changed into.

"U-um, nee-chan," he tried, "Do you-?"

"I have no idea what happened," I interrupted, even though I knew perfectly well what had just gone down, "And I have a feeling that I don't want an idea."

Tsuna looked grateful that he had such an awesome and understanding sister, but then looked confused when I shoved my rice balls in front of his face. I explained.

"I managed to keep you from devouring these when you went completely crazy," at this he blushed, "But now that you're back, I'd like you to have these."

I smirked as he tried to stammer out a response, and ruffled his hair, much to his protest. He really was too adorable sometimes.

"You can share them with your friends too."

He thanked me, still red, and went back to his friends, who congratulated him on something he had no clue about. They looked at me when he offered them my rice balls, and I gave them a small wave and a friendly smile. Yamamoto smiled at me in thanks, while Gokudera just nodded.

I smiled again, this time to myself. All things considered, today was a good day.

(It became even better when their faces turned red and they rushed for their water bottles, greedily gulping the water down in an attempt to soothe their burning tongues. I snickered quietly to myself, and smiled innocently in response to the glares that were sent my way. I wasn't that nice. They knew that now.)

Chapter Text

It was a hot day. A really hot day. I was drowning in the heat, dust swirling around my legs with every step like the greedy tentacles of a deep sea monster, threatening to drag me down further into the sea of hot, humid air. The blistering heat had the plants wilted and begging for relief in the form of water, and people driven into their air conditioned homes for fear of becoming another withered casualty. It had already claimed a victim: my mind, turning it into a mushy soup only capable of producing half-poetic... stuff. And also rendering me unable to find a better word than 'stuff', apparently.

"Ugh..." I wiped my forehead of sweat and groaned, wondering why the fuck I had gone outside.

That's right: my intuition. The famous (-ly annoying) Vongola intuition had been nagging my mind in the same manner it always did when something related to the storyline was going to happen. At this point, I couldn't and didn't care anymore. I just wanted to go back home and into shade to escape from the thick, choking heat.

As I dragged myself back home from the shopping district, I contemplated the meaning of life and several other stupid ideas, the ridiculous thoughts no doubt caused by the ridiculously high temperature. I groaned again.

When I arrived back home, and stepped through the front door into the shelter of the house, I saw Bianchi cooking in the kitchen.

Oh.

So that was why I'd had that feeling. Before I could escape to the air-conditioned ignorance and bliss of my room, however, she turned around.

"Oh? You're ba-"

She frowned, before what looked like recognition flashed across her face.

"Ah. You're Sawada Tsunayoshi's twin sister, are you not?"

I eyed her warily, but to keep up appearances, said, "Yes, I am. Who are you?"

Bianchi looked me up and down, for reasons I couldn't tell.

"I am Bianchi. I will be your brother's tutor in home economics and art. Would you like a snack?" She offered me a plate of what she had just made.

The purple creepy-crawly infested dish with toxic black fumes rising from it was clearly poisoned, and would kill any normal person in three - no, two - seconds flat. Tsuna was frozen on the bottom steps of the stairs connecting the two floors, his face screaming at me to refuse. I weighed the benefits of eating it (yes, benefits) against my self-preservation and shrugged.

"Sure. Why not?"

Tsuna nearly fainted.

I took the plate from the surprised rosette's hands and ate what was on it. It tasted as horrible as it looked and smelled, but I survived. Looks like I wasn't a normal person after all. Bianchi's mouth hung open.

"B-But, how?" she gasped.

I scraped the last crumbs from the plate into my mouth with the fork, swallowed, then slammed the plate down on the table.

"The power," I said seriously, looking her straight in the eye, "Of love."

She gaped at me for a moment more, before running forward and hugging me tightly, muttering something about 'understanding at such a young age' and 'I have found a true comrade!'. I patted her on the back, then thumbs-upped at Tsuna, whose jaw had dropped and looked on the verge of falling off.

Later, as she smashed her lethal cake into Adult Lambo's face, I slurped the noodles I had made with my new friend.

I was walking with Tsuna to school today, against the warnings of my intuition, just to be contrary. It nagged me nearly non-stop these days, so I felt inclined to prove to it that nothing would happen. Unfortunately, my intuition was always right. Stupid thing.

Yesterday, Tsuna had arrived at school with a slap mark and bruise on his face. That alone should have told me everything. But the heat had addled my mind and made me even more irritable than usual, and that, coupled with the morons at school at whom I was forced to smile, created the need for me to lash out at something, even if that something was a part of myself.

As Tsuna freaked out over Haru challenging him, I sighed and face-palmed.

Goddamnit.

"Nee-chan!"

I could hear Tsuna looking around frantically and panicking when he couldn't find me.

"Eh?! Where'd you- HIE!"

His shriek was accompanied by the sound of a hockey stick smashing onto concrete. More thuds and shrieks followed. Then I heard Gokudera's voice yelling profanities and for Tsuna to get behind him, an explosion rocking the bridge a moment later.

Haru splashed into the water, her ridiculous and heavy armour dragging her down. Tsuna was shot, saved her, and we all moved onto the riverbank. When the brunette proclaimed her newfound love for Tsuna, I decided to step in.

"Good job."

Tsuna whirled around.

"Nee-chan! Where were you?"

"Hiding."

"...Where?"

"Under the bridge."

"What?!"

Haru jumped over to me.

"You're Tsuna-san's sister?"

I nodded.

"I'm Haru! Can I be your future sister-in-law?" she asked. ("Don't you dare!")

I looked her over once and shrugged.

"Why not?" ("Nee-chan!")

"Yay!" Haru cheered, "We got approval, Tsuna-san!" ("How could you! You traitor!")

She started chasing him around again, demanding a hug. I leant towards Gokudera and whispered, "I'm never accepting that girl as my sister-in-law."

"...Those rice balls were really spicy."

"You're still sore about that? How childish." I scoffed.

"Why, you-!"

"Gokudera-kun! Don't!"

"Tch."

"Heh."

I smirked as he glared at me. My need to piss someone off had been fulfilled.

Chapter Text

A hot night followed the hot day, and I stayed sprawled out face-down on my bed, enjoying the feel of artificially cooled air against my back. In the room next to mine, my brother was probably pouring over the homework he had received from his extra classes with his friends. I would offer to help them, if it wasn't a part of the story and didn't take me away from the air-conditioned bliss of my room.

Music was pumping through the space, rendering me unable to hear anything, including the knocking on the bedroom door. Whoever was knocking must have gotten impatient, and opened the door.

They promptly stumbled back as the full volume of my music hit them. My head was still buried in the pillows so I didn't know what had just transpired. It was only when my music was abruptly switched off that I deigned to lift my head and give attention to whatever was happening.

"Goddamnit, woman! Don't play your damn music so loud!"

I slumped my head back in my pillows and mumbled, "Close the door, you're letting the hot air in, moron."

"Who are you calling a moron?!"

"Gokudera-kun, calm down. We're here to ask nee-chan a favour, remember?"

"Tch."

"Um, nee-chan?"

I sighed, and turned over to face them.

"Yes, Tsuna, what is it?"

Tsuna was rubbing the back of his head sheepishly.

"We, uh, we really need your help on this one question."

I sighed again, and dragged myself off the bed. Then I draped myself over Gokudera's shoulders, much to his irritation.

"Get off me, woman!"

"No can do, moron. Tsuna's too short to carry me, and you're the only other one here."

"Gokudera, just go along with it." Tsuna pleaded. "Please?"

Gokudera was clearly fuming, but said, "Tch, fine. But only for you, Juudaime."

We made our way out of the winter wonderland that was my room and into the sweltering hell that was Tsuna's. When we had successfully entered the room, Gokudera shoved me off him and I flopped down onto Yamamoto.

"Now, now, you shouldn't treat women so roughly, Gokudera-kun."

"Yeah, Gokudera-kun."

"Why does it sound so insulting when you say it?!"

Tsuna tried to defuse the situation before it blew up even more.

"Nee-chan!" he said, trying to turn my attention to him, "Do you know the answer to question 7?"

He tried to hand me the sheet. I sat up, cross-legged, and held up four fingers.

"Payment."

"Eh? Four? Four what? Forty thousand? You want forty thousand yen?" asked Tsuna in disbelief.

"That would be nice, yes."

Gokudera snapped and growled at me.

Pointing, he yelled, "Forget it, woman! Keep your answers, we'll figure it out ourselves!"

I gave him a strange look, but shrugged, and said, "Fine by me. I'll leave you to it then."

I lay down on the floor and rolled under Tsuna's bed. The other occupants of the room stared after me.

"Nee-chan," inquired Tsuna, after a moment, "What are you doing?"

"Looking for porn."

"What?!"

Sticking my head out from under the bed, I huffed in disappointment.

"Not to say I didn't expect it, but there's absolutely nothing under here except for a few dust bunnies. Are you sure you're a boy going into puberty? I'm sure Mum gives you enough to buy a few magazines here and there."

"Woman, are you suggesting Juudaime isn't manly?!"

"You said it, not me."

"You-!"

Yamamoto held Gokudera back from stomping my face into the ground, as a mortified Tsuna buried his face in his hands.

"Calm down, Gokudera-kun. I'm sure she was just teasing. Let's get back to work now, shall we?"

Gokudera was still seething, but sat back down to do work. I entertained the idea of enraging him once more by casually pointing out how willing he was to listen to Yamamoto's words, but decided the story had waited long enough and ducked back under the bed, intending to spend the entire study session there.

Haru arrived, Bianchi passed, and finally Haru's mathematics' professor father came to help. His answer was wrong. Reborn spoke up.

"No, that's wrong. Nee-tan had the right answer."

Oh look, he's adopted me.

"Eh? What do you mean, Reborn-san? She didn't even read the question."

"You'll see."

Looks like I had no choice. I re-entered the study session by poking my head out from under the bed and surprising the Miuras.

"Yo."

"Hahi! Onee-san, what are you doing under there?"

"Looking for-"

"Nee-chan! Just please tell us the answer to the question!" begged Tsuna.

"Fine." I huffed, and held up four fingers. Gokudera blew up at me again.

"We're not going to give you forty-!"

"No, dimwit, the answer is four."

I turned to Haru's father.

"You made a mistake on the foxtail formula."

The man peered more closely at the question, obviously redoing his mental calculations. He blinked, surprised.

"You're right! But," he frowned, "How did you know the answer, if you hadn't even read the question?"

I withdrew back under the bed, leaving just my eyes visible.

"I know everything." I whispered in an eerie voice. Everyone just stared at me. I sighed, and pointed up at Reborn's hammock.

"Just look at his sideburns already."

The mathematics professor did so, and his eyes lit up in recognition and hero-worship.

"Boreen-hakase!" He started fanboying, and I used the opportunity to slide out from under the bed and rush back to the cool of my own room.

...I still can't believe Tsuna doesn't own any dirty magazines. Maybe I should change that.

Some time later, Tsuna was yet again woken Vongola Style™ and fell off his bed in his panic. As he hit the floorboards, he noticed something residing in the previously empty space under his bed. It was a stack of magazines featuring women in tight and skimpy clothing.

"NEE-CHAN!"

(He yelled again, even louder, when he accidently knocked the stack over and found a few featuring nude men.)

(The Sawadas had a bonfire that day.)

Chapter Text

That poor boy. My heart went out to him as he looked more and more freaked out as time went on. Then he fainted.

I waited for the pandemonium to move away a little from the unconscious civilian, then dashed out from my hiding spot to pick him up along with what he had been carrying and absconded. I had been running for a little while, when I saw the park up ahead and decided that it was a good place as any to put him down and tend to his injury. I placed him down on a park bench and reached for the tiny medical kit I had started to carry around with me.

I couldn't do anything about his broken glasses, but the cut on his cheek was easy enough to patch up. Actually, I probably should have left him alone, seeing as this boy was Irie Shoichi, but on the other hand, this boy was Irie Shoichi. If I talked to him now, I might be able to convince him to not shoot me with the ten year bazooka in the future and save myself from a whole lot of troublesome situations.

Also, I felt really, really sorry for him.

Spotting a popsicle stand near the playground, I decided to buy two, one for me and one for him, when he woke up. I took the wrapper off and started on it, wrinkling my nose in disappointment when I discovered that it wasn't quite sour enough.

A small groan sounded from beside me, alerting me to the fact that the red-head was waking up. He opened his eyes, and blinked blearily a few times, before focusing on me.

"What...?"

I smiled to put him at ease, and offered him the other popsicle when he sat up. He took it, after an unsure moment, then unwrapped it and started on it as well. We sat there in silence, eating the cold and sugary snack, while watching elementary school kids screaming and running around in the playground.

Shoichi finished his first, despite starting later, and sat there, clutching the popsicle stick, waiting for me to finish mine. I tossed what was left of mine into the bin beside the bench, and in reply to his quizzical look, shrugged and said, "It didn't taste all that good anyway."

"Oh."

We sat there some more in silence, before Shoichi spoke up hesitantly.

"Um, so..."

"You're welcome. I fixed the cut up as well, by the way."

He touched the bandaid on cheek.

"Ah. T-thanks."

"Don't mention it."

"Um, I'm Irie Shoichi. W-who are you?"

"You remember the half-naked guy with the bloated face earlier?" When he nodded, I pulled the hood of my hoodie down and continued. "That, was my brother. See the resemblance?" I pointed to my own face.

At this, he froze up, and looked at me warily. I laughed.

"Don't worry, I'm not going to strip and blow up or pull an illegal weapon out of nowhere."

The future fake Funeral Wreath waved his hands frantically in front of his face, babbling something something about not thinking that, even though he clearly had been. I laughed again at his flustered state, and after a minute, he joined in as well.

After we had gotten over our laughter, we began chatting normally. He wasn't a bad conversationalist, if a bit prone to stumbling over his words, although when we somehow reached the topic of science and robotics, his back straightened, and he began talking confidently as if he knew anything and everything about it.

"-so when science science science robots science science science circuits science science science programmingscience science science-"

Needless to say, I was more than a little lost. It must have showed on my face, because he stopped suddenly and flushed in embarrassment.

"S-sorry, I just..."

"Really like science?"

"Science covers a lot of other topics as well, but yeah, I do."

He flushed again as I chuckled.

"Well, it's been lovely talking to you, but it's getting late."

"Huh? Oh, sorry."

"It's fine. But before I leave, can you do me a favour?"

"What do you want me to do?"

"If you ever get your hands on a purple bazooka, don't shoot me, okay?" I laughed.

Thinking it was a joke, he replied, "Sure. But what about everyone else?"

"Everyone else is fair game."

We laughed again, and I took my leave.

That should do it.

"Ah, I forgot to give the box back to that onii-san!"

Irie Shoichi slumped back onto the park bench and ran his hand down his face, groaning. He had gotten so caught up in talking with the brunet boy that he had completely forgotten his original objective. He looked at the wooden box with the strange 'Bovino' marking beside him, and wondered what on earth he was going to do with it.

Shoichi sighed. There was no way in hell he was going back to that madhouse. Looked like the only option was to bring it home and hide it somewhere. He sighed again, and lifted the accursed object up.

Wha- Was it really this heavy before?!

Confused, he opened the container. There was another box inside. He opened that one as well, and discovered several - more than several - riceballs.

Did Onii-san leave them here?

Looking closer, he saw a note tucked into the side of the box. It had one word, 'Enjoy!'. He blinked at it, shrugged, and picked up one of the riceballs to take a bite.

People on the sidewalk stopped and blinked in shock as a boy with a face as red as his hair rushed to the fountain in the middle of the park and started gulping the water down as fast as he could.

Omake - I wanted to put this in, but I couldn't find the right place, so here's the first ever omake.

"How do you deal with all the madness that goes on in your house?" Shoichi asked in awe, after he realized I lived in the same house as those 'nutcases'.

I tilted my head, mulling his question over, and shrugged.

"Well, I guess, I don't?"

"What do you mean?"

"Most of the time, I'm out of the house anyways, and when I'm in the house, I just pretend I'm both blind and deaf."

I sparkle-smiled at him, and he sweatdropped.

"Y-you're amazing, onii-san."

I stopped sparkling and stared at him in slight surprise. Seeing it, Shoichi hurried to explain.

"Um, you never actually t-told me your name, so I just... Do you not like it?"

I started smiling again, except this time it was more borderline smirking than an actual smile.

"No, no, I was just surprised for a second is all. Call me that to your heart's content. I'm always willing to accept another sibling."

"U-um, thanks?"

As we continued talking, I mentally cackled in glee.

Ohohoho~ This could be fun.

Chapter Text

How did I let myself be dragged here...?

"Good luck, Tsuna-kun!"

"Don't lose!"

"Juudaime~!"

"Wha-? Everyone's here!"

I sighed. "Yeah... Don't be defeated, oh brother of mine."

"Even Nee-chan!"

After the Sasagawa siblings had left, I had come out from where I had been hiding behind the building and handed Tsuna a spare uniform. He had still been in shock at Ryohei's request- order- whatever that was, and was staring blankly after him. I had patted him on the shoulder sympathetically.

"Good luck."

And then I had left, with no intention to come witness the match. However, when classes ended, I had been ambushed by an enthusiastic Yamamoto, Gokudera, and Kyoko, who had herded me to the gym. And now here I was, watching an over-zealous boxer yelling "JOIN!" and his future boss yelling "NO!" and the two attempting to beat the crap out of each other.

Resisting the urge to face-palm, I looked around for a way to escape and not watch the ridiculous match.

Oho? The path to the door's clear.

I sidled to the door, making sure no-one was watching me (I needn't have worried, they were all focused on the match), and then successfully made my escape. I sighed in relief, then swiftly ducked down. A moment later, the window I had been passing shattered as one Sasagawa Ryohei crashed into it.

That, was too close. Thank whatever divine being there may or may not be out there for Hyper Intuition.

I sighed again, then adjusted the bag on my shoulder and ran off.

"He skips school on the days he's supposed to get shots..."

I stared at the faint skull and text in a speech bubble on my right wrist.

Really? Of all the things to have a twin connection in, it has to be the Skull Disease?

That's it. I was going home.

Smashing open the front door, I stomped up the stairs to Tsuna's room, and his bedroom door suffered the same fate as the other door that had been unlucky enough to be in my way.

"Tsuna... What's this about you skipping school on vaccination days~?"

He shrieked. "N-Nee-chan!"

"Oh, Nee-chan." Reborn greeted me.

"A pretty girl!" Dr. Shamal tried to kiss me. He was promptly discouraged by the threat of defenestration.

"Nee-chan, let go of him!" Tsuna tried to dissuade me from pushing Shamal further out the window. I snapped my head back to him, and he flinched back, obviously regretting it. I smiled at him, and he cowered further.

"Sure, I'll let go of him~"

I pushed the perverted doctor/hitman further out the window until he was dangling by his coat collar in my hand.

"No, no, no!" shrieked Tsuna. "Don't let go of him!"

"Huh?" I pouted in confusion at him. "But you just said to let him go."

"That was when he was still inside!"

"Nee-chan." Reborn finally spoke up, having been watching the whole time. "As amusing as this is, the guy you're currently dangling out the window - nice arm strength, by the way - is the only one who can save Tsuna from an embarrassing death. So it would be in your best interests to pull him back in, if you don't want those marks on your body to last forever."

I sighed, in mock disappointment. "Fine."

I pulled the man back in and deposited him on the floor. "These marks had better be gone in five minutes, or else someone's going to get a nasty surprise~" I smiled again, and left the room, waving airily to the people behind me.

"...Damn. What an impressive girl."

Sometime later, in another universe, Tsuna wondered why he felt such déjà vu when Hibari was pushing his friends out of the window. It quickly dispersed when he was hit with the Dying Will Bullet.

Some more time later, it was the time for the athletics carnival. The A team was holding a meeting in a classroom, and Ryohei was filling the room with his "ultimate will - wait, no - "ULTIMATE WILL TO WIN!". Tsuna was watching Kyoko (nothing new there), Gokudera was complaining about Ryohei (an occurrence that would become common in the future), and Yamamoto was attempting to calm him down (also nothing new there).

Me? I, on the other hand, was trying not to look bored and cheering with the rest of the crowd. If all went according to the manga, the pole knocking competition would be sabotaged, team A would lose due to the white/silver haired duo fighting, Tsuna would get beaten up, and then the whole thing would turn into an all-out scuffle. There was nothing at all that would involve me.

Or, at least, that's what I thought. The world seemed to love proving me wrong.

Tsuna had been elected leader, congratulated, and accidently burst the Reborn dummy, when the door to the classroom was suddenly slammed open. A few burly looking girls stood at the entrance. The classroom fell silent.

Ryohei, who was still at the front of the class, asked their intentions in coming to our meeting. They replied with a request to see Sawada-san. Ryohei yelled to Tsuna.

"Sawada! Come here!"

As Tsuna unsurely stood up, the girls frowned and called out, "No, not him. The other Sawada-san."

Tsuna sat down in relief as I raised an eyebrow and went over to them.

"Yes?" I said, smiling, "What do you need?"

The girl who seemed to be the leader of the group looked me up and down once, and nodded in approval. She nodded to the people behind her, and then as one, they bowed.

"Sawada-san, would you please be our leader for the pole-knocking competition?"

Omake - If our beloved main character was also a womanizer

I stared at Shamal.

Shamal stared at me.

"Dude."

"Dude."

Tsuna could only watch, open-mouthed, in disbelief, and eye twitching, as his twin and Shamal hugged each other, weeping, and mumbling something about 'finding a kindred spirit' and 'a true fellow female lover'.

Chapter Text

I blinked.

"...What?"

The girls, having expected my reaction, went on to explain to both me and the rest of the room that because they found it unfair that only boys were allowed to participate in the pole-knocking competition, they had complained to the headmaster and he had allowed them to form their own pole-knocking team under the condition that they could convince the representatives of the other teams to accept their team and participation.

I nodded in understanding, still a bit taken aback at what had clearly not been in the original story, but asked, "I see, but, why ask me? Why couldn't one of you be the leader?"

"Well," the leader of the group started, "When we went to ask the other representatives, they snorted," at this the girls bristled, "And said they'd only accept our participation if either you or Kyoko-chan could beat both of them in an arm-wrestling competition."

I blinked at them again. "And you think I have a better chance of beating them than Kyoko-chan...?"

The leader rolled her eyes. "Please. We know you can beat them both at the same time. Besides-"

"I'm not letting my sister participate in the competition." Ryohei stood behind me, arms crossed. "I'm all for you creating a team for girls who want to participate, but my sister is not competing."

"Onii-san! Don't make my decisions for me!" Kyoko stood up, but sat down again. "But it's true, I don't think I'd make a good pole-knocking leader."

I sighed, wondering why this world seemed so adamant in having me involved in the story. What was next? Nomination for class president? Getting shot with a special bullet? The Bloody Triplets?

...On second thoughts, those were all very real possibilities.

I started pretending to think, hoping that if I stalled for long enough, I could somehow wiggle out of this situation.

"I don't know, I don't think I'm suited for the position either..."

"We can get you ten grams of the powder of the hottest spice currently being bred."

I twitched.

"Fifteen?"

"When's the arm-wrestling competition?"

"At lunch in the gym. See you there!"

They left and I went back to my seat. Everyone stared at me.

"...What just happened?" asked Tsuna, despite not really wanting to know the answer.

"Business."

As soon as the bell for lunch rang, everyone - or what seemed like everyone - ran for the gym.

"Oh? Word sure does get around quickly."

"Nee-chan..."

Tsuna was staring at me worriedly, as we and the others were walking to the gym.

"Don't worry your fluffy head about it, Tsuna. I'll be fine." I ruffled his hair.

"Still-"

"Woman, you better not lose, or as Juudaime's sister, you'll shame him!"

"Gokudera-kun, you shouldn't put so much pressure on her. She's going up against the presidents of the sumo club and karate club, after all."

"So what?!" As they continued their one-sided fighting, with Tsuna trying to calm Gokudera down, Kyoko and Hana walked up beside me.

"Are you going to be alright? Like Yamamoto-kun said, you're going up against two of the strongest boys in the school."

I sighed. "Sheesh, no-one but Gokudera seems to have any faith in me. I can take 'em, right, Hana-chan?"

The dark-haired girl nodded, arms crossed.

"She could take them both on with one hand if she so wished."

I gestured to her. "See? Hana-chan knows best."

"Still..." Kyoko still looked incredibly worried.

"Psh, don't you worry your pretty head about it either. I won't die or anything."

"Yeah, Kyoko-chan. It's not like they would put their all into it anyways. I bet those perverts just wanted to hold hands with a pretty girl."

I stopped in my tracks.

"Sawada-chan? What's wrong?"

"Hana..."

"On it."

As she left for another direction, Kyoko and the rest looked at me quizzically. I waved my hand dismissively in the air.

"No, it's nothing much, Hana's already gone to take care of it anyway."

"Take care of what?"

"You'll see."

And with that, we were off to the gym once again.

When we arrived, everyone was already there, and there was a barrel in the middle with two chairs on either side. Takada and Oshikiri were standing in front of the set up, looking distinctly pleased with themselves. I fought the urge to sneer at them. Wouldn't be good for my 'good Japanese girl' image after all. Although, if I really did win and participate in the pole-knocking competition, it would be destroyed anyway.

"Takada-san, Oshikiri-san," I bowed slightly to the two of them.

"Sawada-chan." I could practically feel the tick mark that would have appeared on my head.

Oi, bastards, who the fuck gave you permission to address me with -chan?!

But I kept my mouth shut, still smiling at the two. As Oshikiri (he had won the scissors-paper-rock to go first) and I settled down on the seats, the referee announced the rules and stakes of match.

"This will be a competition of arm-wrestling. First to push and keep the other's arm down for three seconds wins. If Sawada-san wins, she'll gain the approval of her opponent for the creation of a girl's pole-knocking team. If her opponent wins, he'll get a date with her. Are there any complaints?"

...What. Fucktards. You. What.

Tsuna looked ready to start screaming at the referee, Kyoko in a similar state, but before they could, the door to the gym was slammed open with a loud bang that commanded attention. Everyone turned to the doorway, where Hana was standing.

"Sawada-chan, I have what you wanted." She walked to the centre of the gym, the crowd parting before her, and dropped something into my waiting hands. I smiled thankfully at her.

"Thank you, Hana-chan."

"Anytime."

As she walked to where my brother and the others were standing, I lifted what she had given me and revealed it to the gym for what it was - a pair of gloves.

"I'm sorry, but I don't quite know where those hands have been."

I slipped them on, inwardly smirking at the insulted looks on the boys' faces, and then turned to the referee.

"Shall we start, then?"

I turned back to Oshikiri, smiling, and delicately placed my arm on the surface of the barrel in the traditional arm-wrestling position.

"Do your best." I said, still smiling.

He leered at me in response and took up the arm-wrestling stance.

"Are you sure those gloves are necessary? They definitely won't be once we're on our date~"

You piss me off.

"Oh, I assure you, we won't be going anywhere."

"I wouldn-"

"Are the contestants ready?" The referee interrupted us. When we both nodded in confirmation, they continued. "Alright." They started the count down. "Three, two, one - start!"

We started. As expected, Oshikiri didn't use all his strength straight from the start, being arrogant enough to think that he'd only have to use a little of his strength to defeat me. He looked mildly surprised though, when my arm didn't budge, and poured some more of his strength in.

I kept smiling at him. He kept pouring in more strength.

At last, when he was clearly sweating and straining against my arm, I lifted my other hand and elegantly covered a yawn. Then I slowly started pressing down on his arm, still not a sweat broken, and when the back of his arm hit the top of the barrel with a small thump, held it there for three seconds.

I raised an eyebrow at the slack-jawed referee. "Well? It's been more than three seconds already, and I'm sure Oshikiri-san would like to have his arm back."

The referee snapped out of their awed stupor and raised the flag indicating my win. "Sawada-san wins! The girl's pole-knocking team has now gained the approval of the B team's leader!"

The members of the to-be-girl's team cheered, but before they could celebrate further, Takada lumbered forwards and pushed Oshikiri out of the chair.

"Hmph. Too bad, karate club president. Guess sumo's better after all," he sneered.

"Oh, I don't know," I said, delicately removing my glove, "His hands seem cleaner than yours."

Upon sliding on a new glove, I tossed the used one up and over the heads of the audience, where a gasp and low whistle informed me I had landed it right in the bin on the side of the gym. I flipped my hair back over my shoulder and once again placed my arm on the barrel.

"Shall we begin?"

This time I didn't bother with pleasantries, and as soon as we were given the go-ahead, I slammed Takada's arm down and held it there for three seconds. Once again, I had to remind the referee to raise the flag, and they did so, but not until a few more seconds of gaping had passed.

The now fully approved girl's pole-knocking team whooped and rushed forward to swamp me with their congratulations and thanks. I managed to escape after a while and strode over to where Tsuna and his friends were watching in disbelief.

"See?" I said, placing my hand on my hip, "I told you I'd be fine."

They continued to gape at me. Hana was collecting her winnings.

After school, a Reborn disguised as Master Pao Pao invited me along with five other girls - Hashimoto, Yamashita, Nakajima, Yamazaki, and Suzuki - to train with Tsuna and co. The girls jumped at the offer, and who was I to say no?

We reached the riverbank, where we were greeted by a smiling Yamamoto, a scowling Gokudera, an enthusiastic Ryohei, and of course, a shocked Tsuna.

"Nee-chan! What are you doing here?"

"Training, of course. We were invited by Master Pao Pao over there."

I bowed to Reborn, my teammates following suit. I fought the urge to burst out laughing at Tsuna's dismayed expression.

"Thank you asking us to join, Master Pao Pao. Now, Hashimoto, plant that pole right over... there!" I pointed to a random spot on the ground that looked good. Hashimoto complied, and a dull thud was heard as wood met dirt.

"We can't lose!" Ryohei planted the pole he was carrying down as well. "Okay, climb, Sawada!"

"Gladly."

I quickly hopped up the pole.

"Nee-chan, you're wearing a skirt!"

"And shorts. Don't forget the shorts." I grinned down at them, not caring about my fluttering skirt. "Now, Tsuna, are you going to climb or not?"

As Tsuna admitted that he couldn't even climb a tree, and was shot with a dying will bullet, I went on with my own team's training.

"Right then. Suzuki, Nakajima," I pointed to the two girls, "I want you to scale this pole and try to pull me down. We don't really want anyone to get hurt badly today, so as soon as I tap you on the head, you're to climb down halfway before climbing up again. Everyone else, support the pole and try to stop them from getting to me. Okay? Let's start!"

The girls cheered and we began our training. Then all went to hell when Ryohei health-freaked out and Gokudera started throwing dynamites. Yamamoto couldn't support the pole anymore and Tsuna fell into the water.

My teammates stared at them. I sighed, then climbed down.

"Just ignore them. I do it all the time."

The day of the athletics festival arrived. There was indeed a hot battle between the three teams. Tsuna came last in everything, the white/silver haired duo got into a fight, and Reborn pitted the C and B teams against Tsuna's. The girl's team was unaffected, of course. I was, after all, invincible. (Okay, maybe not, but no one would believe it if Tsuna hurt me.)

Being the leader of the girl's team, I went up to the 3rd grade leaders' meeting. The meeting quickly passed with Ryohei 'suggesting' the union of teams B and C. Everyone agreed, but then turned to ask me what about the girl's team.

I shrugged.

"Well, since everyone seems so set against team A, I guess we'll concentrate a little more on beating them than the team B+C union. It's not like anyone'll be willing to fight against their representative anyway," I muttered at the end.

"What did you say at the end, Sawada-san?"

"Nothing you need to know."

They pressed further, but I outright refused to tell them, leaving them only with a, "You'll see."

The meeting was over with lunch break, and we had come to a decision.

"Upon debating with the representatives, this year's pole knocking will be the A team versus the B+C union and the girl's team!"

Then after all the complaining/cheering was over, it was time for the actual competition. I eyed Hibari who had just walked up onto the pole, uniform and all, much to the shock of everyone, and did the same myself. Tsuna was already on his own pole, looking completely and utterly terrified. When he looked over to me, I mouthed a 'good luck, you'll need it' to him. He somehow managed to look even more scared.

"Ready... Go!"

With a roar, the crowd beneath me surged forwards, carrying the pole I was on with them. The competition had seemed intense even in the still, soundless manga, and now that I was a part of it, I could fully appreciate just how ferocious everyone and everything was, even all the way up here.

I kicked the first climbers away with the soles of my shoes. I was incredibly thankful that the pole could only hold so many people at once, or else I would have been swamped in bodies and quickly dragged down. In my peripheral vision, I could see Hibari on one pole fighting daring climbers off with his tonfas, and on the other, Tsuna panicking and falling, then being hit with the Dying Will Bullet. I could also see the astonished faces of the people who had previously had a hold on his clothes.

Then my attention was pulled away by my own attackers, and I was no longer able to watch as Tsuna rode on his cavalcade, much to the other competitors cries of 'army tank!' and Hibari's happiness(?). And it really was like a tank, I mused, as soon I caught a break. They might even have won, even against Hibari, if the white/silver haired duo hadn't started bickering. As it was, they did, causing the A team to go down. Hibari was disappointed.

Everyone started ganging up on Tsuna, and full out war began below. I plopped down on the top of the pole, and began swinging my legs in a childish manner, wondering when they'd take notice of us. I had a really nice view though, of the battlefield below, and was again glad I was up here and not down there.

I was so absorbed in the bloodshed below, that I almost didn't notice when Hibari subtly motioned with his tonfas towards me. The people carrying his pole, however, noticed quite easily, and the pole lurched forwards. I narrowed my eyes at my opponent and smirked.

"Full speed ahead!" I pointed forward and cheered. "We're goin' in!"

The girls carrying my pole looked back up at me like I was crazy, but they complied. I felt like cackling gleefully, but refrained from doing so, and instead smiled at the prefect who had a slight smirk on his face.

This, is going to be fun.

Chapter Text

"Ey, Tsuna, do you- Hibari-san?"

I stopped short at the sight of Hibari crouching on the window sill. Looking around, everyone affiliated with the mafia that Tsuna knew was there. There was also a corpse on the bed.

"Oh hey, look, there's a pseudo-corpse on the bed. Speaking of the bed, I think I may have dropped something under it the last time I crawled under there. During the study session, remember?" I said, deliberately misreading their dumbfounded faces.

I slid an arm underneath the bed, and snatched something up.

"Like I thought." I stood up and brushed myself off. Poking the man on the bed, I nodded. "Oh, very nice. Straight through the heart."

I then proceeded to walk to the door, waving airily behind me. "I'll be going now. Good luck with the body!"

I resisted the urge to snicker at Tsuna's despairing wail of "Nee-chan!"

Later, Tsuna attempted to explain to me the situation. I stopped him with a raised hand.

"I knew he wasn't dead. That's why I called him a 'pseudo-corpse', or did you forget?"

He stared at me. "But, but how? You didn't examine him closely and even his heart was stopped!"

I raised an eyebrow. "I know everything, remember?"

He continued to stare.

I had somehow been dragged along (again) to TakeSushi with Tsuna. The food was delicious, but that didn't mean I had lowered my guard. It was the eat and run incident today, I had no intentions to be saddled with the debt along with Tsuna.

I love you, brother dearest, but there are just some things even love can't overcome. Like money problems.

"Thanks for the food!"

"See you later, lil' bro."

"It was good."

"Bye bye!"

Bianchi abruptly stood up in the middle of Tsuna's question and ran away. I took that as my cue to leave as well, along with Reborn and Lambo, and even with the feeling of Tsuna's despair reached out to me, felt no regret whatsoever.

Nevermind, I was feeling regret. Regret because Tsuna's despair kept nagging at me and rendering me unable to nap. I growled, and gave up. Sighing, I headed back towards TakeSushi to help. But not before picking up some things.

"Tsuna, your despair is making me unable to fall asleep, so I'm here to help."

"Nee-chan!" Tsuna looked at me like I was an angel descended from heaven, before remembering that I had also run. I raised my hands in defeat.

"Yeah, yeah, I ate and ran, but it was on the house anyway, right?"

He frowned. "How did you know about that?"

"I know everything, remember?"

My brother stared at me, and then sighed. "But it's true, you technically didn't rack up any debt for me and you're still willing to help..."

"See? Now, if you'll excuse me..."

"Wait, nee-chan, where are you going?"

"I absolutely refuse to wash any dishes, so I'm helping in another way."

"Another way?"

"You'll see."

As I left the back of the shop, I could hear Tsuna remark to Yamamoto, "I hate when she says that."

That's exactly why I say it, oh brother of mine.

"Yamamoto-san!"

"Sawada-san? Weren't you helping in the back?"

"Sorry, but I don't wash dishes. Instead, I thought I'd replace the lights, if that's okay?"

The man looked delighted at my suggestion. I knew it had been a good idea.

"It would definitely be welcomed. Do you have replacement bulbs, though?"

I lifted a plastic bag containing the things I had bought before.

"I came prepared."

The older Yamamoto looked even more pleased.

"You're such a caring brother. Coming to help your sibling out even though you didn't need to."

And another one has succumbed to my boyish charms, apparently.

Instead of correcting his assumptions on my gender, though, I simply smiled at him and said, "Wouldn't any sibling do the same?" then got to work.

Normally, one would complain about having to stand precariously on a stool, reach up, and replace a dozen light bulbs with no real pay, but not me. Hell, I was enjoying myself. Why?

Behind me, some middle-aged women were giggling and whispering.

"You see that boy over there changing the light bulbs? Apparently his brother got into a huge debt so now he's helping him pay it off. Isn't that just the sweetest thing ever?"

"It is! And here I thought that familial love between siblings didn't exist anymore."

"He's rather handsome as well, isn't he?"

"Right! Oh, if only I were thirty years younger..."

"You sound like an old woman, you know."

The commenter's friend playfully swiped at her, they moved onto another topic. But still, the compliments were nice, and I was happy for a bit. Then I became depressed as I realized I was pleased with the gossip of ladies. What was my life coming to?

I was so deep in an existential crisis, I wasn't paying proper attention to my surroundings, and so when Gokudera burst into the shop, I was extremely startled and fell off the stool. I also fell onto him.

"Gah! What the- woman! What the hell were you doing?"

Murmurs flew around the room at his exclamation.

"Oh, you know, just standing around. Stools happen to be my favourite places to stand. No, I was replacing the lightbulbs, moron."

"Gokudera-kun? What are you- Are you okay?!" Tsuna peeked out from the back of the store, and rushed over when he saw us on the ground. "Nee-chan, you didn't get hurt either, did you?"

"Well, if you don't count the bruise on my head where it crashed into his thick skull when I fell, I'm fine."

"Did you just call my skull thick, woman?!"

"Hey, I call it as I see it. See, my head has a sore lump here, while your head seems to be perfectly fine, so what else am I supposed to think, hm?"

I tried to get up, but ended up falling back onto Gokudera.

"Shit."

"Oi, what- you're bleeding."

Touching the side of my head, I could feel something warm and sticky starting to trickle down, and my vision started clouding over. I must've hit my head on something else other than Gokudera's noggin when I fell.

"I'm going to black out, just a warning," I managed before giving in to the darkness. The last things I heard were Tsuna and his friends' panicked cries.

Chapter Text

I blinked around me. Around me it was all dark, but I could still see my own body. Then the darkness was pushed back and a peaceful lake surrounded by serene trees was revealed. Curious, I walked through the long grass that had appeared at my feet to take a closer look. Something about this place was awfully familiar.

I looked into the water, wondering why, and dipped a toe into the water, creating a myriad of ripples that quickly spread across the lake. Where was I? Why was I here? The last I remembered, my head had smashed onto Gokudera's thick skull and I had lost consciousness. So why was I here now, in front of a body of water surrounded by flora but no fauna?

It wasn't until I saw a indigo-haired girl in a pure white gown ahead that I realized. I promptly ducked behind a tree.

Nope.

I forced myself to wake up, hoping Nagi/Chrome hadn't noticed me.

My eyelids flew open, and I blinked a few times before focusing on a crack on the unfamiliar ceiling. When I raised a hand to the side of my head, I found it to be bandaged. I sat up and looked around me. I had been lying on a sofa, and judging by the family photo on the table next to it, I was probably in the upstairs living area of TakeSushi. My mind was surprisingly clear for a concussion sufferer. I could even stand up, and walked to the door of the room without feeling too dizzy or sick.

Wondering for how long I had been out, I opened the door and walked back downstairs, where I could see Gokudera had left, and Tsuna and the Yamamotos were eating Bianchi's 'non-poisoned' sushi.

"Ooh, can I have some too, Bianchi?"

Bianchi turned around, slightly startled.

"You're here too? Sure," she smiled, "Feel free."

I happily hopped over to the table and plopped the last sample sushi piece into my mouth.

"Mm, delicious~"

"Nee-chan, you should be resting." Tsuna said with a worried expression.

"Psh, rest. I have a slight concussion, is all." I waved my hand dismissively at him.

"You were bleeding."

"I bleed at least twelve times a year anyway. One more time won't hurt." I ignored his embarrassed expression and glanced at my watch. "Ah, Yamamoto-san, I'm sorry I didn't finish the lightbulbs, but I have to go now."

The man smiled at me. "It's alright, you did most of them. Sorry for mistaking you for a boy."

"Eh, you mistook her for a boy?" Yamamoto questioned, then looked me up and down. "I can see how you'd make the error though. You look good as a boy as well."

"Heh, thanks. I'll be going now." I waved as I exited. "Bye, Tsuna, Yamamoto, Bianchi, Reborn."

They bid me goodbye as well and I continued on my merry way.

Lambo was here, and Tsuna was looking desperately at me for help. I pretended not to notice and looked the other way.

Sorry, Tsuna, but if there's one thing I don't deal with, it's obnoxious cow brats.

"There, there, pathetic man. Don't cry." I crouched down to wipe away TYL!Lambo's blood, tears and snot with a tissue. "Seriously, don't be so pathetic. You're making me lose hope."

He sniffed again. "Nee-san..."

Oho, looks like I've gained another adoptive sibling.

But I played dumb. "Hm? Do I look like your older sister? How nice."

Behind me, Tsuna whispered to Reborn, "Maybe she should take care of Lambo instead."

Pink smoke poofed, and then this time's Lambo was in front of me. I immediately stood up and started walking away. "I don't deal with cow brats. Goodbye."

I could practically hear Tsuna deadpanning in his mind, She's the opposite of Haru.

"Looks like you're stuck with taking care of Lambo, Dame-Tsuna."

"Why me?!"

I almost had a heart attack when I saw Gokudera holding Yamamoto close by his collar, and took a few pictures before Tsuna caught up and broke up the fight. The rest of the day was spent selling the pictures to fangirls.

I stepped into the house. Everyone was looking sheepishly at a depressed Tsuna.

"Hm? What's going on now?"

"Hahi? Onee-san, tomorrow's your birthday too, right?"

"No, actually, it was yesterday." I elaborated for the people who didn't know. "Something happened, and I was born about two days before Tsuna."

People freaked out.

"I didn't know, Onee-san, please forgive me!"

"I'm sorry, Nee-chan, I forgot!"

I shrugged. "It's fine. I never really celebrated it anyway. Now, let's go celebrate Reborn's!"

I excitedly led them up the stairs. Yamamoto finished bringing out the sushi, and Reborn explained the rules of a Vongolian birthday party after Gokudera succumbed to his stomach ache.

Yamamoto was given 80 points for the sushi he brought. Haru received 85 points for the target print white suit. Bianchi's performance almost destroyed the room, but unlike Tsuna, I was able to escape without injury, and she was awarded 90 points.

"Me next." I brought out a small box. "You seem to like cosplaying, so I made you a sunflower costume. Also, I bought a hair curler for your sideburns."

Reborn smiled at me, eyes glinting. "You noticed, Nee-tan? Thank you. 90 points."

I wanted to scream and bash my head against the wall at my own stupidity. He knew I could see through his disguises now. I could not believe I hadn't realized that sooner.

Lambo's turn came, with his 'Lambo stick', and for some reason, he looked really shocked when he was granted a measly 1 point.

I winced internally when I thought of the next act, and searched for a reason to excuse myself. I decided to go with 'I want to go help Bianchi with cooking', and thankfully escaped a painful scene.

I was still able to hear Tsuna's agonised yells though.

The poor boy had to spend his entire almost forgotten birthday in a dull, white, and boring hospital.

Chapter Text

"Oh, thank you!" Kyoko thanked the Chinese child for picking up her wallet. I had been dragged out shopping with her, since Hana was busy.

"Kyoko, you really should be more careful. And yeah, thanks for picking up my friend's wallet."

The child nodded, and hopped off. I watched her leave, before my attention was brought back to Kyoko. As we continued to look around the shopping district, I thought about what I-pin's arrival meant, according the manga timeline.

So, Dino's coming soon, eh? Tsuna's going to get his first taste of the real mafia.

The child came to Namimori Middle the next day. Kyoko was sweeping the halls with me and Hana, and was the first to notice the child wandering throughout the hallways.

"Oh, it's you! Thank you for picking up my wallet yesterday."

Tsuna was sweeping a little ways away from us, and looked towards our direction at the sound of Kyoko's voice. He looked surprised for a moment, then headed over. I-pin squinted at us, then turned around, squinted at him, and pointed up several times. She ran away afterwards, and Tsuna followed a minute later. Kyoko picked something up off the ground.

"She dropped something. We should return it."

"You go. Hana and I can manage without you for a bit." I told her. Hana nodded in agreement.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah."

"Okay then-"

"Kyoko." A teacher called out to the girl. "Can I talk to you for a moment? Hana, you too."

"Sure."

"Oh, okay." Kyoko turned to me, "Sorry, sensei's calling. Can you return it to her instead?"

I internally sighed. Why did this world seem so determined include me in the mess? "Sure, no problem."

"Here, I'll put your broom away for you."

Kyoko took my broom and I headed for the rooftop. When I arrived, I-pin had begun the countdown, but I headed over and offered the rod to her.

"There you are. You left this behind."

"Nee-chan!"

I-pin started clinging to my legs, and I contemplated letting her explode on me, just to save myself the pain of constantly trying to avoid and getting dragged into everything. However, Tsuna snatched the child away from where she had been tightly holding onto my legs, making the option of suicide by tiny Asian girl no longer available.

Gokudera opened the door to the rooftop, saying something about noodle bread. I took the opportunity to rush past him and back into the relative sanity of the school.

A few minutes later, an explosion was heard in the air. I munched on stolen noodle bread. It was tasty.

It was the weekend. I headed downstairs for breakfast. I-pin was sitting at the table, with Tsuna and Reborn. Lambo wasn't there yet. I grabbed my breakfast and headed back upstairs. I wasn't in the mood to deal with this today.

(My personally soundproofed room made a stand with my music in keeping the mayhem from reaching my ears. I was able to draw in peace. It was relaxing.)

Dammit. Why, oh why, was Tsuna still somehow shorter than me? It had been normal when we were younger, but when we reached adolescence, obviously the deity known as Puberty (yes, capitalized) had taken one look at Tsuna and gone, "Nah."

When we met Tsuna's admirer while running an errand, I had attempted to hide behind Tsuna. Needless to say, it didn't work.

Haru, still tightly gripping - seriously, she should not have been that strong - the sleeves of Tsuna and I, rushed towards the cake shop, dragging us reluctant Sawada siblings along with her. I was considering ditching my jacket in an attempt to escape, but Haru seemed to read my mind and shifted her grip to my wrist.

Great. Now how was I going to escape?

Haru let go of my wrist when we entered the cake shop. Finally. Tsuna noticed Kyoko, and looked on cloud nine, then panicked as he thought of the potential misunderstanding. I snorted. Did he seriously not get it? She just didn't think of him that way. Hell, I doubted she thought of anyone that way, never mind Tsuna. (Okay, maybe I was selling him short. Still.)

As Haru and Kyoko discovered they both celebrated self-appreciation day and enthusiastically discussed the sweets sold within the shop, I started shuffling over to the glass door.

Shuffle. They were talking about something called Tarte au Fromage. Shuffle. Tsuna was dismayed over them ignoring him. Shuffle. Okay, I was almost to the door. Shuf-

"Instead of standing around and talking, why don't you come over to our place so you don't have to be in a hurry?"

Reborn. That was alright. I could still es-

"Nee-tan, where are you going?"

Shit. So close.

And that, my friends, is how I found myself sitting in Tsuna's bedroom, eating (poking with a fork) cake with a future mafia don, his two wife candidates, and his future self's subordinate. And his future adviser, couldn't forget him either. Also, a young assassin who worked for the Chinese triads.

I casually stabbed the cake one more time, before realizing that Kyoko and Haru had asked me a question.

"Sorry, I wasn't listening. What did you ask me?"

"Haru asked if you also celebrate self-appreciation day."

I waved my hand dismissively, saying, "I don't need to. I eat whatever I want, whenever I want."

"Eh, aren't you scared you'll get fat?" Kyoko asked me, surprised. I shrugged.

"Not really. I burn off everything really quickly anyway."

"Lucky!" Haru looked incredibly jealous of my fast metabolism.

"You know, Tsuna's the same. See, even though he sucks at sports and used to spend all day reading manga in his room, he never got fat."

Haru and Kyoko stared at us Sawada siblings enviously. Tsuna rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. They sighed and turned their attention to I-pin. I placed the mangled cake into my mouth thoughtfully. I had never thought about it before. Tsuna really was incredibly thin for someone who had never really exercised outside of PE classes.

Oh, this strawberry was nice. I savoured it, closing my eyes in bliss, and missed the crucial moment when I-pin gave the gyoza buns to Haru and Kyoko. I heard two thumps on the ground.

Lovely. I decided to keep my eyes shut. Bianchi's voice was heard, a poof, and then the cow brat's cheers. Tsuna's panicking hurt my ears so I covered them, resolutely ignoring everything going on around me and hoping they would forget I was there.

"You can't! Nee-chan-!"

"Then I'll shoot her too."

Wait. What?

Two shots were fired at the same time, then another shot was heard. I felt a sharp pain in my forehead.

And in that moment, I regretted. I regretted not doing enough with my life. I regretted wasting the second chance I'd been given. I regretted leaving things unfinished. I regretted...

Tsuna was thrown backwards by the force of his nosebleed. Kyoko and Haru stood with different coloured flames on their heads.

"I must go."

"Eh? Wait! Hey, what about your clothes?!" As Tsuna hurried after them with coverings, he glanced back at his sister, who was...

...sitting there calmly, finishing off her cake. Tsuna wanted to stop and wonder what exactly her regret was, but the girls marching down the stairs in their underwear were a more pressing matter, and he ran after them, yelling.

...not being able to finish my goddamn cake in peace.

Omake - The Gamer

What the fuck was this.

I stared at the screen floating in front of me, showing some kind of stat screen.

Species: Human, Borderline Mary-Sue
Level: 9000+ Next level: N/A
Age: 13

Strength: 9000+
Agility: 9000+
Athleticism: 9000+
Intelligence: 9000+
Wisdom: 9000+
Luck: 9000+
Charisma: 9000+

Specialty: Being OP

After coming out of Dying Will mode, this had appeared in front of me. Reaching out a finger, I pressed the [Back]button on the bottom corner of the screen, and a menu screen appeared. I stared at it for a moment longer, then pressed the [Skills] option. A whole load of skill boxes appeared, and I reeled back in shock, although I really should have expected it.

I skimmed through the skill titles, occasionally pressing on some to see what they were, when something caught my eye.

[Role Insertion]

Narrowing my eyes in suspicion, I pressed it to see the description.

[Role Insertion] (Passive) Lv 9000+
This skill creates or takes over a noticeable role in the in the main story and gives it to the player. The player is not given a choice in the matter.
Activation chance: 95%

Well, that explained a lot.

Chapter Text

"I want pork-flavoured."

"I want miso-flavoured."

"Me want seafood."

"~~~~~~~~~"

"Give me your spiciest."

Tsuna stared at other occupants of the house in dismay.

What a quick change!

He could also see his sister, seeming as unaware as his mother, happily slurping her spicy ramen - how she could stand such a hot flavour was beyond him - while Reborn intimidated him into 'guarding' his mother with them the next day.

Tsuna marvelled at how his mother and sister seemed to be completely oblivious to the daily chaos of the house. He wondered if it was some kind of Sawada superpower he had missed out on.

Saburou the pick-pocket smirked as he snuck behind the woman, quickly reaching for her handbag, only to get smacked in the face with a pink-haired woman's astonishingly whip-like hair.

"Gya!"

He fell down onto the ground and swore. As a tiny child with a single braid sticking pointed at him and beat him up, he could feel a murderous glare coming from an unidentifiable source.

Saburou lay there, stunned, unable to do anything but twitch in pain. A brunette looking similar to the target helped him up sympathetically, but he was still scared shitless.

Maybe it had something to do with the words whispered to him right before she left.

Jirou the extortionist shook his head at his hopeless brother. The soft-hearted woman that was his current target was talking with a weird brat in a cow suit who was demanding ice cream.

"I guess I'll go now."

The cow brat rummaged through his hair, and took something out. Probably not what he had been searching for, the kid threw it backwards. Jirou narrowed his eyes at the curiously pink object, but since it wasn't coming his way, it didn't concern him.

At least it didn't, until a brunette looking almost exactly like his target jumped up and spiked it...

...right into the vase he was carrying.

The last thing he saw before being blown up was the smug smirk residing on her face.

His brothers were absolutely hopeless, grumbled Ichirou the swindler as he approached the house of his target. If you wanted something done, you had to do it yourself.

He pressed on the doorbell, and moments later a young boy with gravity defying hair opened the door. He introduced himself, and wormed his way into the house. The swindler smirked. He had won already, even if his victims didn't know it yet.

Or not.

Ichirou's confidence was shattered when he ran from the house. The poisoned tea- those teenagers appearing out of nowhere- that fedora-wearing baby with the gun- a gun- oh god, a brunette had been juggling knives and 'accidently' throwing them at him!

Then he heard a yell, and when he looked behind him, a half-naked boy was chasing them like a madman. No, notlike a madman, he was a madman!

Ichirou regretted everything he had ever done in his life in that very moment.

Tsuna felt like crying when the cold metal hand-cuffs were slapped onto his wrists.

He actually did cry when his sister walked into the police station to bail him out.

"Nee-chan!" He hugged her tightly. She patted his back, and handed him a bag of his clothes when he finally pulled away.

"You okay, Tsu-kun?" When he nodded, his sister smiled in relief and hurried him out of the police station when he was done dressing. "You go home first, I still have some business to take care of."

She gave him another shove towards the direction of their home, and disappeared back into the building before he could say a word in protest.

Tsuna stared at the door of the station, debating whether he should go back inside to his sister, but decided against it. He'd already been arrested one too many times today.

Chief Yamashita stared at the girl who had just walked away from the holding cells. In all his years as Chief of the Police in Namimori, he had never seen a person who had managed to terrify criminals to level even close to Hibari's.

He wondered if she would consider becoming a policewoman when she graduated from school.

Ichirou, Jirou, and Saburou, clung to each other in a corner of the cell. They were still shaken up over what the brunette had said to them, innocently smiling, before she left.

"Mess with my family again, and hell will look like a children's playground when I'm done with you."

And they believed every word she said.

It had been some time since 'The Three Criminal Brothers' had turned themselves in due to reasons unknown to the local newspaper. That was one crime problem solved, however, Yamashita Yuki knew that the yakuza in the next town over, the ones who had been chased out of Namimori by Hibari and his Disciplinary Committee, were starting to stir up trouble, and her father, the Chief of the Namimori Police, expected them to make a move to try take back over Namimori soon.

She really worried for her father. He was always coming home late, tired and hungry. Yuki sighed, then realized her friend had asked her something.

"Oh, sorry Sawada-chan, can you repeat that?"

The brunette looked at her in concern. The two had become good friends after they had asked for her help in forming and leading the girl's pole-knocking team.

"I asked if you were okay, Yuki-chan. You look like something's weighing heavily on your mind. Can I help with whatever it is?"

"That's nice of you, but I don't really think you can help," Yuki smiled at the girl on her right, "It's just that my dad, who's Chief of the Police here, is expecting the Tsugimachi yakuza, the ones in the next town over, to make a move soon. I think they're still sore about Hibari kicking them out of the area."

"Oh yeah," Yamashita Akira, who was walking on the other side of the brunette, said, "My dad was worried about that too. He actually wants me to go back and stay with him in Yokomachini until it all blows over."

"Oh? I haven't heard anything at all. I understand Yuki-chan and her dad knowing of such things, but how does your dad know of this?" They stared at Akira, who suddenly grew flustered and dodged their question.

"I-it doesn't matter! Oh look, a crêpe stand! Let's go get some!" She ran off, leaving two confused girls behind.

"Okay...?" The brunette girl raised an eyebrow, then shrugged. "Well, if she doesn't want to tell us, I'm not going to force her. Besides, lemon crêpe sounds good right now."

She ran after the other girl, and Yuki followed soon after, shoving her suspicions to the back of her mind. They could wait; strawberry crêpes, on the other hand, could not.

Yamashita Akira ate her crêpe, relieved. Her friends had given her strange looks after her random outburst and obvious attempt to avoid answering the question, but hadn't pressed further.

"Well, this is where I separate from you guys. Bye!" Sawada turned in a different direction from hers and waved goodbye.

Akira and Yuki waved goodbye to the brunette as well, and continued to their apartment block.

"Hey, Akira, what do you think of the Namimori school uniform?" Yuki said randomly.

"Eh, I don't think our uniforms look too bad, but I personally prefer the Kokuyo middle uniforms."

"Seriously? I don't like their uniforms."

"What?!"

They were so caught up in arguing about which uniform was better, they didn't notice the black car that drove up and stopped right next to them until they were dragged in by rough and tattooed arms.

"Wha-!" Yuki's shriek was covered up by a cloth that was soaked in chloroform or a similar liquid. Moments later, the same thing happened to her. Akira struggled and fought the grip of the man holding her, but could feel herself losing consciousness, the black seeping in from the sides of her vision. The last thing she heard was their kidnappers chuckling.

"Oho, looks like we not only got Namimori students, but the brats of the Chief of the Namimori Police and saiko komon of the Sonohoka yakuza as well. Not bad for a day's work."

...She should have taken up her dad's offer.

Chapter Text

I was running. Running from what, you ask? Why, the yakuza, of course.

"Leave me alone!"

Unfortunately, my pleas were ignored and the men after me continued their unwanted chase. You probably want to know why I, who had sworn to never get involved with the mafia, had gotten involved with the yakuza, which was basically the Japanese mafia.

It's a long story, but I'll tell you anyway. You've heard of how the daughter of the Chief of police in Namimori and the daughter of Sonohoka's saiko komon were kidnapped by the Tsugimachi yakuza, right? And of how it was because they were Namimori middle students, and Namimori middle was under the jurisdiction of Hibari?

Well, a message came for the Disciplinary Committee during break time, in the form of a Tsugimachi grunt driving up to the front of the school in a noisy motorbike and demanding the attention of Hibari if he wanted the two missing students of his precious school back. Hibari was immediately there, pushing a tonfa up under the grunt's chin, causing the grunt to obviously regret ever following his orders and freeze up. He may have even stayed that way forever if Hibari's eyes had not narrowed, a clear indicator of his irritation.

None of the normal students of the school dared to listen in, for fear of being 'bitten to death' for crowding. I was a different matter though, and against the worries of the general student body, approached the gangster being held by the prefect. The absence of Yamashita and Yamazaki had not gone unnoticed by me, and considering what they had told me yesterday, it was no wonder I was worried.

"Do those two students happen to be named Yamashita Yuki and Yamazaki Akira?"

The grunt leered at me, having regained a bit of his bravado at seeing what he thought was a normal, gentle and weak girl come within two metres of Hibari.

"They might be. What, friends of yours, girly?"

This guy really pissed me off. He was leering at me. I hated people leering at me. He also called me girly. I hated that too.

"Yes, they are. Where are they being held?"

"As if I'd tell-"

Hibari pushed his tonfa further against the grunt's neck.

"Answer her question, herbivore."

I raised an eyebrow at the carnivore's actions, but guessed he had probably acknowledged me as something other than a herbivore. The grunt looked ready to pee his pants. He stammered out an address, and I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. An abandoned warehouse. Typical.

I bowed to Hibari. "Permission to leave school early?"

"Permission granted. Wait."

"Sure."

Hibari knocked the grunt out with his other tonfa and ordered the committee to question him further when he regained consciousness, while I waited beside the school gate, ignoring how people stole quick, confused glances at me, clearly wondering what the hell was going on. When he was done, the delinquent terror stepped out, expecting me to follow, and we headed out towards the address the grunt had given us.

Long story short, we went to the warehouse and beat the crap out of those goons, finishing with minimal injuries (on our side. Those unfortunate men unlucky enough to be in our way would be in the hospital for more than a few weeks). Yuki and Akira were found in an unguarded room by the Committee, tied up, scared, but unharmed.

Then the Sonohoka yakuza arrived, all decked out for a serious fight, only to find a group of teenagers, two slightly injured, two slightly traumatized, and the rest cleaning up after the two slightly injured. Hibari left, claiming that the crowding was irritating him, leaving me to deal with the bewildered yakuza group. Yuki had left with the Chief of Police, the Committee was too busy cleaning up, and Akira was no help at all, futilely trying to hide behind me.

After her father had finished fussing over the girl, his group had learnt that I was part of the duo that had destroyed the Tsugimachi yakuza. I tried to convince them that Hibari did it all, I was only there for... the school paper? It didn't work, for some reason. And that led to me being where I was now.

"Join us!"

"No! I don't want to play the yakuza game!"

"It's not a game!"

"That makes it even worse!"

They were less than a hundred metres behind me, and up ahead I could see the intersection of my street and the one I was currently on. Yes! I had practically lost my pursuers already.

I turned the corner and almost fell over in shock. Only now did I notice my intuition nagging at me, the way it did whenever something in the story was happening. Up ahead, a crowd of black suited men were milling in front of the Sawada residence.

I looked to my pursuers, then to the men in black. The Sonohoka, the Cavallone. Yakuza, Mafia.

I made my decision.

"'Scuse me, Sawada coming through!" I shoved through the crowd and jumped up. Landing crouched on the brick wall, I asked the suited man closest to me, "When they round the corner, can you point them in another direction?", then jumped up again and flipped through the window into the room of one very startled Sawada Tsunayoshi.

"Wha- Nee-chan?!"

I shushed him, then peeked out the window, making sure to stay low.

"The yakuza's after me. Please stay quiet."

Tsuna shrieked, but quietly. Don't ask how he shrieked quietly, just know that he did. The Sonohoka passed by below, directed by the finger of the man I had asked the favour of. I breathed a sigh of relief, and noticed for the first time the other occupants of the room when I turned from the window. A blond and two dark-haired men stared at me.

"...Hi?"

My brother started freaking out.

"Nee-chan, what- why- how- you-!"

I ignored him in favour of reaching for the med kit, which wasn't there, in my bag, which also wasn't there. I must have dropped it outside. I stuck my head out of the window and yelled down at the men standing below, "Oi, I dropped my bag, can you see it anywhere?"

A man with curling designs tattooed onto his shaved head, raised my bag, and made as if to throw it. My eyes widened, "Nononodon'tthrowit-!", but I was too late. He threw it, and I pulled myself back inside and ducked down. The black shoulder bag made a gracefull arc in the air and through the window, then landed with a not-so-graceful crash onto the coffee table.

The coffee table broke. Tsuna shrieked. I sighed.

Omake - the battle scene I didn't put in because it would interrupt the flow of the story and also because it was meh

Arriving at the place where my friends were being held, I held back, deciding that we needed a plan, but Hibari easily knocked the guards in front of the entrance out and charged straight in. Moments later, I heard several shouts and cries of pain.

Sighing, I walked through the entrance to join Hibari crushing the group that had been stupid enough to think they could take on Hibari. He really didn't look like he needed help, but I joined him in attacking anyway, to make sure it would stay that way.

Ducking below a man's punch, I retaliated with one of my own while avoiding his knee, wishing I had brought a pair of knuckle dusters or something when my fist made contact with his chin. Shaking the pain out of my hand, I continued to punch and kick while scanning the area for a weapon that I could use.

I stopped and smacked my forehead when I remembered what I had started carrying on me at all times. I took the jitte - which I had somehow forgotten about - out from it's hiding place on my body, and just in time too, as I raised it to block the katana that had been swung down at me. Allowing the blade to slide down to the hook which locked it in place, the sword was sent out of the man's hands with a deft flick and then he was sent to la-la-land with a good hit to the head with the pommel. The next man's metal bat was beaten away and he was sent into unconsciousness as well. When an opponent got too close for me to swing the jitte effectively, I would flip it upside down and fight using the pommel and my knuckles.

The battle continued like this for a while, with me pulling out another jitte in a weird but effective dual-wield, and Hibari being... Hibari, with his 'bite you to death' thing. 'You' apparently included me and I had to dodge the metal bars several times as he whipped them through the air in a lethal manner.

Suddenly my gut wrenched and I leapt out of the path of the bullet that was shot a moment later. Thank Giotto for Hyper Intuition, or I'd have a hole through a body part that wasn't meant to have a hole.

"Fuck!" The police were going to have a field day with this one. Gun laws in Japan were so strict, I was constantly wondering how Reborn managed to get through. Probably because of his appearance.

Hibari whacked one last opponent unconscious, then pointed at the gun bearer with a tonfa.

"Guns are against the law. You will be bitten to death."

The man, who I guessed was the oyabun if his multitude of tattoos were any indication, clearly trembled, but kept shooting - and missing, you can't shoot straight scared - anyway. Hibari, being the badass that he was, avoided all the bullets and took him out with one hit. During that time, I had taken care of the few remaining men.

The battle was over.

(It had been fun.)

Chapter Text

Tsuna shrieked. His sister's bag had just broken the coffee table. His sister's bag, which she carried everyday on one shoulder, had just broken the coffee table, which had survived Reborn, his explosions, Lambo, his explosions, and every other traumatic event that had happened in his room. Yet one leather bag which should have not contained anything other than a few books and stationery, had broken the hard, sturdy, wooden table.

He was understandably freaked out.

"I told him not to throw it." His sister sighed, and went to retrieve her bag from the wreckage - the wreckage - of his late coffee table. She then proceeded to rummage through her bag to check that nothing was broken, and let out a sigh of relief. "Looks like the only casualty was Tsuna's table."

She patted the splintered remains apologetically. "You served him well. Rest in peace now."

Tsuna finally found his voice. "W-w-w-w-w-w-what?! How- what- Nee-chan-"

Or not.

His sister ignored his shocked stuttering, and instead pulled out a slightly rumpled package. She handed it to Reborn.

"Here's what you asked me to pick up."

Reborn tilted his head in thanks. "Did you manage to give the metal plates to your friends?"

"Yep," She nodded, "But I couldn't find Akira, so I had to carry an extra plate around the whole day." She rolled the shoulder the bag strap usually rested on. "It was really heavy."

Tsuna attempted to speak again. "M-metal plate?"

His sister raised an eyebrow at him. "A girl's gotta have a way to defend herself, and not everyone likes getting their hands dirty. Speaking of which, is Mum home? I have what she asked for as well."

Tsuna wasn't quite sure of what she meant by, 'Speaking of which', but decided he didn't really want to know. Dino chose that moment to greet her.

"You must be the sister of Vongola Decimo! It's nice to meet you!" He put away his turtle held out his hand for her to shake. Tsuna started panicking - his sister didn't know about the mafia and he'd like it to stay that way! - but she just stared at Dino blankly, gave him a once over, then whispered to Tsuna, "Who's the hottie?"

Tsuna started panicking again, this time for a different reason. His sister turned back to Dino when she didn't receive an answer and shook the Cavallone boss's outstretched hand.

"It's nice to meet you too, even though I'm not sure who Vongola Decimo is. Who might you be?"

Dino looked surprised. "Eh? Vongola Decimo is-"

"Alalalala~ He's Dino, and Mum's downstairs! You should go now!" His sister might be blissfully oblivious to conversations about the mafia around her, but even she couldn't ignore a direct 'Your brother's the heir to the most powerful famiglia in the world'! He tried to hurry the confused girl out of the room, but the door opened and I-pin ran inside, followed by a grenade-holding Lambo, who then tripped on a cord. The grenades flew free from their pins and out the window. Tsuna panicked as he realized that Dino's men were outside, but the man was already jumping out of the window.

He yelled at his men to get down, then skilfully used his whip to capture the grenades and throw them up into the sky, where they wouldn't be a danger to anyone.

"...He's so cool," Tsuna said, amazed, then realized he hadn't been the only one to say it. His sister was also staring out the window at Dino, eyes full of admiration and an almost unnoticeable blush on her cheeks. He gawked at her in horror.

No. Nonononono. She can't- she can't have a crush on him! She just met him!

But her awestruck gaze said otherwise, and Tsuna couldn't decide if he should resent Dino or not. On one hand, this was his sister, he was naturally protective over her, but on the other, he really liked Dino too, although probably not in the way his sister did.

Reborn invited the man to stay for the day, despite Tsuna's protests. His sister wholeheartedly supported Reborn, and cheered when Dino agreed. Tsuna really wasn't sure what to think.

That night, Dino joined them at the dinner table. Tsuna's mother and sister were happily cooking side by side, although his mother had to keep reminding his sister to "put down the spice, dear, not everyone likes the fiery flavour as much as you do." He yet again sent a silent thank you to his mother. If not for her, he would have surely died from a burning mouth long before Reborn came and the madness started.

When Dino fumbled with his chopsticks and made a mess, Tsuna looked to his sister. But instead of the scornful 'dude can't even use chopsticks' expression he was expecting, he saw a 'that's so cute' face, accompanied with a light giggle as she handed him the utensils he was used to eating with.

Wait, what.

She giggled. His sister giggled. She never giggled outside of school and it's popularity game. Snicker, yes. Cackle, yes. But giggle? Just what-?!

"Kyaaaah!"

A scream from his mother interrupted his thoughts and the conversation he had been half paying attention to. He immediately stood up along with the other occupants of the table and rushed to the bathroom, Dino proving Reborn right when he tripped by stepping on his own foot.

When his mother ran to them shouting something about the tub, he directed her to his sister, who started comforting her, and followed the others to the bathroom, where a giant turtle had taken a bite out of the ceramic bathtub.

Dino's inability to function properly without his subordinates was further shown as his whip hit everyone but the turtle. The situation was quickly resolved though, with Leon leaping onto Tsuna's face and transforming him into Romario.

Tsuna let out a sigh of relief. He was still unsure what to think about his sister's apparent crush on Dino, but for now, he'd stay quiet. He really did like Dino too, after all.

I snickered as Dino fell down the stairs, and Tsuna following soon after due to me 'accidentally' sweeping his feet out from under him. He fell on top of Dino, and I ran down as well, helping them both up, but paying more attention to Dino, much to Tsuna's dismay. I snickered again, this time internally.

The boy really thought I had a crush on Dino, and he didn't how to deal with the information. It would be so worth it to keep up this charade. His reactions were just pure gold.

Chapter Text

I yawned. It was the day after Dino had arrived, and we were going to be late for school. Gokudera was telling Tsuna about Dino's famiglia, and when he had finished informing Tsuna, my brother realized that they had been talking about the mafia in front of Yamamoto and me. Yamamoto said it was a funny company name, and when Tsuna glanced worriedly at me, I smiled obliviously and pulled out an earbud. "Did you say something?" Tsuna was visibly relieved and told me it was nothing.

A cherry red sports car suddenly pulled up to where I was walking alongside Tsuna and his friends. Two lassos flew out towards us Sawada siblings, but I evaded the rope aimed for me and only Tsuna was captured. Yamamoto and Gokudera yelled in shock.

"Tenth!"

"Tsuna?!"

As Tsuna was dragged along behind the car screaming, I waved to him cheerfully, shouting "Have fun, Tsu-kun!" and then walked forward and around the corner, much to the bewildered stares from his future Guardians.

I could hear Reborn appear behind the boys and tell them it was the Momokyokai yakuza that had kidnapped Tsuna. They ran off, and moments later, the soft hum of a car engine informed me that Dino's car had circled around the block to end up back there. Tsuna was then untied and told Dino's motives. Then Reborn spoke up.

"Ah. I forgot to tell you guys." His student and past student looked to him. "Momokyokai is,"

I took this as my cue to re-enter the scene.

"A real, existing yakuza in this town."

Two heads spun around to face me.

"Nee-chan!"

I sighed and flipped my hair over my shoulder. "Really, Tsuna, your friends are so reckless. I heard the Momokyokai were really powerful too."

Dino and Tsuna started panicking and yelling at Reborn, who fell asleep.

"Hey, Reborn, are you listening?!" He wasn't.

Dino gritted his teeth, and told Tsuna they were going to rescue his friends, completely ignoring his protests. Tsuna looked desperately at me.

"I think you should go too. And I," I looked at my watch, "am going to school. See you later!" I waved.

"Yeah, see you later!" Dino waved back, and I let out another light giggle, to Tsuna's horror. I then skipped off to school.

Shit. Shit shit shit. Shitshitshitshitshitshitshit!

I was running. Again. Not from the yakuza this time though. I was running from something much, much worse.

"ROAR!"

I was running from an angry mama bear.

How did I end up like this?!

I couldn't even fight the animal yet, as there was absolutely no space to do so in this dense forest. My eyes darted left and right looking for a clearing, even as I leapt over logs and batted branches out of my way. The enraged bear after my blood simply charged through everything in its way.

I kind of wished our positions were reversed, just so I wouldn't have to jump and duck and bat things out of my way, then realized that was a ridiculous thought. Nobody in their right mind would chase after a bear. But then again...

There! I could see the light streaming in through the gaps between the trees, signalling a break in the forest wall. I poured on more speed, hoping I would be able to reach it before I was mauled by the bear. The bear must have also noticed that we would soon break out of the forest, because it started charging through the bush with more intensity than before.

Almost... there...

Yes! I was through!

But celebrations would have to wait. Right now, I had a bear to defeat.

Tsuna was asking Kyoko and Haru what they were doing in the forest when a figure wearing a black hoodie and camo pants burst through the trees with a furious brown bear on its tail.

"KYAAAA!"

The person seemed not to notice the screams. Tsuna watched as they turned around to face the bear and pull a long staff out of nowhere, then look at it and discard it. The next item they pulled out - again out of nowhere - was a short metal bar with hooks on the sides - a sai? - which they also found unsatisfactory. Then they found a pair of knuckle dusters, which they slipped on, and shifted into a fighting stance.

The apparently suicidal person also made a 'come on then' gesture at the bear. The bear did not like it. At all.

It roared again and charged forward, swiping a giant paw, which the person ducked under. In the opening, they stepped forward to land a hit on the bear's stomach and stepped out again just as quickly. It continued in this fashion for a while, with the bear swiping and the hooded person landing hits in the openings.

Then one time the person was a little slow to duck down, and bear's swipe made their hood fly off. Long brown hair flowed out and the person clicked their tongue in annoyance. They leapt backwards out of the bear's range and reached into their pocket while dancing around the bear to avoid its swipes. They brought something dark green out - a bandana? - and pushed their hair back with it. Tsuna could finally see the mysterious bear-fighter's face and when he did, he gasped.

It was his sister. His sister was fighting a bear. His sister was fighting a bear.

He nearly fainted. Nearly.

His sister was still fighting the bear, but even he could see the battle would end soon. The bear was slowing down. She must have administered a tranquilizer some time during the battle. Tsuna watched as the bear's swipes became less frequent and fierce, then it finally slumped onto the ground.

His sister stepped forward to pat the unconscious bear on the head. Whispering an apology to it, she turned and froze when she finally noticed that she had spectators.

She stared at them. They stared at her. She opened her mouth.

"I haven't killed anyone yet."

Omake – Other things she could have said - I had a hard time deciding.

"It's all in your head."

"You're all hallucinating."

"It's not what it looks like!"

"It wasn't me."

Chapter Text

I sat awkwardly on the log as Kyoko and Haru explained how they had ended up lost along with the children. My turn to explain how I had ended up in the situation I had ended up in was next. I was still cringing inwardly over what I had blurted out earlier.

"I haven't killed anyone yet."

Yeah, that.

And the Most Situation Inappropriate Statement of the Millennium Award goes to me. Cue clapping and obligatory long-winded speech thanking people and things I don't actually want to thank.

That being said, what was Tsuna and co. doing here? In the manga, Tsuna was hospitalized before he ended up lost, the reverse being true in the anime. I thought we had already established this was the mangaverse.

Frowning, I took out The Book, and opened it up to the page this world was currently on. There was a small green bookmark stuck between the pages. I was the one who had put it there; the writing on it, however, was not mine.

Lol, no. Manganimeverse, bitch.

With a blur of movement, tiny scraps of green paper were fluttering through the air to litter the ground at my feet. I would need a new bookmark. Maybe yellow this time. Or purple. Yeah, that sounded nice.

Haru and Kyoko finished their recount and Tsuna turned to me.

"So, Nee-chan, why are you here? And why were you being chased by an angry bear?"

I sighed, "It's a long story. Listen up, because I'm only telling it once."

"Sawada-san!" A girl who I recognized as the president of the Newspaper Club shouted to me. I stopped and waited for her to catch up. She did after a minute, and took another minute to calm her breathing and compose herself. "Can you do me a favour?"

I smiled at her. "Depends. What do you need me to do?"

"Could you please go to the mountain and see what's going on there?"

"What's going on there?"

"There have been rumours of weird things happening, and I want a story to put in the newspaper."

(At this Tsuna sent an accusing glare at an innocent looking Reborn.)

"I see, but why couldn't you ask one of your members to do it or do it yourself?"

"Well, um, actually, the whole club has tried investigating what's happening, but it's too scary and dangerous!"

"...And you want me to investigate this scary and dangerous mountain?"

"Um, Sawada-san has always seemed like a brave person, so I thought..."

"Hm... I don't know..." I chewed my lip thoughtfully.

"You won't be doing it for free, of course! Our budget's large enough to pay for extra help."

"Hm, okay then. Wh-

"Stop for a moment there," Tsuna interrupted me, "You agreed to investigate a scary and dangerous place just because they paid you?"

"Hey," I retorted, "Where do think I got the money to bail you out of holding, hm?"

Tsuna avoided meeting the enquiring gazes directed at him.

"..."

"You think I picked it off a tree?"

"Okay, okay, I get it. Continue your story, please."

I hmphed, but did as he asked.

So I had accepted the job to investigate this mountain. The Newspaper Club gave me a camera and told me what they had seen during their attempts.

This morning, I set off for this mountain. Like what the club members had told me, there was a lot of weird stuff. Seriously, man-eating plants, snakes, and spiders that large should not have existed in a place like Japan, even in the wildest areas.

"You came across that too?! Are you okay?!"

I shot Tsuna a glare for interrupting me again. He held his hands up in a placating gesture and apologized. I continued with my story.

I managed to take photos of everything, and was trying to get a picture of an interesting bird, when all of a sudden the ground started shaking. I looked around for the source of the earthquake, and spotted what looked like an dinosaur/turtle stomping across the forest.

I was so busy snapping pictures of the creature that I didn't notice when I stepped too close to the cliff edge, and when the next shake came, the ground under my foot gave way, taking me with it.

I fell. And crashed into the ground just metres away from a bear family. There weren't even any trees to break my fall, so it really hurt. The mama bear must have felt threatened or something, because it tried to maul me. I ran and it gave chase. And that brought me to what you saw, me having to fight and tranquilize the bear.

The story of how I ended up in this situation was over. Everyone was staring at me. Tsuna was the first to speak up.

"You fell off a cliff and didn't die."

I nodded.

"Nor did you sustain any major injuries."

I nodded again.

"Then you fought and tranquilized a raging bear."

"Yep."

"...Nee-chan, you're amazing."

"Why, thank you."

"I'm not even going to asked where you found a tranquilizer or how you pulled those weapons out of nowhere." My brother sighed, running a hand down his face. "So what do we do now?"

Dino took charge of the situation and said it would be best to put some distance between the bear and us first. Everyone agreed. I tried to stand up and winced.

"Ow."

"What's wrong?" asked a concerned Dino.

"I think I twisted my foot when I was running from the bear."

The blond sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. "It can't be helped; I'll carry you." He lifted me up into his arms in a bridal carry. "You can rest your head on my shoulder, if you'd like."

I rose a blush to my cheeks and followed his suggestion, much to the horror of Tsuna. When I lifted my head from Dino's shoulder slightly, I could practically see my brother spiralling into a pit of mortification and quietly sniggered.

I was having way too much fun with this.

Chapter Text

Now that the whole 'getting lost on Death Mountain replica' fiasco was over, it was time for Tsuna to go to the hospital and endure the chaos his visit would bring. Unfortunately, I also had to go, due to my sprained ankle. Fortunately, I got out quickly with crutches and orders to stay out of PE classes. I gladly complied.

I also had Kyoko and Haru deliver my riceballs to Tsuna in the hospital, because there was no way in hell I was going back there with him in it.

Sorry, brother, but I just wasn't willing to be dragged into the madness that came with Reborn. That was your job.

"Nee-tan."

I opened the window and poked my head out.

"Hm? Reborn-kun, what is it?" I asked, covering a yawn.

"Nee-chan! Were you still sleeping?" asked Tsuna.

"Hey," I yawned again, "I was up all night finishing off a commission. See?"

I lifted the canvas and showed it to the street below. There were murmurs of amazement and praise.

"Amazing, Onee-san!"

"You're so skilled, Sawada-chan!"

"Whoa, Tsuna, your sister's really good at painting."

"Nee-chan, since when were you so good at painting?"

"Since I realized I was a half-breed Mary-Sue." I muttered to myself (why half-breed? Well, you didn't see all the main characters falling in love with me, did you?), then to the people outside, "Ehe, thanks." I set the painting back on the stand. "Now, Reborn-kun, what did you call me for?"

"Join Tsuna's family in Vongola's New Year Family Versus Battle." said the baby.

"Reborn! Don't pull her into this as well!" protested Tsuna. He was ignored.

"It's Tsuna's family vs the Cavallone famiglia."

"Cavallone famiglia?" I tilted my head to the side, pretending to not know.

"Yo!" Dino waved to me.

"Dino-san!" I inwardly smirked. What great timing. I had just finished the latest batch yesterday. "Ah, Dino-san, please wait a moment, I have something to give you."

And with that, I shut the window.

Tsuna watched with conflicting feelings when his sister's eyes sparkled at the sight of Dino. He wondered what she had to give to the man. The window was then shut and his sister disappeared from view, then appeared a few minutes later at the front door in a long coat and scarf. She was carrying a box containing rice balls.

"I never got to thank you properly for carrying me when I was injured." She smiled happily at Dino, and handed the box to him, much to the 'd'aww's of his men. "So I made you these rice balls."

Dino beamed back at her. "Thanks! Ooh, they look really good."

He took a bite of one of the cutely shaped rice balls. Tsuna held his breath. She wouldn't, would she...?

The man's face slowly started turning red and tears began springing up in the corners of his eyes. She would.

Tsuna cringed sympathetically as Dino swallowed the last of the rice ball and attempted to smile at his sister.

"It tastes really good too," Dino managed, "I think I'll save the rest for later."

His sister sighed in relief. "Thank goodness, I was scared you wouldn't like them. I made it with the new spices I just received. You're the first to taste them." She smiled cheerfully at him again, and turned to Reborn. "Sorry, but I'll have to pass. I barely slept last night, so I'm afraid I wouldn't be much help at all." She yawned as if to emphasize her point.

Reborn nodded. "That's too bad. You can go back to sleep now, Nee-tan."

"I will, thank you." She smothered another yawn with her hand, then turned and re-entered the house to get more sleep.

As soon as she was out of earshot, Dino turned desperately to his men for water. Tsuna patted him sympathetically on the back, along with Yamamoto, Gokudera, and Ryohei, who had received a present of 'extremely hot!' rice balls for his birthday.

Another had fallen victim to his sister's fiery cooking. They should form a club.

"Tsuna is always talking about you," my mother said to Gokudera. I nodded, folding my arms.

"Yeah, yeah, I know so much useless info about you it's not even funny."

I had been out shopping with Nana, and we were going back home when we came across Gokudera. He had been sullenly sitting on one of the creaky swings and smoking. When we approached, though, he quickly hid his cigarette. If the dampness of his scarf was anything to go by, I guessed Gokudera had just run away upset due to him thinking that Tsuna relied more on Yamamoto than him.

He scowled slightly at me but almost reverently questioned my mother, "Juudaime talks about me?"

"Yeah," my mother nodded, "There isn't one day where he doesn't mention your name, Gokudera-kun."

The boy looked on the verge of tears at this new found knowledge. He leapt up from the swings, yelling "I'm sorry, Juudaime! I was wrong!"

"Gokudera-kun?" questioned my mother. He didn't hear her. "What a strange boy."

"All Tsuna's friends are weird, mum." I told her. "But they're nice too, so you don't need to worry about him so much anymore. Well, not in the same way, at least," I muttered to the side.

She nodded. "I guess you're right." She glanced at her watch. "Oh, it's getting late. We should go home and start cooking dinner."

I opened my mouth, but never got to say a word. "No, dear, we can't pour chili sauce all over the food."

"Aww."

Omake - Meanwhile, with Dino...

"B-boss, are you really going to eat all that?" Romario asked, eying the rice balls that the Vongola Decimo's sister had made. Dino nodded stubbornly.

"Yes. She made them just for me. I'd be disrespecting her if I didn't eat it all."

"Still..."

"They can't be any worse than Bianchi's cooking. I'll live."

"If you say so. Just don't say I didn't warn you." he muttered off to the side.

Dino stared at the rice balls in front of him, steeling himself for the fire that would soon scorch his mouth. He picked one up and started eating it. His eyes grew watery, and he started sniffing. The blond boss tried to grin at Romario.

"See? It's not so bad." said Dino, tears now beginning to stream down his red face. Romario sighed.

"I'll go get the milk."

Chapter Text

Parent Participation Day. The bane of all students.

I should have faked sick.

As the teacher joked and made the parents laugh, I looked around the classroom and my mind for something that would excuse me from this hell session. Nothing here, nothing there... Crap. I had nothing.

But the teacher wouldn't call out on me anyway, so that was one last thing to worry about. He called out on Yamamoto, who somehow guessed the answer right, then on Gokudera, who also got the answer right, and then on Tsuna, who got the answer wrong, on was smacked on the head with a flying slipper for his troubles.

"Me!" an obnoxious voice called out. I sighed, and attempted to disappear from view by burying my face in my arms. It didn't work, as evidenced by Lambo yelling that he wanted to play with me and Kyoko. Somehow, the cow brat had formed an attachment with me. It probably had something to do with the fact that I gave him grape candy to get him to shut up when he annoyed me, which was quite often.

Tsuna berated our mother for bringing the children, and was shocked when she said she didn't. Bianchi appeared in the doorway and made Gokudera faint. A chance!

I rushed over to help Gokudera up, and greeted Bianchi. "Bianchi! What a pleasant surprise."

"Ah, it's nice to see you too." Bianchi smiled back. "Poor Hayato was probably so excited at seeing me that he fainted."

"The boy gets excited too easily. Oh well. Shall we take him to the infirmary?"

"Let's."

The two of us left the classroom with Nana and the children. The teacher told the class to self-study before rushing out.

I inwardly breathed a sigh of relief. Crisis averted. For now.

Tsuna watched Reborn, who was masquerading as Reboyama-sensei, write an absurdly long and hard question on the board. He then told the class that whoever answered it correctly would be introduced to an employment opportunity in the mafia. He had been serious about searching for family candidates in his class! Tsuna was very glad that probably no-one currently in the classroom could solve it. Gokudera had keeled over, and his sister was carrying him to the infirmary with Bianchi.

Or so he thought.

"I've seen this question… before." Gokudera said, struggling into the classroom, "The answer is the square root of 5!"

He was bombed by Reborn for already being in the mafia.

The other occupants of the classroom stared, aghast. Tsuna decided he had to do something and stomped up to Reborn.

"Reborn! You're-"

"Gokudera-kun! You shouldn't be moving about in your condition!" His sister ran up to the silver-haired teenager and picked him up by the arm, seemingly not noticing the smell of gunpowder and smoke. "Ah, sensei, sorry for disturbing your lesson." She bowed to Reborn.

"I'll forgive you if you can answer this question," replied Reborn. Tsuna turned back to him to protest, but stopped when his sister narrowed her eyes at the board and wrote something down on a blank piece of paper that she had brought out of nowhere with a pencil that she had also brought out of nowhere. She gave the paper to Reborn.

"The answer is written here." She bowed again, and left the classroom with Gokudera in tow. Reborn looked at the piece of paper and nodded. Now that she was gone, Tsuna could feel the glares boring into his back and ordering him to do something.

He wanted to cry. Even more so when he was shot.

As Fuuta brought the enormous book out of his coat, Tsuna wondered if he was the only one in the world who didn't have access to a pocket dimension. Wait, he'd never seen Yamamoto bring something out of nowhere, had he?

…He'd probably just jinxed it.

"Haru, you left your bag-"

I opened the door and stopped short at the sight of Lambo and I-pin floating in the air along with several other objects. I was doing that a lot these days. Fuuta was standing in the middle of the room.

"Nee-san is ranked first in walking into situations she does not want to be a part of."

Too true, seriously, what was the famed Hyper Intuition doing, taking a bath in a separate compartment of my brain while whistling contentedly and ignoring the door-banging of my conscious mind?

"She is also ranked first in feigning ignorance to get out of those situations."

Ahahahahaha, what was he talking about? Feigning ignorance? What's that?

"Oh, how interesting. Tsuna, you never told me you had a visitor. Haru, I brought your bag which you left downstairs. I'll be in my room if you need me bye." I quickly left the room and shut the door.

"Dear, could you please go out to the market and buy some ingredients?" said my mother, opening the door to my room. I looked up from what I was drawing.

"Sure. What do you need?"

She listed the ingredients, and I wrote them down on a piece of paper brought out from hammerspace. When she finished, I nodded.

"Cool. I'll be going now then."

I stepped out the front door, waving and resolutely ignoring the grey suited men clustered outside the gate. I really didn't want to bother with them; they, however, seemed to want to bother me.

"Where's-" He was interrupted by the Bianchi Glare™ that I had adopted.

"Excuse me, I need to get through. Please kindly move and clear a path for me to walk through," I said, dropping the glare for a smile that promised pain and cranking the 'pain promised' level to 9. They complied, forming straight lines of men on each side.

Once I was clear of the crowd, I turned and followed Bianchi's example.

"Ciao."

I could still see through the window. Tsuna and Gokudera's faces were priceless.

Omake - Nightmare as suggested by HikariNoTenshi-San on FF.net

Tsuna blinked. He was standing in front of his sister. Who was wearing a flowing white dress. And an amethyst ring on her fourth finger. And standing next to Dino. Who was wearing a smart black suit. And a matching ring on his fourth finger.

...This wasn't what he thought it was, was it?

"Tsu-kun! I'm so glad you came!" His sister grabbed his hands in hers.

"Y-yeah, I wouldn't miss it for the world." Wouldn't miss what for the world? Tsuna didn't know anything about the words that came out of his mouth.

"Come to give us congratulations?" said Dino, grinning like his greatest wish had just been fulfilled. (It very well may have, if Tsuna's guess was unfortunately right.)

Tsuna's head nodded against his will.

"Yeah. Congratulations on your wedding, and I wish you the best in your married life."

...Nooooooooooooooooooooooo-

"-oooooooooooooooooooooooo!"

Tsuna was awoken by the sound of his own shriek. Gasping for air, he looked around and realized he was in his bed.

Oh. It was dream then. What a relief.

He sighed, and stood to switch on the light so he could get a glass of water. Bad move. As soon as the light hit the room, his eyes were drawn to something on his dresser.

A picture frame. Showing his sister and Dino. At the altar.

"Nooooooooooooooooooooooooo-"

"-ooooooooooooooooooooooooo!"

Tsuna awoke again. He jerked his head up and looked around. His head had previously been resting on his arms, which were resting on a counter sticky with spilled... alcohol?

He frowned. A bar? Why was he at a bar? He was obviously way underage!

During his confusion, the bartender who was cleaning a glass with a rag gave him a concerned look.

"Are you alright, Sawada-san?"

Tsuna blinked at the man. "Y-yeah, probably... What am I doing here?"

The bartender gave him another concerned look.

"You came to 'drink your sorrows away', remember?" he said, then continued in a sympathetic tone, "Your sister's wedding must have really hit you hard."

Oh. That made sense.

Wait, what?

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-

"OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

Tsuna was awoken yet again. Looking around frantically, he saw the amused faces and frowns of his classmates. He was in school. Right.

"Sawada, does my class really bore you so much that you find sleeping is necessary?" the teacher said from the front of the classroom, adjusting their glasses disapprovingly. At his panicked head shake, the teacher continued, "Good. But you can prove yourself in detention, can't you?"

Not another detention. He sighed and nodded in defeat. "Yes, sensei."

The teacher nodded curtly back and continued the lesson. Tsuna snuck glances at his sister, wondering, and eventually came to the conclusion that no, she was not married to Dino. They were still in school, after all.

He never saw the engagement ring on her finger.

Chapter Text

I tapped my pencil on my desk, sighing. I was bored. So very, very bored. I wasn't even in the mood to draw.

Throwing the pencil over my shoulder carelessly, I brought a tablet out from hammerspace and set it on the table. Time to surf the internet and see what it had to offer.

A few minutes later, something caught my eye and I raised an eyebrow. Then grinned when I clicked on the link and read through the page.

This seems fun.

Tsuna was eating dinner with his family and the freeloaders. Thankfully, his sister had been discouraged from adding shredded chili to the dishes, so he wasn't feeling like he had just swallowed a mouthful of liquid hell. Then she spoke up.

"There'll be a British male living here as well starting next week."

Tsuna choked on his rice, causing Fuuta to pat him on the back.

"What?!"

"It's a student exchange program, and I volunteered our family and house. He'll be going to Nami-chuu as well."

"What?!" repeated Tsuna.

"Don't worry, we're getting money for the expenses," said his sister, seemingly mistaking his exclamation for something else.

"That's not the point! Don't just volunteer our family without consulting us!"

"Why not?" his mother said, resting her hand on her cheek, "I think it's a wonderful idea. We'll be able to teach a foreigner about our culture, and he can teach us about his."

"Mum, don't encourage her!"

"I agree with Maman," Reborn said, "It's a great opportunity for Tsuna as well."

"Reborn!"

"I can get more rankings!"

"Fuuta!"

"Lambo, I-pin, what do you two think?" asked his mother, not noticing his protests, "We'll have another person joining our family soon!"

Lambo laughed obnoxiously and spouted something about making him his subordinate while I-pin just nodded and smiled happily.

"I'm glad everyone is excited for the new arrival. I've begun preparing the spare room already, so no need to worry, mum," assured his sister, smiling.

Tsuna sighed and hung his head in defeat. He really wished people would stop deciding things on their own.

Some time later, I was at Namimori airport. Our family didn't own a car, so I had asked Yuki's father, the Chief of Police, if he would be able to help. He was delighted at the thought of a foreigner visiting and staying in our town, and enthusiastically agreed. Yuki had wanted to meet the foreigner too, so she was tagging along.

"Is that him?" She pointed at a random boy walking by.

"No, Yuki, he's a blond, not brunet," I replied, glancing at the person she was pointing too. "He's also pretty distinctive too, with really large eyebrows." I sighed. "Really, I should have shown you the photo."

"Nah, it'd just have toned down the excitement of meeting a foreigner for the first time."

I smiled amusedly at her.

"You're already imagining the potential love that might blossom between you two." I stated. She grew flustered and waved her hands frantically.

"N-no! I have no idea what you're talking about!"

"You so are."

"No I'm not! Oh look, is that him?" She pointed in a random direction, clearly trying to divert my attention, but I looked anyway. To my surprise, it actually was him. I raised the sign with his name on it higher and started yelling.

"Over here! English exchange student over here!" I called, the last part in English. The blond looked in our direction at the sound of my voice and started walking over.

"You must be Sawada-san," he said in accented Japanese when he reached us, "It's nice to finally meet you." He bowed.

I bowed back. "It's nice to finally meet you too." I grabbed his hands, startling him. "Welcome to Namimori, Arthur Kirkland."

That night, Arthur sat at our dinner table. He told me to call him by his given name, and I insisted he call me Nee-san. He tried to address Nana as Sawada-san, but she was even more insistent than me on him calling her Mama. Tsuna was addressed with his given name, as was the rest of our strange household.

"Ah, Arthur, are you okay with using chopsticks?"

"Yes, I'm fine... Mama." he replied, blushing slightly when Nana clapped her hands in delight.

"Okay, food's ready." I set the dishes down on the table and slapped Lambo's hand away. "Let's start then."

We all sat down and said the traditional phrase, then started digging in. Arthur fumbled with his chopsticks a little, but he was nowhere as bad as Dino had been. The first half of the meal passed relatively peacefully, with Arthur occasionally being asked questions and replying, but then Lambo decided to start acting up.

"Gahahahahaha! I'm going to steal your food, tail-head!" He dove for I-pin's food, but missed when she swiftly took it away and crashed into Tsuna's bowl. It flipped up and rice flew everywhere. I and the other occupants of the table managed to duck down in time, being used to the chaos, but poor Arthur was too slow and received a faceful of rice.

"Lambo!" Tsuna grabbed Lambo, preventing any further mess, and bowed to Arthur. "I'm so sorry!"

Arthur waved his apology away. "Don't worry. It wasn't your fault." He turned to me. "Could you show me where the bathroom is again?"

"Sure," I replied, "Follow me."

He did, and we stopped by his room to grab a spare change of clothes and a towel, then headed to the bathroom. I left after instructing him on where to put his things, and returned to the kitchen.

It had returned to the normal chaos, and I sighed. I had really been hoping for peaceful meals to return.

Omake - Yes, Arthur's borrowed from Hetalia

A day before Arthur arrived, I received a phone call from an unknown number.

"Is this, English student, exchange program, family?" a voice asked in broken Japanese.

"Yes, it is." I switched to English. "And who might you be?"

"Oh, you can speak English!" the person said, relieved, "This is your hostee's cousin, Alfred F. Jones. I need to warn you about Arthur!"

"Um, okay, what do you need to warn me about?"

"Do not, under any circumstances, allow him to cook or eat his cooking!"

"Um, okay, but why not?"

"Just don't! If you do, I promise you'll regret it. I need to go now. Please remember what I said. Bye!"

I was left with the hung-up tone buzzing through my ear. I raised an eyebrow. And smirked. This would be fun, indeed.

Chapter Text

"Could you give this to Kirkland-sama, Sawada-san?" asked a girl as she handed a prettily decorated box to me. I looked at her inquiringly but nodded.

"Sure. Don't know why you can't give it to him yourself, though."

"I would, but..." She blushed. I raised an eyebrow.

"But?"

"He's just so... so..."

"Ah, Nee-san, there you are."

The girl squeaked and ran off as soon as she noticed Arthur approaching. Arthur stared after her in confusion.

"What...?"

"It wasn't you, don't worry. Well, it was you, but not, like, in a bad way." I handed him the box. "She asked me to give this to you, by the way."

He accepted the box. "Oh, is this what you call, um,"

"Honmei-choco."

"Yes, that. Japan has White Day as well, right? Am I supposed to give her back chocolates on White Day?"

"Yep. Don't worry, white chocolate is ridiculously cheap on the days leading up to White Day, so you won't have to spend all that much on return gifts for the undoubtedly large number of people that'll give you chocolates."

"Please, Nee-san, I've only been here for a week."

"You're also only a handsome foreigner who is also only a complete gentleman. Not a lot of people still open doors just for others, you know."

"I was just brought up that way."

"And that's what get you all the ladies. Or men. I don't judge." I added, much to his blushing.

"Nee-san-"

In that moment the door opened and in entered Tsuna and his two friends. I called to them.

"Ey, catch."

I tossed three boxes of chocolates at them. Yamamoto caught one easily, while Gokudera caught two and handed one to Tsuna, who thanked him. I gave one to Arthur as well.

"Giri-choco. You better eat that, Gokudera." I ordered, while pointing at Gokudera, who clicked his tongue. Tsuna, Yamamoto, and Arthur thanked me and took their seats. Most of the girls in the class stared at me enviously, while most of the boys stared at them enviously. Then the teacher walked in and class started.

Throughout the school day, many girls handed me chocolates to pass onto Arthur, much to my confusion. Finally, I managed to wrangle an answer out of one.

"He's just so perfect and gentlemanly and probably already has a girlfriend and when he smiles I just get so embarrassed and start stuttering and looking stupid and so I can't possibly give it to him in person!"

I stared at her, then sighed in exasperation. "That's understandable. But why not just leave it in his locker or something?"

"Well, I just feel like it would get to him faster if I gave it to you..."

"Right. Well, don't worry. Your chocolate's in safe hands."

"Thank you!"

She skipped off, and I stood up to find Arthur. I found him after not too long, luckily. He was staring at his shoe locker, blinking in astonishment at the nearly filled space.

I was about to approach him and give him the chocolates, but dived behind some other lockers when I saw Yuki approaching him with a heart-shaped box in her hands. Looks like she had finally gathered the courage.

She deflated a little, though, when she saw how full his locker was. But Arthur noticed her before she could run away.

"Ah, you're that girl who also came to greet me at the airport, right?" He smiled at her, causing a faint pink to show on her cheeks.

"Yes, I'm Yamashita Yuki."

I was proud of her for not stuttering. I felt another presence join me behind the row of lockers and glanced sideways. It was Akira. She met my gaze, and we nodded at each other and silently cheered Yuki on.

Arthur finally noticed the box she was holding in her hands.

"I see you have chocolates. Are they for me?" he asked. Yuki nodded.

"Yes, but, um..." She glanced at the multitude of chocolate he already had. "I guess you've already received so much, so..."

He smiled, and told her, "Yes, but you're the only person who's given it to me in person, so it would be an honour to accept these." The Brit took the box of chocolate and placed in a side compartment of his bag. He bowed to her. "Thank you."

Yuki bowed back, full on red now, bowed back. "Y-yes, you're welcome. I'll be going now!" She rushed off, having lost her composure. I took that as my cue to reveal myself.

"She likes you~" I teased, doing my best impression of Happy. Arthur whirled around in surprise. "In fact, a lot of people like you." I dumped the chocolates into his arms.

"B-be quiet! Don't you have someone you want to give chocolates to as well?" he asked, trying to stop my teasing before it really begun. I shrugged.

"Kind of. Akira, why are you still hiding? Come out now."

Akira came out as well. "Whoa, you have someone to give chocolates to? That's a first. Like half the boys in our grade have been looking hopefully at you."

"Psh, they can continue to hope. They're not getting anything though. Anyway," I glanced at my watch, "I have to go ask someone something. Come on, Arthur."

We said our goodbyes to Akira, and walked back to the classroom. When we were a metre away from the door, it was slammed open and my half-naked brother ran out while yelling like a madman. Arthur stopped in his tracks and stared after him. I patted him on the shoulder.

"There are some things in life you're better off not questioning." I continued into the classroom.

Reborn was still sitting on the table behind Tsuna's. He looked up at me as I approached.

"Here for Dino's address?"

"Yes, please."

He handed a piece of paper to me, and I grinned.

"Thanks."

"You're welcome."

Arthur came with me, and as we walked to the hotel, I showed him more of the town.

"That, over there, is the store with the biggest sales during holidays, that's the bookstore with the largest manga selection, and that, is the hotel which is our destination."

I resisted the urge to continue on with the revolving door and entered the lobby, where, luckily for me, Dino's men were relaxing. Romario noticed us.

"Oh, Sawada-san! What brings you here today? And who's your friend?"

I waved and approached him. "This is Kirkland Arthur, an exchange student from England. He'll be staying with us for some time." Arthur bowed. "And I'm here because it's Valentine's Day and I have chocolates for you all!"

I pulled a massive box of chocolates out of my bag, then set it on the floor in front of Dino's men. They made sounds of appreciation when I opened it. I smiled at them.

"Enjoy."

They thanked me and converged in on the sweets. Romario made his way to me, savouring a piece in his mouth.

"This is delicious, Sawada-san. Thank you."

"It's really no problem. Um, could you..."

"Sure." Romario took out his phone and sent a message. A few minutes later, the lift at the other end of the lobby opened and Dino came out.

"It's Tsuna's sister!" he cheered. "Thanks for treating my men. Do I get chocolate as well?"

"Yep!" I responded, pulling another, smaller box out of my bag. I offered them to him. "I made these myself. It's my own recipe."

"Wow, really? You're such a good cook!" I blushed at his compliment. He took the box and opened it. "These look really good."

"You really think so?" He nodded. "I'm really happy."

The blond boss chuckled and patted me on the head, then tossed a chocolate into his mouth. I waited patiently. Finally he got to the core of the sweet, and I could practically see him thinking, Oh, crap.

He had a good reason to think so too. The core of the chocolates were, of course, chili. What did you expect?

Dino's face struggled to not show pain. He managed a grimace. "They taste really good too."

Déjà vu, much?

"I'm glad you think so. I-"

I was cut off by my phone ringing. I answered it.

"Hello? Ah, Kyoko-chan, what is it? I see. Yep, we'll be back soon. Bye."

I bowed to Dino. "Sorry, I have to go now. I've been called back."

"Y-yeah, it's no problem. Thanks for the chocolate!"

"You're welcome! Arthur, we're going now." I called to the Brit, who had been making small talk with some of Dino's men, then explained to Dino, "He's an exchange student my family's hosting."

"I see."

We left the hotel, me waving cheerily to a mouth-burned Dino. I made sure to take the scenic route back home, not wanting me or Arthur to get caught up in canon.

It didn't work. We ran into Hana on the way, and Tsuna in his Dying Will Mode ran past the rooftops of the houses we were beside. Arthur stared.

"Don't question it."

Chapter Text

I had been planning to show Arthur more of the town today, even if it was a snow day, when he told me he had left some of his things at school. My mind whirred at his statement. I had suspicions that the snow fight was today, and was reluctant to go, but didn't have a good enough reason to say no. I resigned myself to playing hide and seek with the cast again.

We arrived at the school. Luckily the snow ball fight hadn't begun yet. It begun while Arthur was retrieving his things.

I heard an explosion and twitched. Arthur spun around, alarmed.

"Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?" I gave him my best clueless smile.

"Hear that explosion."

"I didn't hear anything, Arthur." Channel mum, channel mum, channel mum...

"Huh." He frowned, and shrugged. "I must be hearing things. Anyway, I found what I was looking for, so you can show me around some more of the town now."

He started heading towards the front gate. I caught him by the shoulders and spun him around.

"Let's leave by the back gate!"

The Brit looked at me strangely, even more so when I began humming loudly to cover the sound of the explosions, but allowed me to steer him to the back of the school. "Okay...?"

Crisis avoided.

It was the school's opening anniversary today, so it was closed. It was also the day for Yamamoto's training. There really was nothing that could possibly involve me in this, so I could relax.

Arthur decided to spend the day skyping his family. I decided to spend the day outside, enjoying life. When you were given a second chance at life, you tended to do things you didn't do much in your past.

So I was just taking a walk and found myself near one of the local dojos. I squinted against the light reflecting off the sign. Yabe Dojo. Hm.

I flipped open The Book. Yep. It was. In the next chapter of this world, Tsuna would join forces with Ryohei to protect this dojo from having their signboard taken.

There was no harm in taking a look right now, though. I walked under the sign and into the shade of the building. Inside, several boys were training. Their movements were neat and agile, unlike mine, which were sloppy and relied purely on superior strength and speed. Maybe I should watch some more and get some tips.

I had been watching attentively for a while, noting the way the fighters moved, when an old man, who I presumed to be the master of the dojo, approached.

"Can I help you, miss?" he asked.

"Hm?" I looked up in surprise.

"You've been watching our dojo's main fighting group for some time now."

"Oh, sorry, I'm probably being a bother." I stood up to leave. The old man stopped me with a motion of his hands.

"No, no, not at all. In fact, I think they may be performing better. I was just wondering why you were here. Not many girls watch fighting."

I sat back down. "Hm, well, not only do I watch fighting, I can actually fight myself." I smiled up at him. "But my fighting style is quite sloppy, so I was just watching your students in hope of picking something up."

The man stroked his tiny goatee.

"I see. Would you like to fight against some of my students?" he offered. "We can help you refine your fighting style."

I blinked at him surprise. "That would be amazing if you could, but wouldn't I be disrupting your training? I heard you have a tournament soon."

"It's fine," he smiled. "Also, it might do my students some good to fight against a less conventional fighter. I feel that they know each other's ways of fighting too well to be effective training."

"I see. I'll accept your offer then." I bowed to him. He directed me to the spare uniforms and then the bathroom.

Once I was changed, I walked back to the main room. There was a boy standing with the dojo master.

"You're finally done. I just realized we don't know your name yet." he said.

I apologized and introduced myself, tying my too long hair into a bun. I frowned. Maybe I should get a haircut.

The dojo master introduced the boy as Hamasaki. I nodded at him respectfully, and he nodded back.

We were led to the mat where we were to spar. The well-muscled boy stood in front of me.

"Sawada-san here is a street fighter, so you should be prepared for unorthodox moves. The reason we are doing this is so you can defend yourself against skilled street fighters as well as other martial artists. Points are awarded when your opponent hits the floor. First to five points wins. Punches to the groin, joints, and above the neck are prohibited. That is all. Understood?" When we both nodded, he stepped off the mat and gave us the signal to start.

Hamasaki immediately darted in and threw a few punches. I blocked them, and returned the favour. He failed to block one of my hits and the air rushed out of his lungs in surprise at the force of my punches. I couldn't blame him. Normal young teen girls weren't supposed to be that strong.

He recovered quickly and went in again with a few more punches, then opted for a kick to my side. I was brought off balance only slightly and swept his other leg out from under him. Hamasaki hit the floor. One point for me.

He got up, and we resumed the fight. It was rather fun, fighting against a non-street fighter, although the no punches to specific areas rule was a little restricting. I had to keep reminding myself and moving my hands away those places, making me less focused on the match.

In the end though, I won, with only one point to him. The dojo master gave me tips on how to neaten my moves, then sent me on my way, and I returned home with a sense of accomplishment.

It had been a good day.

Omake - Déjà vu

"B-boss, are you really going to eat all that?" Romario asked, eying the chocolates that the Vongola Decimo's sister had made and being flooded with a sense of déjà vu. Dino nodded stubbornly.

"Yes. She made them just for me. I'd be disrespecting her if I didn't eat it all."

"Still..."

"I've already eaten her cooking once. I'll live."

"If you say so. Just don't say I didn't warn you." he muttered off to the side.

Dino stared at the chocolates in front of him, steeling himself for the fire that would soon scorch his mouth. He picked one up and popped it in his mouth. His eyes grew watery, and he started sniffing. The blond boss tried to grin at Romario.

"See? It's not so bad." said Dino, tears now beginning to stream down his red face. Romario sighed.

"I'll go get the milk. Again."

Omake 2 - Other Sawada

Tsuna was being stared at by an old man. The old man suddenly turned to Ryohei.

"Does he have a sibling?"

Ryohei nodded. "He has a sister, just like me!"

"Oh, no wonder. His sister came into the dojo the other day. She proved to be an excellent fighter. So now that we have her brother, our dojo should be well protected!"

"Eh?!" exclaimed Tsuna. "Wait, what?! No, I can't fight!"

His protests were ignored, and he was given a bullshit excuse by Reborn. Something about the mafia's duty including the protection of civilians. Tsuna sighed, and gave in. He still wondered what the other Sawada child got up to in her spare time though.

Chapter Text

I heard thump, crack, and then a boom as I stood in front of the door to Tsuna's room. I turned and walked away. Coming back later seemed like a good idea.

Minutes later, the whole house started shaking, then stopped. I deemed it safe to go back and then opened the door to my brother's room. frowning at the wailing coming from inside. As I went in, Hana went out, and we nodded to each other as we passed.

"Tsu-kun, what's that noise?" I asked. "Oh, Haru-chan, you're here."

"Nee-chan! Help me!" begged Tsuna. "Neither me nor Haru-chan can get him to stop."

Lambo was curled up on the ground and wailing, with Haru fluttering around trying and failing to comfort him.

"There, there, Lambo-chan, I'll give you some candy if you stop crying!" she tried. Lambo ignored her. I sighed, and picked up the teen-minded child.

"Pathetic child," I began, shocking Haru and Tsuna with my harsh words, "If you don't stop crying, I'm going to dangle you out the window. And drop you. And then call Yamamoto over to play catch with you."

"Onee-san! That's not how you-" She cut herself off when Lambo stopped his sobbing. I patted his head.

"Good boy. Let's go get some ice-cream now, okay?"

"Okay," he sniffed, "Nee-san."

I jumped out of the window, leaving a dumbfounded Haru and Tsuna behind.

Yes, I know I swore to not interfere with the plot, but I really wasn't interested in hearing a child cry non-stop for a full week, and besides, it didn't really have much plot relevance.

This morning, Reborn had told us to go to the zoo. I was extremely reluctant, but Arthur was ecstatic, and who could say no to the green eyes under those massive eyebrows?

And that, my friends, is how I ended up here, with the scenery flashing past my peripheral vision and a lion in pursuit. I had lost Arthur ages ago, and hoped he had somehow found his way out of danger.

But now was no time to think about that. I needed to lose the carnivore, and fast. I didn't even know why it was chasing me.

The rest of the zoo visitors had already evacuated the premises, so at least there was no-one to get in my way. I would've taken out the animal, except that I had already started running, and really didn't feel like stopping any time soon. Hopefully, if I kept running, I'd run into Tsuna and co. and have Ryohei knock down the lion for me.

I jumped over a stone wall and into the enclosure, the lion close behind. Scrambling up the wall on the other side, I took a moment to catch my breath while the lion figured out a way to get over the high wall. Up ahead, I could thankfully see a fluffy haired brunet with his friends. Arthur was also there, to my relief. I ran towards them, calling out.

"Hey! Tsu-kun!" I waved. In that moment, my carnivorous pursuer finally got over the stone wall. I ran faster. "A little help here?"

Tsuna started panicking, but Ryohei stepped up and threw an extreme left hook at the lion, effectively knocking it unconscious. I started to slow down, but not fast enough, and crashed into Yamamoto, sending us both careening over the low wall of the exhibit behind him. Luckily, I managed to grab hold of the wall and snag the collar of his jacket at the last second. We both let out a sigh of relief.

"Nee-chan!" Tsuna raced over and grabbed onto my arm. I swung Yamamoto up and over the wall first, and he landed with an audible thump. Then I tumbled over the wall myself, collapsing on the ground. I groaned.

"Never. Again."

Haru's HaruHaru Interview!

Haru: The next interview will be with Onee-san, my future sister-in-law!

Onee-san: (Hell no. You're a nice girl and all, but just no. Shonen Ai for the win.)

Haru: Did you say something, Onee-san?

Onee-san: Just how lovely you look today, Haru-chan. Are those new hair clips?

Haru: Yes, I'm happy you noticed!

Onee-san: So what are you doing?

Haru: Haru's going around asking people about their profile! Let's start with the basics. Your birthday is on the October 12th, right?

Onee-san: Yep, and that makes me a Libra along with Tsu-kun and Reborn-kun.

Haru: What's your blood type?

Onee-san: Same as my mother's; O.

Haru: Hahi? You're not A like Tsuna-san?

Onee-san: No, he took more after our father, and I, our mother, apparently.

Haru: Ah, I see. It makes sense though. Onee-san is always so confident and self-determined!

Onee-san: Thank you.

Haru: Now, next question, what is your height and weight? Ah, you don't have to answer weight if you don't want to, of course!

Onee-san: No, it's fine. Hm... Last I checked, I think I was 166cm and at least 50kg.

Haru: Hahi! You're really tall! That's a whole 10cm taller than Haru and Tsuna-san!

Onee-san: I'm quite proud of it. I also aspire to grow taller. One day, I tell you, one day, I'll reach 180cm.

Haru: (*sweatdrop* I don't think that's possible...)

Onee-san: Hm? Did you say something?

Haru: No, nothing.

Onee-san: If you say so. Is the interview over now?

Haru: Yes, thank you for your time! Let's meet again in another interview if there's space!

Omake - Height

Right. Step under the thing, pull it down until it hits your head, then step out and check the reading. Easy enough.

I followed the steps and stepped out to check the reading, heart thumping. I squinted at the small numbers.

167cm.

Hell yeah.

Chapter Text

'Twas Spring, the season of pink sprouting from the sakura trees and floating gently down to land on the picnic mat we were sitting on.

Tsuna had somehow managed to avoid eating Bianchi's poison cooking and was now sitting, fully clothed thanks to yours truly, with the rest of us. We were chatting idly and just enjoying the pink flowers. Arthur wasn't here, as he had accepted Yuki's invitation, much to the thumbs up and shit-eating grins of Akira and I when we found out. The contents of the picnic basket had been unpacked, and every now and then, a hand would reach down to grab a snack.

I decided it was time for the Sawada Sakura Viewing Tradition to begin.

"Tsuna, come sit here," I called, brushing petals and stalks off the space next to me and patting it. He turned to look at me quizzically, before realizing what I really wanted him to do.

"Nee-chan, can't you do it yourself?" he sighed. I pouted at him.

"Yeah, but you're so much better at it, and besides, you've always done it. Please?"

Tsuna sighed again but relented, shuffling over to me. Under the curious gazes of the non-Sawadas, he took the comb from our mother's hands and brushed my hair knot-free. He began braiding it, then wrapped the finished braid around and secured it with bobby pins to create a rosette. The rest of my hair was made into a knotted loop waterfall braid, and cherry blossoms were placed into the knots.

When he was finished, I turned around once to show everyone his handiwork. There were gasps and compliments from everyone, alongside the clicking of my mother's camera.

"As expected of Juudaime! His art is absolutely superb!"

"That's so pretty, Tsuna-san!"

"Tsuna-kun, you're really good at braiding hair."

"Whoa, Tsuna, you're amazing!"

Tsuna rubbed the back of his head sheepishly while blushing. I smiled impishly at him.

"I know right? He'd make the perfect father."

"Nee-chan!" My brother's face turned red. Haru jumped onto my train of thought.

"Onee-san, if he's the perfect father, then who do you think would make the perfect mother?" I could almost hear her thinking, Say me, say me, please say it's me!

I placed a finger on my chin, pretending to be deep in thought. After a minute or so, I opened my mouth. Haru, desperate for my answer, leaned in, as did everyone else involuntarily.

"I have no idea." I shrugged and sparkle-smiled.

There were several thuds as face-faults occurred due to anime physics.

"Ne, ne, Nee-tan."

Tsuna adorably stumbled over to me, and tripped. I caught him.

"Yes, Tsu-kun?"

"Can I bwaid your hair?" he asked, puppy eyes begging me to say yes. "I'll make it all pwetty, I pwomise!"

It was such a squeal-worthy performance, that I couldn't resist tackling him.

"Yes! Braid it all you want!" I squealed.

Tsuna looked at me and gave me the smile of an angel. He-

"Nee-chan! Please stop!" begged a tomato-red Tsuna.

I placed a hand on my cheek. "Aw, why? I'm only telling them how cute you were as a child."

"You know why. Besides, you were the same age as I was!"

I waved my hand dismissively at his protest. "You were an adorable kid, whilst I, was an awesome one. I'm allowed to tell embarrassing baby stories about you."

"Tsuna-kun, you were really cute as a child." Kyoko told him, smiling. Tsuna turned even redder, if that was possible, and sunk his face into his hands in mortification.

"Oh, and then there was that one time when-"

"Nee-chan!"

Chapter Text

Spring break was really fun, with the exception of Arthur's return to England. It was spent going out with friends to the arcade or movies or just relaxing at home, but it had ended and we were now in our second year of middle school. Another year, another teacher, another whole bunch of school and homework.

Another character debut as well. Naito Longchamp and his strange family were about to make themselves known to Tsuna.

But that was really none of my business. Tsuna would most probably convince Naito to stay the fuck away from me, me being the innocent sister who knew absolutely nothing about the mafia and all.

Instead, I would be having fun as the power working the rumour mill and kicking anyone who tried to usurp me away, like during the pole knocking competition. I smiled as I walked towards the board showing our grade's class list. I had an advantage over all the other wannabe queen bees. Even if they were more naturally charismatic, I still had another lifetime of experience of human nature.

I should become a politician. I've already got half of the job requirements down.

In my past life, I wasn't really interested in popularity. The society I had lived in didn't put much importance on social classes, so when I entered my first years of elementary school in this life, I had received a more than slight shock from how much the Japanese focused on it. I recovered quickly though, and went on to make my way up the social ladder. Just because I had never put it into practice didn't mean I didn't know the theory.

Of course, there had been times where I had wanted to slap everyone upside the head for being stupid. People committed suicide over this kind of stuff. Unfortunately, I couldn't afford to make any more and larger ripples than I already had. So I had to make sure Tsuna's history was almost exactly like it had been in the franchise. That meant making sure everyone thought he was useless. It didn't sit well with me, but it was necessary. I wasn't going to stand for actual physical harm or the like though, so I made sure to stop things when they went too far, but still kept him stuck firmly on the bottom rung. When Reborn arrived, I really was glad that I could let my brother start climbing.

I did slip up from time to time, like that time with the three criminal brothers. Nana's entourage had to shift positions slightly to make space for me, causing Lambo to not be in the position he should have been in when he tossed the grenade away over his shoulder. That was easily fixed, even though it had given me a slight scare.

Spotting my name on the board, I checked for the classroom and made my way there. Hana and Kyoko were already there. Hana started complaining about Longchamp, and I had to agree with her. That guy was probably my least favourite character. He and his family had even been completely written out of the anime due to severe unpopularity.

Longchamp entered the classroom and immediately made his way over to me. I refrained from groaning and turned around to face him with a polite smile.

"Other Sawada-chan!" he yelled, wildly waving his arms to catch my attention as if his yelling wasn't enough.

'-chan'? Oh hell no.

"Naito-san, I'd prefer it if you didn't use '-chan'."

"You're right, it's confusing to call both you and your brother Sawada-chan. Hm, oh I know!" he grinned stupidly. "You can be Sawada-kun!"

...I don't know how to respond to that. Normal people would be the other way around. But then again...

"If you wish to call me that, you may."

"Oh, Sawada-kun, since your brother's a mafia boss, are you going to be his outside advisor?"

Tsuna entered the classroom with his friends just in time to hear his question. I smiled indulgently at the Tomaso family boss-to-be.

"What are you talking about?"

"You don't know? Sawada-chan is-"

He was interrupted by Tsuna yelling something indecipherable and shoving himself in between us.

"Nee-chan, ignore him! He's, um..."

"To be honest, I was planning on it." I stood there for a moment longer, then, being unable to find a good reason to break away from the conversation, just left.

Tsuna sighed in relief, then once he thought I was out earshot, whispered to Longchamp, "She doesn't know, so don't tell her!"

I ignored Longchamp's reply and sat down in my seat. Soon after, the door opened and Reborn walked in dressed as Reboyama the substitute teacher. We went through the whole class president fiasco, during which, luckily, my prediction didn't come true and I was not nominated. I also got to see the desolation bullet in work.

It somehow didn't work on me though. Instead of sympathy, all I felt was contempt and an urge to laugh at his patheticalness, which was quickly suppressed. Maybe there really was something wrong with me.

How did I end up in this situation...? That's right, I was going to get a book I left in the classroom. And at the worst possible time.

I came across Hibari, Longchamp, Tsuna and Reborn (and that one half-dead guy on the floor). Naito was crying about hi Terumi-chan not answering his calls, Hibari was gaining some sort of sadistic amusement from it, and now Tsuna was being shot with the desolation bullet. I watched as he rose from the shell of clothes, claiming to not care about anything anymore.

I couldn't help it. I started to giggle and tried to smother it with both hands.

Then I heard another bullet being shot, and deduced that Mangusta had decided that two desolate people weren't enough. I contemplated blocking it, but just dodged it in the end and flipped the shooter off.

Getting shot once was more than enough, thank you very much.

Chapter Text

"Sawada-kun! We'll be living here from-"

I shut my bedroom door in Naito Longchamp's face and locked it. Thank goodness I'd had the foresight to change the flimsy original door for a heavy wooden one with an industrial strength lock.

I read the text message on my phone and sighed in resignation. A Reborn 'disguised' as Reboko had ordered me to attend the bowling session that Naito had invited Tsuna and Gokudera to. I weighed the consequences of ignoring Reborn against the consequences of changing the story, and decided that disobeying Reborn just wasn't worth it.

I pulled on an orange hoodie and pair of jeans, but didn't bother making any other part of myself more traditionally masculine. That would be my excuse for leaving. Not actually being a guy.

I left the house and walked to the bowling centre. Ryohei walked out of the building in an extreme fashion when I reached my destination.

"Sawada!"

"Senpai."

"There are some formidable opponents in there! Extremely watch your back!"

Then he ran off, presumably to do some more training. I raised an eyebrow after him, then shrugged and made my way inside to where Tsuna was. The girl who had been pushed aside at the start was now sitting with another group of teenagers. At least they looked like they were having fun.

"Alright, I'm here."

Tsuna whirled around. "N-"

"Sawada-kun!"

"Naito." I acknowledged him with a nod.

"That's a she!" yelled the... big-boned woman with the lopsided afro. The gangly woman made angry 'Pshew' noises and Reborn said the only sentence he'd been saying all day.

"Oh no, you saw through my disguise. Whatever shall I do now." I slapped my hands to my face in mock distress. Tsuna looked at me in a deadpan way.

"Nee-chan, just... just go." He began pushing me towards the door. I let myself be directed without any resistance. Once I was outside, I breathed a sigh of relief and started walking aimlessly. I was already outside. Might as well walk around and observe the world around me, right?

That was one of the worst decisions I've ever made in my life.

I was walking too aimlessly and managed to find myself on the yakuza's territory. The Sonohoka yakuza's territory. Y'know, the ones that were chasing me some time ago because they wanted to recruit me? And that led to my very own separate story path. Lucky me.

And leads us to where I was now. On a luxury cruise to Mafia-land. The Sonohoka was apparently actually the most powerful yakuza group in Japan. When this information was given to me, I didn't know what to do with it. If the Sonohoka were the most powerful yakuza, what did they want with me? I was very confused, but not so confused that I didn't flat out reject their recruitment offer.

They had been disappointed for reasons that I could not fathom. Then they had insisted on "At least let us show our appreciation for the rescue of our princess!". Correctly assuming that their 'princess' was Akira, I tried to convince them that I'd had no part in it, and when that didn't work, told them that I would have done it anyway as Akira was a good friend of mine, so there was no need to thank me.

For some reason, that made them even more determined to show their appreciation, and eventually wore me down. I still had no idea why they were trying so hard. They were the most powerful group in Japan, surely they had better things to do than to try show their appreciation to a person who was content with a simple 'thank you'.

"Sawada-sama, what would you like to drink?" asked the waiter. The Sonohoka told me to pack a suitcase for a certain number of days and go to the harbour at a certain time. I could have avoided all this by just not showing up, but I had a bad, bad, and very accurate feeling that if I did, I'd be in an even worse situation later on. I could only thank my lucky stars that this was a private ship and not the boat that my brother and co. would be on.

"Any mocktail will do fine. Maybe something with lemon or lime or both in it." Speaking of Tsuna and co., when the tickets arrived in the mail, there had actually been three. When my mother announced that there were only two tickets, Reborn had raised an eyebrow at me. I simply smiled at him and told Nana to go with Tsuna. Nana had been reluctant, wanting me and Tsuna to go together instead, but I assured her that it was fine, that I had other plans anyway. She'd still been reluctant, but finally agreed to go after a few more minutes of my assurances.

"Right away." The waiter bowed and left, only to return a minute later with an orange glass. "A millionaire sour for the young lady."

"Thank you." I accepted the glass and took a sip of the refreshing ice cold liquid. When the lightly tangy taste hit my tongue, I sighed in contentment. This really wasn't bad at all. Relaxing in the nice warm sunlight, feeling the ocean breeze against my skin, having someone tend to my every need...

"Is there anything else you need, Sawada-sama?" At his query, I bit my lip, thinking.

"Mm, I'd like to know how much longer until we get there."

He told me, and I nodded at the new info.

"Okay, then I think I'll take a nap. Wake me up at dinnertime."

The waiter promised to do so, then bowed and left again. I raised my headphones from around my neck up to my head, started playing a nice relaxing song, then drifted off to sleep.

Chapter Text

The sirens wailed and the speakers blared to life, announcing that we were under attack. The rollercoaster I was on ground to a stop and the attendants hurried the passengers off. We were directed to the Mafia Fort. I was about to follow the crowd when my arm was grabbed. Whipping around, I almost flipped whoever it was over my shoulder, but luckily for them, I managed to recognize them in time.

"Aoki-san." It was one of the Sonohoka men.

"Sawada-sama, please follow me." He tugged my arm, and after a moment of not so careful deliberation, I let myself be pulled along. Another bad decision for the list.

As we approached the large crowd of gun-toting men, I could hear Sato, a young and hot-blooded man who was pretty high up in the Sonohoka, yell.

"All of you are no match for us Sonohoka yakuza! We have the Vongola Decimo's sister as our acting oyabun!"

Ah. So that's why they were so determined in showing me their appreciation. Shit.

"All of you are no match for us Sonohoka yakuza! We have the Vongola Decimo's sister as our acting oyabun!"

Wait, what? Tsuna was confused. His sister wasn't here, was she? Or maybe they had mistaken someone else for either the Vongola Decimo or his sister.

Gokudera pushed through and out of the crowd to him, then turned and yelled at the man who had been shouting, "Well, we have someone even better! The Vongola Decimo himself!"

"What?!"

Just then, the crowd parted for two people.

"Sato-san, I found her."

The 'her' was Tsuna's sister.

"Nee-chan?!"

She looked up at the sound of his voice, irritated scowl disappearing for a clueless smile. She brushed the man's hand off her arm and made her way over to him.

"Tsu-kun? Are we going to fight the enemy Mafia?" she asked.

"You know?!"

"What a neat event!"

That's exactly what mum said!

The man who was yelling earlier made his way over to them. "Sawada-sama, I must ask that you lead us for this battle!"

A look of annoyance briefly flashed across her face, before she smiled with all the cluelessness of a dozen Yamamotos and Nanas combined.

"I don't really get it, but sure, I'll play the yakuza game."

"The problem for the leaders are solved then."

"We'll have the Godfather and his sister lead us to victory!"

"Wait, what?!" Tsuna shrieked.

"Tradition, rules, scale, power, no one is any match for the Vongola!"

"What, no-"

"Everyone, let's follow the Vongola Decimo and his sister!" All the men cheered and picked up their guns. Tsuna tried to protest, but was inevitably swept away by the crowd of cheering men who lifted him up. They attempted to lift his sister up as well, but she dodged their hands and skipped beside his entourage.

"Nooooo!" Tsuna shrieked. "I don't want to fight!"

I ran with the group Tsuna was currently being carried by. Screw the Sonohoka. They could rot in hell for all I cared. Claiming me as their leader only because I was the Vongola Decimo's sister and would give them a higher status, then running off by themselves. I was feeling slightly betrayed. Only slightly.

"Sawada-sama!" A voice called out and I turned around to see who it was. Sato waved a gun in the air and ran faster to catch up with me. "Are you going to fight on the front lines? I'll come with you!"

"...Do whatever you want." I turned back around.

"The rest are back there protecting the fort! But they'll come as soon as they can."

"That's nice."

"It was a good idea to go with your brother! We can show the strength of the Sonohoka this way!"

"If you say so."

"...Are you sulking?"

"...No."

Sato peered at my face and I turned it to the side, but it was too late. He chuckled and rested his hand on my head. I lifted an arm and pinched the skin of his wrist to get it off.

"Ow." It worked. Sato removed his hand. "You know, we didn't appoint you as acting oyabun because you're the Vongola Decimo's sister. We appointed you because you're strong and we're grateful to you for saving our Hime-sama. Also, we like you."

When I didn't respond, he chuckled again and patted my head. "You're such a kid."

This time I grabbed his arm and flipped him. He hit the ground with a loud thud.

"Ow!"

"I may be a mere child, but I can still kick your ass."

He got up and continued running, rubbing his sore backside.

"And that's all we ask for."

I slowed down a little and moved behind him. He turned his head to peer quizzically at me, and I gave him a good boot to the behind.

"Wha-" he managed to get out, then promptly ate dirt. I snickered. He lifted his head up from his impressive face-plant. "Hey! What was that for!"

I shrugged. "You asked for me to kick your ass."

He stared at me. "...Not my ass, the enemies' asses."

"Shoulda made it clearer."

He shook his head in exasperation and got up again. "Whatever. Now, let's go defeat the enemy!"

Omake - Arthur complains.

"Hey, Iggy," Alfred called. "How was your stay in Japan?"

"Don't call me that!" Arthur snapped.

"Fine, Artie."

"Don't call me that either!"

"Then what do I call you? Bushy Brows?"

"No! Why can't you just call me Arthur?"

"Because that's boring. Now, how was your stay?"

Arthur sighed and leant back on his seat. "It was... interesting, to say the least."

"...Just interesting?"

"Well, my host family was nice enough, but oh my god...! There was this one prefect who used violence to get everything done with his 'kamikorosu', another male who was even louder than you yelling about his boxing club, explosions, another who kept an unending supply of dynamite on him, more explosions, a gun-wielding baby, even more explosions, and the brother had a penchant for running around town yelling in nothing more than his boxers! And throughout it all, the sister acted like it was all normal!" Arthur finished his rant, breathing heavily.

There was a moment of silence. Then Alfred looked straight at Arthur, eyes sparkling.

"Dude, that sounds awesome."

Chapter Text

Growing up, Tsuna had always thought his sister was strange. Even as a small child, she would smirk at the most unusual things, such as the mention of sparkles or random words their peers would say. She also seemed to feel nothing but utter contempt for her peers, smiling in a way that seemed amicable to the children but to Tsuna was an expression saying just how inferior they were to her. At first he thought it was because his sister was child genius, a little smarter than the average adult and therefore feeling no respect for her peers who weren't as educated. This assumption was quickly corrected when one day their mother took them to a family gathering a few towns away.

During the time their relatives were cooing over how cute the two of them were, she just stood there with her default 'adorable little child' expression. Her smile was filled to the brim with fake innocence, but Tsuna could see the indulgent curl to her lips. His sister seemed to have absolutely no respect for anyone.

One day, Tsuna's curiosity got the better of him, and he asked her why she seemed to look at people as if they were little insignificant beings that didn't deserve the attention that she deigned to give them. Of course, being only five at the time, he didn't use those words. Instead, the query went like this:

"Ne, Nee-tan?"

"Yes, Tsu-kun?" His sister looked up from where she had been frowning at a thick book that she had swiped from their parents' room. Tsuna had tried to read it alongside her on the coffee table, but it had no pictures and he quickly got bored, deciding to play with the cars his mother bought him the other day instead. "Do you need something?"

"Um..." Tsuna hesitated, going over his sentence in his mind. "Why do you look at people like that?"

"Why do I look at people like what?"

"Like, like, um," He frowned, searching for the right words in his five year old vocabulary. "Like that god in the story Mummy read to us."

His sister stared at him for a moment, trying to recall exactly which story that had been, then her frown smoothened out as she remembered.

"You mean that mean god who called the brave hero and his friends ants?"

"Yes," Tsuna nodded vigorously. "That one."

"So you're saying I look at people like they're ants?"

"Um..." Tsuna frowned again. "No, you look at them like you don't..." He tried to remember the word their teacher had taught them the other day, "R...re...respect them?"

"Hm..." His sister looked at him thoughtfully, as if seeing him in a new light. "I guess you're right."

She then turned back to her book, muttering something to herself. Tsuna only caught a few words, such as "observation skills" "sealed his flames" and "hand-eye coordination". He had absolutely no idea what most of them meant. He tried to get her attention again.

"Nee-chan."

"Yes, Tsu-kun?" His sister's eyes flicked up from the boring text-filled page to him.

"I don't like it."

"You don't like what?" She tilted her head slightly so she was almost facing him. "You don't like the way I look at people?"

"Yes." Tsuna nodded firmly. "I don't like it. Stop doing it."

"And why don't you like it?"

"I just don't. Stop doing it." he said stubbornly, then, remembering what his mother had taught them, tacked a "please" onto the end. His sister smiled at that.

She bit her lip thoughtfully, then stopped, lip biting being a habit she was trying to break. "I can... try, I guess?"

"Pinky promise?" Tsuna held his little finger out.

"Pinky promise." His sister hooked her finger around his. They pulled at eachother's fingers, then broke it and fist bumped. Tsuna nodded, satisfied, and went back to his toys, and his sister went back to her boring text-filled book with no pictures.

True to her word, his sister no longer looked at people condescendingly. She would slip up sometimes, such as when one of their classmates said something even he thought was stupid or if their relatives fawned over her too long, but he could tell she was trying. And that in itself was enough.

Then one day, he wasn't able to read her or others as acutely. That night, he lay in bed, wide awake and wondering where that warm, pulsing orb he had come to associate with his sister had gone. She seemed to feel it too, and they spent that night sleeping in the same bed, clutching the other tightly as if to reassure themselves that their twin was still there.

Another incident that stuck in his mind was when his mother decided to tie her hair differently. Before, when she did housework, she had always tied the long brown strands behind her in a low ponytail. That day, she had opted for a loosely tied ponytail on her shoulder. Tsuna thought it was very pretty, but when his sister entered the kitchen for breakfast and spotted their mother's new hairstyle, all the colour rushed from her face.

Their mother beckoned her to sit at the table, and she did so, still staring warily at the side ponytail as it was going to spring to life and eat their mother. Tsuna didn't want his mother to be eaten. Still, the idea of a rampaging ponytail sounded pretty cool.

His sister then did something completely out of character: she refused to eat. Tsuna and their mother stared at her in bewilderment. Usually the girl inhaled the food like how he thought a rampaging ponytail would eat up people. When their mother asked why, she told them it was the hair. The hair was banishing her appetite to the furthest ring. Tsuna wasn't quite sure what she meant by furthest ring, but it also sounded pretty cool, especially since she said it in what sounded like English.

Their mother smiled, amused, and patted her on the head, saying that she didn't see how it did that, but put her hair back to its usual style anyway. His sister breathed a quiet sigh of relief, and started eating. From then on, if their mother ever decided to tie her hair like that, his sister would say something equally ridiculous to get her to change it. His mother actually did it sometimes on purpose just to see what reason his sister would come up with this time. Then one day, she cropped it, and the issue never came up again.

Chapter Text

I raised an eyebrow at the giant bright red octopus in front of me. That shade of red couldn't be natural. Then again, this was Reborn!, so almost anything was possible.

On the way to the eight-legged sea creature, Sato and I had had to battle the members of the Calcassa family. It slowed us down, so when we finally reached Skull and his mutant octopus, the battle was already over.

How anticlimactic. All that hype, only to end in this.

I sighed, and walked back to Sato, who led me to the boat that would take us home. And that, lovely readers, was how my holiday ended.

You know how in June, Bianchi arranged a marriage for her and Reborn? The one where Reborn ran away and when he came back, said something about improving Bianchi's battle capabilities? Yeah, that one. And improve Bianchi's battle capabilities he did. Not that I would know, as I wasn't there.

It was quite difficult to convince Bianchi I couldn't make it, but in the end, after repeating the phrase 'IT'S AN MATTER OF LOVE' several times in an urgent manner, I was let off.

Love, let me thank you for letting me use you as an acceptable excuse once more.

I had planned to spend the day getting on random public transportation and seeing where that took me. Last time, I had somehow ended up in the red light district Tokyo. That was... interesting, to say the least.

But this time, I was not destined to end up somewhere as interesting as the realm of seedy establishments and noisy brothels. No, this time, I would end up somewhere different.

Namely, third wheeling on a friend's date with an unwanted suitor.

Yuki, the police chief's daughter, had been set up on a date by her mother, much to both her and her father's protests. But alas 'twas all in vain, for the Yamashita family was apparently a matriarchal one. Yuki had turned to me in desperation, and requested my services as a third wheel. I agreed, for I was good friend, and this seemed like it would even more interesting than ending up in red-light districts.

It wasn't. I was very disappointed. All the boy did was be a perfect gentleman and take us around to different places. He was a very boring person, so boring that I didn't bother remembering his name. On the other hand, all he did was be a perfect gentleman, so Yuki didn't end up in any trouble.

At the end of the date, Yuki told me she was actually considering him. I shrugged. I didn't really care, and was bored out of my mind. But I told her to go for him anyway, and to call me if he ever revealed his true colours and turned out to be a complete asshole.

And that was how my day ended. The only interesting point was when, walking home, I passed by the building in which Bianchi's wedding was taking place, and the wall turned a poisonous red and purple. The other people on the side walk gaped. I walked past pretending nothing out of the ordinary was happening.

Tsuna stormed up the stairs, trying to disassociate himself from the mafia, and entered his room, only to baulk at all the weapons lining the walls and every other available surface except his bed. Then he stared at his sister who was staring in fascination at a particularly nasty looking device suspended from the ceiling.

His sister raised a finger and made as if to touch it. Then hesitated, and took back her finger, turning to leave. She blinked at him, only realizing then that he was there. She smiled.

"Ah, Tsuna! You have so many interesting toys in your room!"

Stop trying to pull Yamamotos!

The five of us - Hana, Kyoko, Haru, Tsuna and I - were in the living room, comparing our childhood dream essays. Kyoko wanted to be a ballerina or policewoman. Hana wanted to be an adult. Haru wanted to be the best costume maker in the world.

"I'll go next." I cleared my throat and began to read. "You know what my name is, you know who I am, and you probably also know what I want to be. If you don't, I will now tell you. I want to be an evil empress ruling over the world with my minions of darkness obeying my every word. I will not crush my enemies underfoot, however, for their blood is not worthy to stain my shoes. My minions will do that instead. Prepared to be crushed under the feet of my minions in the future. The end."

There was a moment of silence. Hana broke it.

"Well, you were an interesting child," she remarked drily. "Your teachers must have loved you."

Omake - Red-light district visit

I... really shouldn't be here. No, seriously, how did I even get here?

I pulled my hood further over my head in an attempt to turn invisible. It obviously didn't work. I was still being called out to. I kept my eyes on the ground, trying to remember just how I managed to end up in Tokyo's red light district. I had just been wandering around the city, trying to explore what I could.

In my previous life, I had always wanted to come to Japan. Being reborn in Japan and learning the language was a dream come true. Y'know, apart from the whole 'dying and leaving your other life behind' thing.

A sudden noise in the alleyway I was passing had me squinting into the darkness for the source. An obviously intoxicated man was trying to drag a unwilling woman off into who knows where. Not sure if I wanted to get involved, I was about to continue to try get back home, when the woman noticed me.

"Please, help m-" Her plea was cut off by the man back-handing her across the face.

"Shut the fuck up, slut," he snarled, yanking her arm to get her to go with him. "Nobody's gonna help you, 'specially not him."

The woman looked back at me with pleading eyes. I sighed. My not-rigid-at-all moral compass wasn't going to let me walk away, not when I knew I could easily take him on. I had been half-itching for a fight anyway.

"Oi, cazzone, vaffanculo." Oi, dickhead, fuck off. My very limited Italian vocabulary was coming in handy today.

"Huh?" he drawled, peering at my face. "Speak Japanese, pretty boy, or-"

I gave him a very nice punch across the face. He hit the ground, holding the newly forming bruise.

"You asshole-!"

His face was smushed into the ground. I ground it in a few times, just because I could. He had gone down too easy. Now the bloodlust had nowhere to be directed to. Or so I thought.

A group of men burst from a door that had been hidden in the shadows. When they saw me grinding their comrade's face into the ground, they grew incensed. I grinned, and allowed the man's face some relief, but not before stomping on it vindictively one last time.

I turned to face them, spreading my arms out wide.

"Now, gentlemen, I'm sure we can talk this over like civil-" One of them lunged for me. I grabbed his arm, breaking it, and threw him to the side. He was then kicked further into unconsciousness. "No? Okay then. At least I can claim self-defense now."

Another lunged for me, doing the exact same thing as the last one. I gave a disbelieving look before simply dodging and kicking him down from behind. He fell down, and I jumped on his back to make sure he stayed down.

The remaining three wised up and lunged for me all at the same time. Not the wisest choice, considering the narrowness of the alleyway, but still smarter than their downed comrades. I kicked one in the stomach, and punched another's lights out. The third had an unconscious guy thrown into him.

The one I had kicked in the stomach got up and took something out from his jacket pocket. A glint of steel greeted me as a sharp pain suddenly appeared on my thigh.

I backed away. Ohoho, no, I was not dealing with this shit today. Any other day, I would've taken him on, but it was getting late, and I really needed to start heading home. Eying the knife, I backed up into another body and nearly decked the person. It was the woman I had saved before.

She hasn't run away yet?!

"You haven't run away yet?!" I hissed at her.

"Well, was I supposed to leave without thanking you?"

Yes! I was going to retort, but the swipe of the knife inches from my face was an effective distraction. "Ah, shit. I'm not in the mood to deal with knives today. Run!"

I broke out into an sprint, dragging her behind me. And that's the story of how I ended up running through Tokyo in the middle of the night with a woman in strappy high heels and several scary looking men after us.

How we escaped them is a story for another day.

Chapter Text

I had to admit it.

A chibi-Gokudera was insanely cute. And small.

As he squirmed around, trying to get free from Tsuna's arms, I stared at him, wondering if I should give into my urges or not. (Hint: The answer was yes.)

He let out a squawk of surprise when I suddenly plucked him from Tsuna's arms.

"What are you- put me down!" demanded the teen turned child.

"Sorry, no can do." I responded, while gleefully throwing him up and catching him and throwing him up again. "This is way too fun."

"Stop!"

"Nope."

"Put me down!"

"Don't wanna."

"Woman- ack!"

Tsuna snatched him back just as I threw Gokudera for the fifth time.

"Nee-chan..."

"Tsk." I clicked my tongue in disappointment. "Buzzkill."

My brother sighed in exasperation. Gokudera took out his dynamites. Yamamoto appeared in the door way. A little drama came from that. Then Lambo entered, and tried to beat chibi-Gokudera up but getting beaten up instead.

I took this chance to pick up the child and escape from the inevitable invisible assassin situation. I was completely willing to deal with him now if it meant I could avoid the situation. He wasn't so bad when he wasn't being a complete nuisance. Hopefully, the assassins weren't ordered to knock me off as well.

"Come on, Lambo. You've got to admit, you were kind of asking for that." I scolded him. "Come on, stop crying, and I'll buy you some grape ice-cream, okay."

Lambo immediately stopped wailing. He sniffed. "Really?"

"Yep, really."

I felt a needle hovering near my neck. Against my hopes, it looked like they were ordered to knock me off as well. Even without the Hyper Intuition, I would've sensed it. Even though I ignored it sometimes, I still had a pretty good sense of self preservation. I gently grasped the invisible metal needle and whispered, "It would do you well to leave me alone."

The needle was hastily withdrawn. I turned to the place where I knew the assassin would be and gave them an all-knowing smile.

"Nee-san! Let's go!"

I turned away and headed to the front door to put my shoes on.

"Sure." I threw one last glance at the invisible assassin still watching me in shock. "Let's go get that grape flavoured ice-cream you like so much."

It was such a nice and relaxing day. The sun was shining, the birds were chirping, the pool water was cool and splashing into my face. I wiped it off with a huff. Couldn't a girl just relax on a floating pool lounge without getting splashed anymore?

The answer was no, apparently.

Tsuna was splashing around all willy-nilly, without any idea as to how he was actually supposed to swim. I couldn't exactly blame him though. His instructors were next to useless.

"Go ha, hum, ha, hum!"

"Your body should be in this position between the surface of the water and the ground."

"Like a fish, Tsuna, swim like a fish!"

"SWIM ONE HUNDRED LAPS EXTREMELY!"

Case in point.

I dipped my hands into the water and swept them back to propel the pool lounge away from the senseless splashing.

It was July 7 and the Tanabata. I woke up to find a tanzuku on my bedside table.

Haha, nope.

I rolled over and fell back asleep.

"Sorry for the wait!"

"We're done changing!"

"Nice shirt, Gokudera."

Kyoko, Haru and I greeted the boys.

"Dark teal with weird white leaf thingies. Very nice." I nodded. Gokudera scowled at me.

"Hey, you don't get to criticize my choice of clothing. Just what the hell are you wearing?"

I looked down at myself. "A rash shirt, board shorts, and a cap. What, are you not just blind to style now?"

As Gokudera exploded at me, Ryohei hopped down from the high lifeguard chair. He pointed out his 'lifeguard-senpais', who were currently bullying a young child into cleaning up the beach for them. I frowned disapprovingly at them along with Yamamoto and Gokudera. Tsuna just panicked in the background.

The three hulking lifeguards noticed Ryohei's enthusiastic waving and made their way over to us. They tried to dump their work onto us and take Kyoko and Haru away. I had my hair tucked up inside my red cap, so they mistook me for male and ignored me. I rolled my eyes at that. Seriously, these people. To them: Female = long hair + bikini.

It was convenient though, which was all that really mattered to me.

Gokudera and Yamamoto refused to work for the lifeguards. Despite all the ill will Gokudera had towards Yamamoto, they were scarily in sync like 90% of the time. The pair were backed up by Ryohei, who was easily persuaded by their obviously false words, then by Kyoko and Haru. Tsuna just freaked out.

They were forced into an athletic contest by the three bastards and Reborn. This was the perfect opportunity to sneak away, and I'd never been one to let such opportunities just pass by. I sidled away from the group and started to head towards the nearest kiosk.

"Hey, where do you think you're going?" A hand landed on my shoulder and turned me around. The hand belonged to the lifeguard with the ridiculous dreadlocks. "And why are you wearing so much on a hot summer's day?"

My cap was knocked off, allowing my hair to fall down and rest against my back. The boy raised his eyebrows.

"Oh, you're a girl. And a pretty cute one too," he noted. I stared impassively at him. Those stupid dreadlocks were really annoying. "Come on now, don't be so cold-"

I grabbed his other hand before it could touch my hair, twisting his arm and knocking him off his feet, and let gravity and his own muscle weight do the rest.

"Argh! You bi-!" I stomped on his head to shut him. He did, and received a mouthful of sand for being so obedient.

"You and your hair pissed me off." I said simply. I bent down, foot still getting sand into the dreadlocks that I hated so much, and picked up my cap. I had grown to rather like it.

"Hey, whaddya think y-" I flicked the cap and the sand still on it flew into the face of the lifeguard with bleached hair, effectively shutting him up. Sand was a rather good silencer, I noted.

"Nee-chan! Stop that!" protested Tsuna. I sighed, but relented. I didn't even give him a final stomp.

The last lifeguard, the guy with the shaved head, made as if to defend his friends. I glowered at him and he shut up. Glowers were also a pretty good silencer.

"Ah," I mumbled, "I was just going to try surfing, but then you went and pissed me off. I think I'll go pick a fight with some wannabe Casanova instead."

I tucked my hair back under my cap and went to do just that, leaving Tsuna and the others to deal with the mess I had left behind.

Chapter Text

"Hey, hey, Sawada-chan!" Akira's voice greeted me through the phone.

"Ah, Akira?" I asked, idly twirling my hair in one finger. "To what do I owe the pleasure of your call?"

"What, I can't just make a social phone call?"

"Well, are you making a social phone call?"

"...No."

"Exactly." I was lying down on my bed, feet dangling off the edge, staring at the ceiling. "So, why'd you call?"

"You know the summer festival that's coming up?" Had that one crack in the paint been there before?

"Yeah?" I wondered if I should repaint the ceiling.

"Yuki and I are planning to run a roasted chicken stand there." Maybe I should paint a mural there instead of the plain boring colour it currently was. "It'd be great if you could help out."

I sat up, now fully paying attention, and scooted backwards until my back hit the wall. "Wait, so you're asking me if I want to help you with your roasted chicken stand at the coming summer festival?"

"Yep. It was pretty popular last year and the year before that too. You weren't fully paying attention, were you?"

"Ahaha, you caught me. But my attention and ears are all yours now, don't worry."

There was a exasperated but fond sigh on the other end of the line.

The sizzling scent of frying chicken wafted up and I breathed in, enjoying the delicious smell and wishing I could eat the chicken myself. The three of us manning the stand would get the leftovers, but judging by how popular our stand was, there might not be any leftovers.

As I was watching over the chicken, I saw Fuuta out of the corner of my eye. I waved.

"Fuuta!" I called. He heard me and looked around for a moment before spotting me.

"Nee-san!" The adorable brunet jogged over to my stall. "I wasn't expecting to see you here."

"Well, now you have!" I flicked his forehead gently. "What, do you not want to see me or something? I'm hurt, truly."

I held my hands to my heart and staggered back in mock shock.

Fuuta giggled and played along. "Oh no, I didn't mean to seem like I didn't like you! Please forgive me!"

"Alright, you're forgiven."

"Really?"

"Yep, really."

"Then... can I have some chicken as proof of your forgiveness?"

"Tsk." I flicked his forehead again. "What a cheeky boy."

"So, is that a yes?" he asked hopefully.

I laughed and patted him on the head. "Fine, fine, you can have some."

I told Yuki and Akira that I'd pay for it later and gave three servings to Fuuta.

"If you see Lambo and I-Pin, give them theirs, okay?"

"Okay!" Fuuta happily walked away, eating and waving goodbye. I kept waving until he was out of sight. That boy was absolutely adorable, just as cute as Tsuna had been when he was a baby.

"Sawada-chan."

I turned from where I was waving goodbye to see Yuki, who handed me an envelope.

"Hm? What's this for?"

"The Nami-chuu Disciplinary Committee."

"Ah, right. But why're you giving this to me?"

"Ah, um, y'know," Yuki hesitated, then finally admitted, "I'm scared of Hibari."

"And I'm not?"

"You're definitely not."

"True, true."

Yuki gave me a deadpan look and shook her head in exasperation.

The crowd parted behind us and the prefect walked up to our stand. Looked like Yuki had given me the envelope just in time. Yuki squeaked and slid behind Akira, who was pretending to be busy with something.

"Hello, Hibari-san," I greeted him. "What brings you to our humble stand on such a fine summer's night?"

"Pay up or have your stand crushed," he said in reply.

"Wow, rude," I commented. "You didn't even greet me properly."

Akira elbowed me sharply in the ribs and hissed, "Just give him the damn money! You may have a death wish but the rest of us sure as hell don't!"

"Fine, fine." I rubbed the sore spot and gave the skylark the envelope, then leaned towards him and conspiratorially whispered, "Oh, you might want to check out the shrine just before the fireworks. I guarantee there's going to be something interesting there."

Hibari raised an eyebrow and left. The crowd, after a moment's hesitation, began lining up again.

"Geez," I huffed. "Guy didn't even say goodbye."

I found a really good place to watch the fireworks. It was also pretty well hidden, so I decided it would serve as a good hiding place if the need ever arose.

The clear viewpoint of the fight at the shrine was also a definite plus.

"Nee-chan..."

I pinched the bridge of my nose. "You're in the police station for the second time for being found half-naked with Haru on the top of a truck."

"Do I want to know how you know?"

"Probably not. I'll come as soon as I can."

I'd never gone to a test of courage before, so when asked, I said yes. When I arrived, things went according to the anime/manga, and we all agreed to be the ones scaring Tsuna and Lambo.

I planned to present myself as the nure onago by drenching myself in water from the pond and smearing my face with mud. And laugh hideously, of course. I was looking forward to that the most. However, things were not going to go my way tonight.

It was the lantern festival, the night where the barrier between the spirit realm and mortal world was weakest. Cracks would appear in the barrier, allowing the ghosts with the strongest wills and unlucky mortals to slip through.

Unlucky mortals such as myself.

"Ahahahahahahaha!" The blond psycho in front of me swept his cloak out dramatically and laughed manically. The mist around him cleared up as if to allow me to see him clearly. He brought his hand up to cover his heart and bowed mockingly, then straightened up and gave me a pitying expression with additional glowing eyes. "Wretched girl, unfortunate enough to stumble into my lair. Your misfortune has landed you in my cruellest clutches. Now, you don't want to suffer any more than necessary, do you? Submit to me, and I might just let you live. As my food slave, of course."

He grinned nastily, and stretched his arms out as if expecting me to fall into them. I stared at him.

What the fuck?

He was hot, sure, but really? Did he really think girls in this day and age would be so submissive and just comply to his orders, being his 'food slave'? ...Wait, on second thoughts, vampires and vampire romance were pretty popular right now, so some girls might actually do it. This guy certainly acted like your not-so-friendly neighbourhood bloodsucker.

"Who the hell are you?" I asked, wringing my hair out. It didn't look like I'd be going back to scare Tsuna any time soon, and I'd rather not get sick from having wet hair in the cold night air.

The vampire guy frowned, creasing his perfect forehead and clearly confused as to why I wasn't throwing myself into his arms. His eyes glowed a more brilliant red as he spoke again. "I am the matter of your nightmares, the monster you fear most, the-"

"Please get to the point," I interrupted, still wringing pond water out of my hair.

The poor guy stared at me, clearly bewildered and not used to puny human girls interrupting his overly long speeches. He recovered quickly though and brought a perfectly manicured hand up to his face in a resigned manner.

"Alright then," he sighed, "since you have refused the honour of becoming my food slave, I will take you up on your challenge. Whoever loses this duel will become the slave of the other!"

With that, he hopped off the rock he had been on and dived at me, fangs bared. Wait, what? Since when did I challenge him? What kind of weird vampiric logic was he following?

I stepped out of his way and blinked.

"Hey, your speech changed," I realised.

"What?" He charged at me again.

"Like, before, it was all intense and echoey, but now, it's just... normal." I wrinkled my nose and dodged a second time.

Then a third.

And a fourth.

And a fifth.

"Hey, do we really have to do this? It's getting late and I really need to be going home soon."

"You would make light of my skills? Fine then, I see no reason to hold back any longer. Prepare yourself!"

"Hey, I never said you sucked at this, even if I did think it."

He snarled and charged at me with a greater speed than before. And greater power too, apparently, as the tombstone (wait, what?) he crashed into was reduced to rubble.

"Is charging at girls the only thing you can do?" I snorted. "Talk about a one trick pony."

The mist covering the graveyard (again: wait, what?) was more or less gone now, and I could run through the area without fear of accidently head butting a piece of glorified rock. As I ran, I tried to figure out what was going on. The barrier between the worlds had weakened and blah, blah, blah, but that was just for Japanese spirits, right? What the hell was a vampire doing here? At least, I was pretty sure he was a vampire, but maybe it'd be better to ask.

I stopped and turned around. "Oi, buddy, so you a- Whoa!"

I hopped out of the way and let him demolish a random dead tree. As he was recovering from the impact, I stepped on his back and pulled up his arms, effectively immobilizing him.

"Let go of me!" he roared as he struggled fiercely. I, of course, still didn't have any trouble holding him. "What is this strength?! It is not human!"

"Well excuse you, I'm very human. I'm the most human inhuman human there is," I responded.

"That doesn't even make any sense!"

"Oh, you wanna talk about sense? Did saying I challenged you to a duel when I didn't even say anything make sense to you?"

"Yes!"

"...Whatever. Anyway," I pulled his arms up and planted my foot on his back a little more firmly. "So, are you, like - I can't believe I'm asking this - a bloodsucker or something?"

"...Yes," he conceded after struggling a minute more. He finally slumped down to the ground in defeat. "Although, we don't really take nutrition from the blood. We live off the Dying Will energy every person has in their blood, even if they can't use it. Of course, you have no idea what I'm talking about, do you?"

He turned his head around slightly and choked on his own spit at the sight of me, having transferred his right arm into my left hand as well, holding up my right hand and bouncing a bright orange flame up and down.

"You mean this?"

"A Flame user..." whispered the Flame-sucker after he finished coughing. His eyes gleamed. "Oh, this just gets better and better."

Having caught me off guard, he escaped from my grasp and leaped up, aiming for my neck - seriously, why was it always the neck, the limbs also contained major blood vessels - with his teeth bared.

I can't really be held accountable for what I did next. It was purely an in-the-moment thing and I panicked. And something in the back of my mind was going, 'The best form of defence is offence' or something along those lines.

...

I bit him.

Chapter Text

That's right.

I bit the vampire.

As he sprang at me, I kind of grabbed his head and bit down on his neck, hard enough to draw blood. Metallic-tasting liquid trickled into my mouth. It had sort of stale flavour to it, if blood could be called stale, but also tasted kind of... zingy.

He froze in shock. I froze in shock. We stayed in that awkward position for a few moments.

I was the one who unfroze first.

"Geh!" I wrenched myself away, shoving him back from me and started spitting out the blood. "Pleh!"

I sucked my teeth and gathered all of the saliva up, then spat the bloody glob out in disgust, making sure to swallow nothing. I wasn't sure of the consequences of vampire blood consumption, but I sure as hell didn't want to find out first-hand. Where was water when you really needed it?

The vampire guy had fallen to the ground on his knees with his hands planted on the ground in front of him, probably questioning his entire existence as a being who bit people and not the other way around.

"That," I spat out what was hopefully the last of the blood, "was not planned at all."

I didn't receive a response. Bending down to look at his face, I saw that it was even paler that it had been and he looked completely traumatised. I waved a hand in front of his face and still didn't receive a response.

"Um... sorry?"

Nothing.

"So... I'll just, uh, be going now..."

I started to back away and he still didn't look up.

"Yeah, uh, bye!"

I broke into a sprint and ran away. But as expected, I hadn't gotten very far when the rest of the vampire family, who had been hiding behind the tombstones all this time, jumped me.

"Oh my gosh, little brother. You're, like, so pathetic."

"Shut up! That's all you've said for the past three hours!"

"Hey, I only speak the truth. You got bitten by a human. That's so lame."

"It was a human with superior Flame powers! You saw how it produced that globe of fire in its palm."

Gee, I totally appreciated being referred to as an it.

"That's no excuse for getting carelessly bitten like that. I never knew humans could even bite vampires until today."

"Stop bringing that up!"

That wasn't Japanese. Wasn't English either. Obviously, I still understood it.

"Supposedly superior speed, supposedly superior strength, and supposedly superior Psyche."

"What's with the 'supposedly'?!"

"And yet, even with all those advantages, the human managed to be more vampiric than the actual vampire."

"Will. You. Please. Shut. Up."

The older sister sounded like she was having fun teasing the guy I had bitten. Laughing at another's misfortune. I could respect that.

"I gotta agree with Adela. You're always bragging about how your Psyche is the second most powerful out of all of us."

A new voice reached my ears. So Adela was the sister's name.

"Brother, not you too."

"And then you can't even psychout one measly human female."

Who the hell did he think he was calling measly?

"Isaac, the proper term is Mesmerise."

Look, or rather, hear, another voice has entered the scene!

"But Xavier, that doesn't even make sense! Why is it called Psyche and then Mesmerise?!"

"Because our family head decreed it so."

There was grumbling, probably from 'Isaac'.

"That being said, I must admit I am quite disappointed in you too, youngest brother. I fully expected you to capture the human. It would have brought much prestige to our family had you managed to successfully subdue it. We also would have gained much power from feeding on it."

"I am sorry, eldest brother." was the ashamed reply. I would feel sorry for him, if not for the fact that it was my freedom on the line. There was a yawn.

"And you won't fail again, blah blah blah." The sister, Adela, who was sounding incredibly bored. "By the way, has the human awoken yet?"

There were footsteps, and then I felt a presence lean over me.

"Oh? It's, like, actually really pretty, isn't it?"

Why, thank you. Compliments on my features were appreciated. Pokes on them, not so much. I felt a cool finger touch my face, tracing my cheek down to the corner of my lips. That was not welcomed.

Time to go bite another vampire.

Adela had been admiring the human female's aesthetics, stroking its face with a finger, when all of a sudden its eyes flew open and it chomped down on the digit. She shrieked.

Her brothers came rushing over to see what was wrong and the human rolled off the sofa, letting go of her aching finger. It sprang up and leapt over the luxurious piece of furniture, one hand on the gilded back.

"It- it bit me!" screeched the only remaining woman of the de Flăcării family, backing away from the savage creature with beautiful long hair. It bared its teeth at them, reminding them of what had happened to their dearest baby brother.

Maybe she could actually sympathise with him.

She glanced at the young vampire, who was trying to hide how utterly terrified he was of that set of perfectly normal human teeth.

Or not.

Xavier was already stepping forward, preparing to use his Psyche. There was a crackle in the air which she had not noticed before, which was most likely caused by his power. Adela had never seen her eldest brother use the full extent of his Psyche before, but since this human had easily resisted - no, not even resisted, completely ignored - the strongest of the family's second most powerful, underestimation of the human would be pure folly.

Xavier wasn't even facing them, yet Adela could see the red glow of his eyes - a side effect of Mesmerising - reflected on the sofa and the human's face.

"Come out from behind the sofa. You can trust us," he coaxed. "We won't hurt you. Come here."

Amazing. Adela could feel the power of his words. She wanted to believe and obey him, even with her natural resistance, and it wasn't even aimed at her. Her own Mesmerise was laughable in comparison.

The human stopped baring its teeth, a confused expression on its face instead. It hesitantly stood up. It was working-!

"And I'm just supposed to believe you?" it asked in disbelief. Nevermind. "You kidnapped me and were talking about gaining prestige from subduing me - which didn't you just kinda do from knocking me out? - and feeding on me."

So, apparently it spoke their language and had been awake the whole time.

Xavier sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"So this is it, huh?" he mumbled to himself. "This is the day I'll have to actually physically handle a human."

"Did you just ignore-" Xavier sprang at the human, which looked completely unconcerned about he undead creature jumping at it. And with good reason too. The oldest surviving vampire of the de Flăcării family hit an invisible wall - which became visible in crackling green for a second - with a nasty crack and fell onto the plush red of the sofa.

"Lightning flames!" hissed Isaac.

"What?! So that crackling wasn't eldest brother's power?" asked Adela.

"Well, evidently not," replied the middle brother.

"What a powerful human." Adela's eyes gleamed. They really had to have it now.

Chapter Text

As the Flamesucker family busied themselves with trying to get past my lightning Flame wall, I ducked back down behind the sofa and let everything that had happened finally sink in.

"Why is this happening to me..." I sighed, roughly running my hands through my hair. I began to braid it while trying to figure out what to do.

Should I use Night Flames? I'm pretty sure I have them. ...No, too risky, I have next to no idea of how to use them and I'm pretty sure the Vindice are monitoring them. Hm... maybe Mist Flames to create a copy of me to distract them while I sneak past... No, these guys are familiar with flames and might see right through the illusion.

My fingers mechanically untangled the strands of my hair, which were a darker shade of brown from being damp, and wove them together. I whipped out a few bobby pins and held them between my lips as I thought.

I guess if I really tried I'd have a chance of overpowering them, but there are, I quickly peeked over the top of the sofa, four of them and only one of me, so I'm not risking it. It'd also take some time and I have no idea how long I've been out for. Tsuna and the others are probably getting worried. I should get a souvenir for them. Hm... that nicely decorated box on that table should do the trick. And if it's important to the Flamesuckers, who cares? It can be compensation for wasting my time.

I finished the braid and tied it with the elastic around my wrist. Tucking the stray bits of hair away and securing them with the bobby pins, I checked that none of the Flamesuckers- vampires- Flamepires were looking and snatched the jewelled casket. I admired it for a moment before remembering my original purpose.

Oops, got distracted. Anyway, I'm not risking going past or dropping the barrier. That means to escape, I'll have to do from this position.

I examined the floor and, using a blade of concentrated Storm and Lightning Flames, cut through the carpet to see the grey stone underneath.

Stone, huh. I wonder if the Mountain Flame will enable me to pass through them.

A brown flicker appeared in my hand as I concentrated. Without the use of a ring, summoning Flames wasn't exactly a cakewalk, especially with unfamiliar ones. I focused on making the flicker grow, at the same making sure it didn't grow too much and explode as to not attract the attention of the newly dubbed Flamepires.

When I deemed the Flame powerful enough, I placed my palm on the ground and tried to gently shift the cold stone. To my delight, it worked and my hand sunk into it, creating slight ripples. That... was pretty cool. I gave the Flamepires one last glance and, taking a deep breath, sunk into the floor.

I wasn't sure of where I was going, but getting away was first priority. The Lightning Flame barrier would fade away with time and distance, but I didn't know what time and distance, so I was going as fast as I could. The rock flowed around me, with only the occasional scrape on exposed skin. I felt like Billy-Ray Sanguine.

Finally my head broke through the ceiling of the lightless room underneath. I breathed a sigh of relief, glad that I hadn't been on the ground level, then facepalmed, only now realizing that I could have passed through the wall instead, which carried less risk. It didn't matter now, of course. I wasn't about to go back up there just to go through the wall.

The ceiling released me and I landed on the floor, rolling straight into a wooden something.

"Ow..." I rubbed my head and looked around, letting my eyes adjust to the darkness.

...

Oh.

Oh.

I had rolled into a barrel, this was a cellar and I had been on the ground floor. I thanked my lucky stars that I had ended up in here instead of being fated to die of drowning in stone.

Being careful not to trip over anything, I made my way over to the door. A faintly flickering light could be seen in the gap between it and the ground. When I reached it, I pushed against it to find that it was locked. Of course.

I was out of patience and simply kicked it down. It landed with a loud sound and I winced. Hopefully nobody other than me had heard that.

I quickly ran up the stone steps, thankful for the sparsely placed torches that gave me enough light to not trip and fall to my death. I reached the door at the top of the steps and charged at it, not caring who heard me now. As it fell, I was already running over it and towards what looked like the castle entrance. And not a moment too soon.

Hearing a shout of surprise, I turned my head to see the Flamepire, whom my encounter with had started all this, at the top of a grandiose set of stairs. I stuck my tongue out at him, and, as a bonus, flipped him off.

I ploughed through the castle doors and into the dark and gloomy forest outside. I also ploughed through that and burst through the other side. Panting, I stopped, hands on knees, to catch my breath.

Once I was done, I straightened up and looked back at the forest... which wasn't there anymore. I blinked once, then shrugged. Whatever. Leaves and twigs and other miscellaneous forest stuff fell out of my braid and clothes as I shook them out.

The casket was still safely underneath my arm, and now I held it in my hands as I walked through the cemetery. The lid was covered in clear gemstones and had faded words inscribed on it with gold. I couldn't read the words at all, but it wasn't like the words were a warning and curse to people who decided to take it as a souvenir, right?

...Right?

...This'd probably come back to bite me in the neck someday.

"Yo!" I spotted the group standing around Tsuna, who was holding a passed out Lambo in his hands. He looked up.

"Nee-chan! Where have you been?"

"Oh, you know, here and there. Some weird shit happened, I got kidnapped, nothing big," I shrugged.

"K-kidnapped?!"

"Yep," I nodded. "Don't worry though, I got away easily and even got a souvenir! See?"

Smiling, I held up the jewelled box. "I haven't opened it yet, but I bet it's got some really nice stuff inside! Wanna see later?"

Tsuna was about to reply, but then looked past me and paled. He made a strangled noise.

"Is there something wrong, Tsuna-san...?" Haru asked. Tsuna simply pointed at the area behind me. Everyone looked.

Yellow flowers were floating in the air along with thin boards of wood. Tsuna freaked the fuck out and ran away with Lambo under his arm. Yamamoto, Ryohei, Kyoko, Haru and I-Pin followed soon after, also freaking the fuck out. Gokudera, the poor soul, couldn't do anything but lie on the ground, praying to the gods. Then he fainted.

Fuuta came out from tombstone, disappointed that he couldn't tell his rankings to everyone anymore. I patted him on the head.

"That's too bad, kid. But you can always tell them later, right? Actually, how about you just tell them to me on the way home?"

The brunet child nodded happily. I hefted Gokudera up and into my arms, carrying him bridal style.

"Wouldn't it be better to just carry him on your back?" Bianchi asked. I shrugged.

"Probably. But if he wakes up while I'm carrying him like this, he'll be all mortified and pissed off, and he's hilarious when he's like that." I explained happily.

"You have a point."

And so we returned home, a grown pink-haired woman, a baby in a suit and fedora, a passed out silver-haired boy in a brunette's arms, and a child spouting off creepy rankings.

(The light and final wails of the ghost Romeo were ignored.)

Chapter Text

It was lovely day. Clouds floated unhindered in the sky, letting the winds push them wherever they wanted to. The sun's warmth was pleasant and soothing, a far cry from the choking humidity it had been at the peak of summer. It also signalled the end of the season, and with it, the start of school's second term.

Not yet though, thankfully. First, I was going on a trip to Italy with Yamamoto and Dino.

Yesterday, while Gokudera had been hovering around Tsuna hoping to be asked to do something, Reborn had asked me if I wanted to go to Italy.

"Nee-tan." Reborn appeared on top of the couch I was moving for Nana so that she could vacuum the area underneath it. The mishap with Gokudera smashing Tsuna's face into the wall had left neither of them in any condition to do manual labour; Gokudera was too distraught and Tsuna was too busy consoling him. "Would you like to go to Italy?"

"Huh?" I finished moving the couch and straightened up to look at him fully.

"I said, would you like to go to Italy?" he said over the sound of the vacuum cleaner at work.

"Yeah, I heard you the first time, and yes, I would, but-"

"It's settled then. Go to the airport tomorrow morning with the things you'll need for one week. Dino will meet you there. Don't be late." Reborn hopped off the back and disappeared off to who knows where.

I blinked, shrugged, and picked up a pen that had previously been under the just-moved couch. Well, I had always wanted to go to Italy.

"Yamamoto-kun, wake up; we're here." I told Yamamoto, who had been sleeping against the window of the bus.

"Uwawah?" He sat up groggily and wiped the drool off his face. Rubbing his eyes, he glanced outside and straightened up. "Hey, we are! Whoa, this place is huge!"

Yamamoto pressed his face to the window, gaping at the airport before us.

"Never gone overseas before?"

"Nope! Have you?"

"Well, no..." Not in this life, anyway. People began to stand up and retrieve their bags from the overhead compartments. "Oh, we're getting off."

I stood up to grab our small bags and threw Yamamoto's to him. He pulled the strap of the red sling backpack over his shoulder and fastened the clasp. He had chosen to wear a light blue V-neck with a pair of grey tracksuit pants today. I brushed off the seat of my jeans out of habit and straightened out my black muscle shirt.

We filed off the bus, and grabbed our larger suitcases from the driver, who was hauling them out from compartment underneath. When we entered the airport, the air-conditioning and sound of chatter and luggage wheels rolling on the stone floor reached us. Yamamoto let out an impressed whistle at the sheer size of the airport, and I had to agree.

We'd come all the way to the Tokyo International Airport, and the size of it definitely fit the bustling city it was supposed to cater for.

"C'mon, let's go find Dino."

There was a large and rather conspicuous group of black suited men, and we headed towards them. One of Dino's subordinates spotted us approaching and notified Dino. The mafia boss turned around, a little startled. Yamamoto waved.

"Hey! I heard you were going to bring us on a trip to Italy?"

Dino greeted us and after looking around, asked, "What happened to Gokudera?"

"He can't come, for reasons not given to us," I answered.

"Is that right?" Dino smiled, relieved. Then he stiffened up slightly.

Oh, has he finally noticed?.

The blond looked at me cautiously.

"That's an interesting shirt design you have there," he casually - which meant that it wasn't casual at all - commented. "Where'd you get it?"

I looked down at the golden design. A winged clam, which had a bullet on a shield engraved on it, rested on two crossed rifles and a pile of feathers. It was basically a remix of the Vongola crest.

"I drew the design myself, and paid someone to put it on a shirt for me." I smiled. I had created it a year prior, waiting for the perfect chance to wear it and screw with people.

"You did?"

"Yep!" Reborn appeared on the seats behind Dino. Time for stage two. "I made it based on something I saw in a dream."

"A dream...?"

"Yeah, a dream. It was a weird dream, though. There was this blond guy with a hairstyle like Tsuna's and a flaming forehead. He was wearing this pretty cool cape and gloves. His hands and gloves were also on fire, by the way. He was wearing a suit under his cape - oh, his cape had chains connecting it - and was sitting down, legs crossed. He really looked like Tsuna. Like really, really, really looked like Tsuna. Like a cool, blond, grown-up, parts-of-his-body-on-fire Tsuna."

All of that was a lie, by the way. A lie about seeing Giotto in a dream to induce the mildly horrified and bewildered face Dino was currently making.

"And then he kind of burned out and in his place appeared this strange crest. I didn't get a really good look at it, but it looked pretty cool so I just drew what I thought I saw and mixed it around a little. Then I contacted a friend and had sixty of these shirts made, sold most of them on Etsy, kept one for myself and gave the rest away."

The second part, which wasn't a lie, elevated Dino's expression from mildly horrified to a suppressed, spiralling-into-hell kind of horrified.

It was amusing, to say the least.

"Speaking of which, I made this for you." I rummaged through my bag. Dino's face paled even further, probably breaking the world record for most blood drained from one's face without dying. I could practically hear his thoughts, which mostly consisted of panicked screaming. He thought I was going to give him my special brand of 'fiery riceballs of hell' again. That was perfectly valid train of thought.

I found the container and pulled it out of my bag. As I did, however, The Book caught on its clasp and tumbled out of my bag, landing on the floor with its pages open and exposed for all to read.

Shit!

But before I could stuff it back into my bag, Reborn hopped off the seats and picked it up. To my horror, he began flipping through it.

Shitshitshitshitshit

"You always carry this book around with you, Nee-tan," he said, continuing to turn the pages. "So I thought it was either your diary or a really good book."

He looked up at me. I looked back at him.

"Why's it blank?"

Blank...? I took the book back and flipped through it. Nope, everything was still there, so why...?

The answer suddenly struck me. Person finds themselves in fictional world, and finds book or whatever of the series which, incidentally, no one else can read. Incredibly convenient fanfic tropes were at play here.

"It's blank because I always intend to put something in it, but never actually get around to doing that," I smoothly lied. Reborn looked at me for a while longer, but seemed to let it go, not questioning how I flipped through the pages first before answering. I turned back to Dino, putting The Book away.

"Here," I smiled, holding the orange plastic container out to him. "Please enjoy these."

Dino broke out into a cold sweat but accepted the box, attempting to smile. His men watched from around us, sending looks of pity at their boss. Romario patted him on the back sympathetically. The blond opened the box with much trepidation, and at my expectant smile, took a bite out of a riceball.

I could see him steeling himself for the expected rush of spiciness.

His look of absolute astonishment and relief with disbelief when it did not come was priceless.

"How do you like it?" I asked hopefully. "I tried a new recipe in that one, so I don't know if it's as good as the others."

Dino had been shocked stupid at the not spicy in the least riceball. He shook off his extreme surprise to answer me.

"It's great!" He beamed at me. I almost flinched at the sparkles that suddenly appeared around him and beamed back with a little difficulty, resisting the urge to squint against the light.

"Really? I'm so happy you liked it!"

Dino happily finished off the first riceball and reached for the second.

"Ah, about the other one though-" I started as he took a bite out of the triangular seaweed-wrapped cluster of rice.

There was a pause, then his face rapidly turned red with heat when the flavour inevitably reached his tongue. His eyes began watering. His men looked on with concern. Romario sighed and Reborn smirked at how his previous student had let his guard down. Yamamoto was laughing again.

"-it's the same recipe as the ones I gave you last time," I finished, pretending not to notice the suppressed look of agony on Dino's face.

I internally cackled when the Cavallone family boss quickly gulped down the rest and chugged the bottle of milk an internally face-palming and I-knew-this-would-happen Romario handed him.

Chapter Text

Dino was still chugging down his milk when someone's phone rang. There was a sudden beep and then the metal of heavy metal blasted out, earning dirty looks from annoyed passerby. His men looked all around, wondering who would have such an obnoxious ringtone. It took them a moment for them to realise it was coming from within their area.

"Ah, sorry." The sister of the Vongola Decimo candidate flipped open her phone with a deft flick and silenced it with a the press of a button. She placed it back into her bag.

"Aren't... you going to answer that?" Dino found himself asking, wiping his mouth.

"Nah. I have that ringtone set for only the most annoying of my contacts. They'll probably call again. And if they don't," she shrugged, "then it can't have been all that important in the first place."

"Okay..."

True to the brunette's prediction, the song started up again a few moments later, and she answered it.

"If you'll excuse me," she nodded to the rest of them and walked a few steps away. Dino and his men could still hear her though.

"What do you want, Shibaguchi Jou? Why are you calling me?"

Okay, that wasn't a very polite greeting, but she had said she reserved that ringtone for people she didn't particularly like, so it was to be expected.

"You want me to what?"

"No."

"Why? I should be the one asking you that. First off, who gets wasted in the middle of the day?"

Wasted? That had to mean that whoever was calling was an adult, or at least someone who looked like one.

"The break-up was your entirely your own fault and you know it."

B-break-up? She can't possibly mean-?!

"Seriously? You were cheating on her in her own home. She had every right to slap you both and order you out. Just count yourself lucky she didn't just toss you out the window instead."

Oh, thank god. ...Wait, what?! Just what kind of man has the girl given her number to?!

"You are a pathetic person. Stop trying to use polyamory as an excuse. That's not the type of relationship you entered with her. Secondly, who calls a young teenage girl to pick them up from whatever bar they're in? Don't you have any friends? Actually, are bars even open at this time of day?"

...Dino had no idea what to think of that.

"No, I refuse to be associated with you in that way. And so you're saying, you just up and went to the liquor store, spent most of your cash on alcohol, spent the rest on a taxi to drive you to wherever, and then just started wander-drinking?"

"Oh my god." The brunette's free hand twitched and closed around the air as if strangling an imaginary neck. Given what had just been said, it was a very understandable gesture.

"Well, I'm at the airport, so I can't do anything..." She deliberated for a moment here, seemingly weighing the pros and cons of something in her mind, before heavily exhaling through her nose. "But depending on where you are, I can probably call in a favour and get someone to drive you home."

A favour, huh? Dino didn't think a 14 year old civilian was supposed to have a network like this, but hey, what did he know? He had been raised in the underworld after all. The mafia don noticed that his men had fallen silent and were eavesdropping on the rather strange conversation as well.

"This is ridiculous. I have no idea how you got that far either. You know, I should just block you."

Yes, yes you should, Dino thought.

"...I'm hanging up." The brunette ended the call to audible protesting on the other end of the line. She shook her head and turned around. Dino and his men immediately pretended that they hadn't just been listening in. Judging by her flat stare, however, they weren't very good at that.

"Sorry," she said. "I'll take just a minute longer."

"Take all the time you want," Dino laughed nervously. "We'll just go check our luggage in in the meantime."

"Alright, thanks. Sorry for holding you all up."

"It's fine, it's fine." Well, it was interesting at least.

I pinched the bridge of my nose and called someone else.

"Hello?"

"Ishio-san, I need your help."

"Anything for you, dear."

"A... acquaintance of mine decided destroying his liver was the quickest path to happiness and somehow ended up near your place. He apparently has no friends, and also no money, so he can't get home."

"Oh no, that sounds terrible. Do you want me to send him home?"

"Yes please, that would be great. It would be even better if you could convince him to stop making terrible life decisions, but that's definitely asking for too much."

"Come on, Sawada-kun, he can't be that bad."

"Oh, believe me; he's worse."

"Aw, don't be that way. Where is he right now?"

I told the kindly woman his location and she responded with a thoughtful 'mm-hm'.

"If that's inconvenient though, we can leave his ass right where it is to teach him a lesson."

"No, I actually pass there on my way home. It's no trouble."

"Alright then, thanks. Don't be too nice towards him though, he got into this mess himself and deserves whatever discomfort he's in right now. Then again, you're too nice to everyone no matter what, aren't you, Ishio-san?"

"Ahaha, I wouldn't say that."

"And modest to boot."

"You flatter me."

"It's all facts. Alright, thanks for helping me then."

"Think nothing of it."

We ended the call and I thanked whatever deity was up there that I knew such a nice person.

"You done?" Yamamoto asked.

"Yeah, I am."

"Let's go check our luggage in then."

"Let's."

Chapter Text

"I've never been on a plane before either," Yamamoto said as we walked up the ramp to the plane.

"Oh, really?" That wasn't surprising at all. Usually everyone took the bullet train when they wanted to travel far in Japan. Planes were almost exclusively used for overseas travel. "Do you want the window seat then?"

"Eh, are you sure?"

"Yeah, I don't mind. I'll be spending the majority of the flight drawing anyway."

"Then wouldn't it be better to sit next to the window so you can draw the view outside?"

"...Yamamoto, just take the window seat."

"Alright, alright," he laughed. We filed onto the plane and were greeted by the flight attendants, who directed us to our seats.

I plopped down in my seat and stretched my legs out. Yamamoto stepped over them and plopped down onto his as well.

"You sure are lucky, spending your first flight relaxing in first class," I commented.

"You are too, you know," he replied.

"Mm, yeah." A slip-up. Small slip-ups like these were becoming more common, and I would have been thinking more on that if I hadn't been too busy sinking contentedly into the luxurious leather. I stretched my arms up and out, sighing, then dropped them down again onto my lap.

"You two comfortable back there?" Dino looked over the back of his seat. He was sitting in the two seats in front of us with Romario by his side like always.

"It's just as comfortable as my bed, maybe even more," I sighed.

"Yeah," Yamamoto agreed, "Thanks for giving us these seats, Dino-san."

"Yes, thank you, Dino."

"I invited you guys, after all," Dino said, "so it's only right I treat my guests the best I can. Enjoy the flight."

"We will, thank you."

Midway through the 13 hour flight, I jerked awake and accidentally woke Yamamoto.

"Mm? Sawada?" he murmured sleepily. "What's wrong?"

I frowned and shrugged. "Nothing. Go back to sleep, Yamamoto. I'm sorry for waking you up."

He blinked at me, opening his mouth. I quickly turned away to avoid any questioning.

When he didn't ask further, I relaxed then frowned again. I couldn't remember what had caused me wake up, just the vague sensation of something finally falling into place, like a golf ball finally rolling into its hole.

I inwardly shrugged. Oh well. It would come to me eventually. These types of things always did. Closing my eyes, I drifted off to sleep, only waking again when the food came.

Stepping out of the airport, I scanned the area around us, doing a quick 360.

"I can't believe it; we're actually in Italy!" I cheered, whirling around again to face a laughing Yamamoto.

"Yeah, I can't wait to do some sight seeing around here. Even the area immediately outside the airport looks pretty nice."

"Hey," Romario called out to us. "You can sight see later. For now, we have to get to the mansion."

"Mansion?"

"We're staying in a mansion?"

Yamamoto whistled. "Man, I knew Dino was rich, but-"

"-but not that rich," I finished.

Romario held the limousine - we were travelling in a goddamned limousine - door open for us and we hopped inside. Dino smiled at our impressed looks.

"You like to travel in style, don't you?" I said, admiring the deep velvet space.

"What other way is there to travel?"

"Touché."

We had reached the mansion and were currently being shown our rooms by Dino himself. He had just finished telling us that we could go sleep and would be woken up for dinner when we encountered his other guests.

"Oi, Dino!" A brunet with a strange curl poking out from his hair parting rounded the corner and stopped at the sight of Yamamoto and me. He appeared to be of the same age as us and wore an angry expression, which changed immediately to a friendly and open one as soon as his hazel eyes flicked to me.

An older boy, with tanner skin and shorter, messier hair came running around the corner as well and stopped right behind the first one, hands on knees to catch his breath.

"Hey, Lovino," he panted. "Don't run so fast, please?"

The boy named Lovino ignored him and strode forward to stand in front of us.

"Mr. Dino, are these the guests you said you'd be bringing from Japan?"

"Yes," Dino replied. He turned to Yamamoto and me and introduced the two - Lovino Vargas and Antonio Fernández Carriedo - to us. He then turned back to them and introduced Yamamoto, who nodded in greeting. I interrupted him when he gestured to me and introduced myself in Italian, inwardly smirking at his surprised look at my smooth Italian.

"It is a pleasure to meet you, miss."

Lovino stepped forward and held his palm out to me. Smiling, I placed my hand in his - then quickly flipped it so the positions of our hands were reversed and pressed my lips to his knuckles.

"Oh, believe me," I murmured against the back of his hand, "the pleasure is all mine."

Letting go of his hand, I straightened up, smiling angelically at the red-faced boy and the startled expressions on the others' faces at the role-reversal, and retreated into my room with my luggage.

There were a further few moments of silence outside the room, before Antonio laughed.

"I can't believe it! She beat you at your own game, Lov- Ow, why'd you hit me?"

"Shut up, you bastard!"

Chapter Text

"So, where are we going today?" I asked, leaning back into the rich material that made up the interior of the car. Romario was in the front driving, with Dino riding shotgun. Yamamoto sat next to me and Lovino and Antonio sat in the very back of the seven seater.

"I thought for today, it'd be nice to just walk around town and visit some of my favourite shops. There's also a photo shoot for some famous boy band taking place in the plaza, so we can pop in to check that out if you'd like," Dino replied.

"Sounds interesting! Can visit a gelato shop first? Gokudera was bragging about how much better ice cream in Italy tasted," Yamamoto said.

"That sounds like a great idea. Lovino, Antonio, are you coming with us, or do you plan to do your own thing?"

"We'll be staying with you for the first half of the day," Lovino replied.

"After lunch, we have a meeting with one of Lovino's father's friends," Antonio explained.

"What did they say?" Yamamoto asked me.

"Dino asked what their plans were for the day and they said they'll be with us until lunch," I murmured back.

"Oh, thanks. Man, it sucks being the only one who doesn't know Italian. When did you learn how to speak it anyway?"

"I took some online classes a year ago," I shrugged. "Apparently I have a knack for new languages." Well, I wasn't lying, exactly. Although the online classes were something the school made us take for a completely different subject. And I did have a 'knack'.

"We're here," Romario announced. I climbed out of the car and stood for a while, waiting for everyone else and looking around at the buildings. The area had a certain feel to it that was different from back in Japan, although how it was different was something I couldn't quite describe.

"Yamamoto wants to visit the gelato shop first," Dino informed Lovino and Antonio. "Is that alright with you two?"

Lovino shrugged in a 'whatever' kind of way and Antonio cheered at the idea of ice cream.

The interior of the gelato shop was brightly coloured, with posters showing off the different sweet treats that were available and rainbow stripes running down the white tiled walls. Romario ordered our desserts, and after a few short minutes, they were ready and we walked out of the shop, cones in our hands.

"So, what do you two want to do now?" Dino asked.

Yamamoto shrugged cheerfully and I tapped my bottom lip in thought. I remembered what he said earlier.

"I've always wanted to see what a photoshoot looks like. Can we go check it out?"

"Sure. Romario, where was it taking place again?"

"If my memory serves me right, it should be held near the fountain."

We walked until we reached the plaza and saw a small crowd, mainly consisting of teenage girls.

"This must be the place then," I commented. Leaving the others behind, I tapped the shoulder of a girl with particularly long black hair and asked, "What's all the fuss about?"

"The band 'Lucky Break' is having a photoshoot right now! I've been a fan ever since they started, and they just released their newest album!" she told me giddily. "Wait, do you not know who they are?"

"Well, no, but-"

She gasped, as if I had just committed the worst crime imaginable - which I may very well have in her eyes. She grabbed my arm and pulled me along with her to the front of the crowd, right up to the tape preventing Lucky Break's fans from spilling into the photo shoot area. She began pointing out the member's of the six-member band and giving me a brief overview on each of them.

According to her, the one having individual photos taken right now was the youngest member of the band, a 16-year-old with wild indigo hair named Indaco.

"Indaco?" I asked, squinting at the teenager who was currently grinning goofily at the camera. There was just something about him... "Is that his real name, or...?"

The girl laughed. "Of course not. That's just his stage name. His real name is-"

She was drowned out by the shouts of the fans around us. We looked back to see what was so exciting. The photographer had finished with Indaco and he was currently headed to our stretch of the tape. The black haired girl - whose name I still didn't know, I realised - gasped and rummaged around in her bag, coming up with a battered notebook and a dark purple sharpie.

"I have got to get his autograph this time around."

There was a scarily determined glint in her eye which I approved of. She stuck her hands over the tape and eventually Indaco made his way over to us. He smiled as he took the notebook and sharpie from the thrilled girl's hands.

"What's your name?" he asked.

"I-it's Claudia," she managed to get out, literally shaking in excitement.

Indaco wrote 'Thanks for supporting us. Claudia! - Indaco' on a blank page and placed the notebook and sharpie back into her trembling hands. She stared down at them, as if she couldn't quite believe what she was seeing.

"Oh my god," she whispered fervently. "Oh my god. I've finally managed to get all of their autographs. I can die happy now."

I laughed at her dramatics and patted her back. Indaco chuckled as well and made to move onto the next fan, when he suddenly froze staring at... me?

I tilted my head to the side and squinted back. There really was something strangely familiar about him, although I was sure I'd never seen his face before. Then it struck me.

Chapter Text

No. Way.

"Lindsey Fong?" I inquired.

"Nada Serrano?" he asked in return.

There was a moment of silence, the fans around us having fallen quiet out of curiosity.

Then I ducked under the tape and leapt at him. He caught me and spun us both around a few times, laughing in wonder.

"Dude. I didn't think I'd ever see you again!"

"I told ya I'd see you in the next life, didn't I?"

He snorted and put me down. "That you did. I didn't think that it'd actually happen though."

"Hey," I punched him in the shoulder lightly. "Who do you think I am? Of course I'd manage to have us both reincarnated."

Rolling his eyes, Lindsey punched me back and said, "Yeah, right. If the way you just stared at me in shock for a few seconds before was any indication, you obviously didn't expect this to happen."

"Shh, let me have my moment here."

Someone cleared their throat behind us. We spun around and faced the stern faced woman, who raised an eyebrow at us.

"I'm sure this reunion of yours is very touching and all, but surely it can wait for later. The fans are starting to grow restless."

Sure enough, the crowd behind the tape was starting to whisper and speculate about my relationship with 'Indaco', and a few were giving me dirty looks.

"Right, right, sorry." Lindsey rubbed the back of his head sheepishly as he apologized to who I assumed was the band's manager. He glanced at me. "Hey, do you wanna maybe wait over there while I finish with the autographs?"

He jerked his head over to the white tent set up to the side. I nodded.

"Sure. Just let me inform the people I'm staying with first; they're probably really confused right now."

"Right." He lifted the tape to make it easier for me to duck under. "I'd ask who, but there's a pretty high chance that I'll have no idea who they are."

"Oh, don't worry, you'd definitely recognise their names," I said as I slipped under the tape. "After all, we were both pretty invested in Reborn, weren't we?"

"...Wait, what?!"

"No way. Nuh-uh. You're lying."

I took a sip from the glass of lemonade and shook my head. "'Fraid not, Lindsey."

"But- but-" He struggled to wrap his mind around the fact that we'd both been reborn into Reborn. "There's just no way."

"Hey, hey, us being reincarnated in the first place is pretty 'no way', so why's being reincarnated into KHR so hard to believe?"

"Yeah, but-" He continued to struggle to believe the truth, even sitting one table away from the characters we both knew so well back in our previous lives. I rolled my eyes.

"Just get over it and move on, Lindsey."

"But, Nada-!"

"But, Lindsey-!" I mimicked in a mockingly high pitch. "But nothing. I know it's weird, and pretty much only happens in fanfictions and the like, but it is happening, and you need to get over it and move on."

I paused, then added, "Also, I was somehow reborn as a half-assed Mary-Sue. I can use Flames without training, am super strong and absolutely gorgeous," I flipped my hair, earning a snort, "get the best grades, am super popular, and I'm clearly not the [Chosen One] (that's Tsuna's job), so naturally, that was the conclusion I came to. My only saving grace is that the main characters don't automatically fall madly in love with me, which is really quite a relief."

I wrinkled my nose. "Really not sure how I'd deal with the overwhelming affections of half a dozen special middle-schoolers. Normal boys are bad enough."

"Oh my god."

"That was my first thought too."

Lindsey huffed, leaning back in his chair, and glanced at the other table. "This is crazy."

"You think I don't know that?"

He shrugged and sipped his drink. "By the way, what did Nana and Iemitsu name you?"

"In the spirit of naming their children after the shogun of the Tokugawa dynasty, I received the name Ietsuna. You?"

"In this life, my parents named me Luca de Luca."

I almost spat out my drink and choked out "What de what?!"

Mr Redundant Name shot me a glare and repeated, "Luca de Luca."

"I heard you the first time, I'm just surprised you became famous with a name like that, God, what were your parents thinking?"

Lindsey took another sip of his cola moodily. "They said it seemed like a good idea at the time."

"Oh my god."

"That was my first thought too."

"Luca de Luca," I grinned. "Classic."

"No. Don't you dare."

"Hey, Luca de Luca, get me another drink," I said, finishing off the last vestiges of lemonade at the bottom of the glass.

"Stop calling me that and get your own drink," he grumbled, even as he stood up to refill my glass. I beamed up at him.

"Thanks, Luca de Luca. You're such a dear."

"Shut up."

"Hey, Dino, would you mind if I ditched you guys for today to catch up with Luca de Luca here?"

The blond waved us off, saying "It's fine. You remember where we parked the car, right?"

"Yeah."

"Try to get back by four, alright?"

"Okay."

"And you'll take care of her, right?" Dino asked Lindsey.

"More like she'll be the one taking care of me," he muttered under his breath before saluting Dino and saying out loud "Yes, sir!"

"Off you go, then."

"Thanks, and bye!"

They all waved goodbye to me and I exited the small restaurant after Lindsey. We grinned at each other.

"So, what do you want to do?"

"The amusement park."

"Yep."

We stood in front of the brightly coloured gates of the 'Land of Fun'. Corny carnival music could be heard playing from the speakers next to the ticket booths, and in the one we were waiting in line for, a bored looking teenager behind the counter handed a giggling child their unlimited rides wristband. Inside the park a whole host of brightly painted rides were waiting, including a particularly thrilling looking rollercoaster which I was just itching to go on.

"Hell yeah." Then I frowned. "Ah, but you're a pretty boy celebrity. Won't the paparazzi be a problem? Especially after our little display before."

"Nah," he waved my concerns away. "Our manager somehow keeps the media from being too obnoxious, so we won't be bothered that much."

"That much?" I raised an eyebrow at him. He shrugged.

"Manager works miracles but not even she control the media."

"Right. Oh, it's our turn."

We bought our wristbands and walked through the gates, stopping off to the side to muse over our options.

"Suggestions?"

"Map."

I handed it over to Lindsey and he unfolded the pamphlet, doing his best to smooth it out. Something in the corner caught my eye and I nudged him.

"How 'bout that?" I pointed to the haunted house. "We've literally gone through death already so it should be fine, right"

"A-ah, about that-"

"Great! Let's go!"

I dragged the reluctant boy after me towards the house of horrors and queued up, humming happily.

"Nada, the line's kinda long, m-maybe we should go on something else first?"

"No can do, Luca de Luca, what if the line gets longer while we're gone?"

He muttered something under his breath.

"Did you say something?"

"I said 'I guess we have no choice but to wait then'."

"That's what I thought."

"Never… again…" Lindsey said weakly, worn out from all his running and screaming. I leisurely walked along, ignoring his bruising grip on my arm.

"That was fun, wasn't it?"

"No. Nada, you may have enjoyed my screams, but that was most decidedly not fun for me."

I laughed. "Still as easily scared as ever, huh, Luca de Luca?"

"It's not that I'm easily scared; you just have nerves of steel. And stop it with the Luca de Luca already!"

"Nah. Oh hey," I noticed a sign on the side painted in blood, "'Almost there', huh?"

"Almost there to what?" Lindsey panicked. "Death?!"

I gave him a look. "No, Luca de Luca. They obviously mean the exit."

"Oh." He calmed down. "Don't call me that."

I ignored him and walked towards the end of the long and creepy stark white corridor that looked just like the long and creepy stark white corridor present in certain horror movies. Lindsey shuddered.

"Let's just get this over with."

I turned the corner, expecting the actor with a ski mask and knife jumping out at us and walking straight past him, only slightly flinching at the ear-piercing scream let out by Lindsey.

"Ow," I muttered, rubbing my ear.

"Sorry," Lindsey said, not sounding very sorry at all.

We finally came to the door at the end of the corridor. The small glass window set in it was smashed, and covered by a black cloth from the other side. There was a flickering exit sign on top, except where it would usually be green, a dull shade of red was glowing instead.

"Oh, finally," Lindsey breathed.

A cackle filled the air and he spun around in fright. An actor with the mask of hideous witch had snuck up behind us, and I could just see the outline of the hidden door which they had just come out of.

Lindsey shrieked again and clutched my arm tighter. I winced. That was definitely going to leave a mark.

"Chill, Lindsey, they're not even holding any weapons," I hissed at him. "Calm the fuck down."

"How am I supposed to be calm when-" I pulled him down into a headlock and covered his mouth.

To the actor, I said, "Yes? I'm assuming there's something you need to tell us about the next part of the haunted house?"

The witch tilted their head and said in a high, screechy voice, "You're sharp. Yes, for the next part of the challenge you must go solo, to prove yourself worthy of escape from this House of Horrors."

Lindsey ripped my hand away from his mouth.

"What?! No. No way. Not happening. I refuse. I-" He was cut off by my hand again.

"Please ignore him. So, is that it then?"

The witch nodded and made to drift past us to the door, then seemed to do a double take and look back down at Lindsey.

"Wait, is that Lucky Break's Indaco?"

"Yep."

"Huh. My sister's a big fan. Can I have his autograph?"

I let Lindsey go. He brushed himself off, scowling at me.

"Luca de Luca, give the guy your autograph," I ordered.

"Stop calling me that." To the actor, he said, "Do you have something to write on and with?"

The witch patted down their robes, before slumping. "Unfortunately not. Nevermind then."

"Here."

I passed Lindsey a notebook and a pen. He looked at me. "Wha- Where did you even- How- You don't even have any pockets."

I wiggled my fingers at him. "Magic."

He rolled his eyes, significantly calmer now, and signed the paper with a flourish. He ripped the page out and gave it to the witch.

"Here. Tell your sister hello for me."

"Thanks."

I took the book back, made it disappear right in front of their very eyes, then clapped my hands. "Great! Now, I believe we have a haunted house to finish."

The colour abruptly drained from Lindsey's face. "Oh no. Oh hell no. You can't make me. I absolutely refuse to go in there by myself."

I shrugged and reached for the door. "Guess you'll just have to stay here then."

"NO!" he shrieked again, grabbing my hand. "Nada, don't leave me here!"

"Fine then. Have it your way." I shrugged and threw him through the door the witch was holding open. They slammed the door closed and high-fived me.

A moment passed. Then,

"NADAAAAAAA! I HATE YOU SO MU- AAAAAAAAHHHHHOHMYGODWHATISTHATGODSNOI'MTOOYOUNGANDPRETTYTODIEOHSHITIHAVEN'TFINALISEDMYWILLYETGIVEEVERYTHINGIOWNTOMYBANDANDYOU'RENOTGETTINGANYTHINGAAAAHHH-"

I leant heavily against the wall, laughing too hard to hold myself upright, and spent the next few minutes cackling at his screams.

Chapter Text

"Oh, come on. It wasn't that scary."

"Says you!" Lindsey retorted, lifting his face up from where he had buried it in his palms. "I couldn't get up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night for weeks after we watched Poltergeist; you, on the other hand, actually managed to fall asleep during parts of it because it was 'kinda boring'!"

"Seriously? It wasn't even that scary! The ghosts were appeased in the end and everything."

"Still! Those clown dolls haunt me to this very day."

"Lindsey, it's been over 16 years for you and 14 for me since we saw that movie."

"Those chipped paint faces... those soulless eyes filled with hatred... those evil, evil smiles promising a fate worse than death..."

I flicked his forehead. "Mate, we've already died once. It wasn't that bad."

He ignored me and carried on about how one day those clowns were going to come for him and drag him down into the depths of hell and eat his soul and then he'd turn into one of them and then he'd be forced to watch, helpless, as the same thing happened to everyone else while he was trapped in his creepy clown doll body. There were a lot of agonizingly detailed descriptions of how and what would happen. I rolled my eyes. What his mind came up with was a lot worse than what actually happened in the movie.

"You should quit your band and become a horror novelist," I advised him. "At the rate you're going, you could beat out Stephen King."

He shut up and thought back over his own words.

"Oh," Lindsey said weakly.

There was a beat of silence.

"NGAAAAHH! I can't get those horrifying images out of my head now! What have I done?!"

While I waited for him to finish freaking out, I observed our surroundings, looking at the rides and games and determining which one I would drag us to next if Lindsey didn't have a preference. Ooh, that roller coaster looked fun. And that one over there focused on flipping the riders upside down. Or, we could go play some games at the arcade while Lindsey recovered.

I turned around to ask Lindsey what he wanted to do, when I spotted a brightly coloured sign out of the corner of my eye. It wasn't the colours that caught my attention however - everything in this park was brightly coloured - but the glowing green words on it.

"Test your strength..." I murmured to myself. "Sounds like fun!"

"What sounds like fun?" Lindsey asked, eyeing me warily.

"That." I pointed and, grabbing his arm, dragged him towards the high striker.

"Step right up, step right up!" the operator called. "Test your strength with this wondrous contraption up here for only five euros! And if you're strong enough, you might win a prize from our large and varied selection here!"

"You wanna do that?" Lindsey questioned. "I'm pretty sure it's rigged."

"Might as well try, right?"

The operator spotted us and smiled at the boy beside me. "Here to win a stuffed doll for your girlfriend, young man?"

Lindsey looked confused. "Girlfriend?"

I blinked at the operator, and then at him.

"Oh," I said, realization dawning on me. "Oh. I think he means me."

"Wait, what?" Lindsey looked at the operator as well, then back at me. "Her?"

There was moment of silence.

"Ew," I said, wrinkling my nose in disgust. "Yeah, no."

"We're not involved romantically in any way," Lindsey assured the operator, making a twin face of disgust.

"Besides, if anybody's gonna be winning prizes it's gonna be me." I jabbed my thumb at my chest.

"Yeah, that's right," Lindsey agreed, holding out the required amount of cash. "Now give the girl the mallet."

I took the offered mallet from the stunned operator and hefted it a few times, testing its weight. I nodded.

"Right. Here I go."

I walked confidently towards the tower and brought the long-handled mallet high above my head.

Ready...

I breathed in.

...and swing!

I brought the mallet down.

There was a loud thud as the head of the mallet struck the painted red and white target; then the puck was flying up, up, up, and up, where it struck the bell with a loud clang. When it came back down, the dent in the bell became visible. Lindsey looked at the dent, then at the target, which was similarly damaged, and whistled appreciatively.

"Nice," he complimented. I did a little curtsy and bow before turning back to the operator.

"You might want to close your mouth," I commented. "I hear the mosquitoes are particularly nasty this time of the year."

The man snapped his mouth shut and walked over to the prize section in a daze. He asked which one I wanted. I examined the section for a moment before turning to Lindsey.

"Which one do you want? Call it thanks for paying for everything," I added before he could protest.

He looked like he still wanted to and I raised an eyebrow at him. Lindsey sighed.

"You're not going to take no for an answer, are you?" he grumbled, then pointed at dark green dinosaur on the right. I nodded.

"Alright, we'll take that one."

As I handed the doll to Lindsey, I commented, "Still in love with dinosaurs, I see."

He blushed and swatted at me.

We were back at the Cavallone estate and having dinner when my phone rang. Checking to see who it was, I smiled and answered.

"Suzuki Rin, reporting!" A cheerful voice greeted me from the other end of the line.

"Ah, Suzuki-san. What have you found?"

"You know that dude with the buzz-cut, Onohara something-or-other?"

"The one whose girlfriend suspects he's cheating on her?" I asked, flipping through a small orange notebook.

"Her suspicions are correct, Sawada-taichou! I got pictures~"

"Good job." I scribbled 'Evidence Obtained' on the case page. "Email them to me and print out a hard copy to file away. Thanks for your hard work."

"It was no trouble at all, taichou! I'm having a lot of fun doing this."

"I'm happy to hear that. Have you heard anything from Hashimoto-san?"

"Last I heard, she was still trying to figure out how to tail a high school student without losing him."

"Tell her to get tips from Terauchi-san. You can find him at the arcade trying to get a high score on the first-person shooter on most weekends."

"Will do, taichou! Oh, before I forget, Takamura Harumi has offered up her services. She says she's good at hacking into the school computers."

"Alright. I'm sure her skills will come in handy sometime. I'll talk to her when we get back to school. Is that all?"

"Yep, that's all."

"Goodbye then."

"Bye! Suzuki Rin, out!"

The call was ended and I turned back to my food.

"So," Dino said, failing to hide his curiosity, "would you mind if I asked you what that was all about?"

"Not at all." I swallowed one last spoonful of food before answering. "Somehow, I started something similar to a detective agency."

"Oh? How?"

"I'm still not too sure how, but I suspect it was because people kept coming to me for help and obviously I couldn't do it all by myself, so I had to ask friends to help me. Then someone got the idea that we were a group dedicated to helping others solve their problems, and now here I am." I chewed on a piece of pork and swallowed. "It's not a bad business though; we get paid in information, food, and favours."

"That sounds like fun," Dino said.

"I suppose it is," I agreed. "I particularly like my position as the head. When we get paid in secrets, I get to know all of it, while my... subordinates, I guess you could call them, only know what they need to know."

"Sounds like you hold a lot of people's secrets."

"Oh, I do, and it's great. Knowledge is power, after all."

Chapter Text

"Hey," I said, chewing on chip. "Remember those karate and aikido lessons in our previous life?"

Lindsey gave me a look and set down his drink. "It was implied in Chapter 23: Successful Avoidance and Karate that your previous life had nothing like that. You know, the whole 'sloppy fighting style' thing?"

"Never happened."

He turned back to Chapter 23: Successful Avoidance and Karate and raised an eyebrow at me, jabbing a finger at the paragraph. "It's clearly written up right here."

"So?"

"What do you mean, 'So?'? If that happened, you can't just then say that we took martial arts lessons. And deny your visit to the dojo ever happened. And now you're continuing on as if your visit to the dojo did happen. You're not making any sense. What are you trying todo?"

I shrugged. "I have no idea. To be honest, I don't think the author has any idea either."

"Then what was the point?!"

"Dunno."

Lindsey made strangling motions in front of him, as if imagining throttling the person currently typing away on their laptop.

"Why would they do this?" he complained. "Especially if they didn't even have a point to it! And they didn't even do it in the actual story! They couldn't put something like, memories from the previous life that weren't there before being recovered as time went on. No, they just had to write an entire segment just to suddenly announce that Ietsuna/Nada actually did have some form of martial arts training! What's with this terrible retcon?!"

"Oi Lindsey, you might want to stop yelling at nothing. People are staring."

Lindsey dropped his arms and blushed when he realised that yes, people were indeed staring.

"Just why?" he asked miserably. "What is going through our author's head? I'm so confused."

"If it's any consolation, our author doesn't really know what's happening either," I offered, taking another chip from the packet.

"It's not. They're the author. They're supposed to know what's going on."

"Too bad then, lol."

Lindsey groaned and buried his head in his arms. I took another chip from the packet and munched on it.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

"Don't be a stranger, yeah?" I lightly punched Lindsey's right shoulder.

He grinned and punched me back. "You too, Nada. I demand to hear from you at least once every two weeks."

"Biweekly calls, got it." I paused for a moment, then decided the gossip magazine writer 'discreetly' taking pictures and scribbling in his notebook wasn't my problem and hugged my best friend tightly.

"It was good to see you again," I murmured into his chest (he had two years on me. I'd grow to his height and then some someday). I pulled back slightly and rapped it with my knuckles. "Also, nice pecs."

He blushed but played along.

"Why, thank you. I work out. It was good to see you again too."

My best friend hugged me tightly once more before we separated.

"Don't do anything too crazy without me there to stop you alright?"

I gave him an affronted look and held a hand over my heart in mock hurt.

"Why, Lindsey, one would think you had no faith in my ability to make good decisions."

"You once decided jumping straight off a balcony was better than shimmying down the pipe beside it."

"Hey, that was one time."

"And then there was that time when you decided to test how effective a chainsaw was by cutting up our dining table, and when you almost got us evicted by showing a shrunken head to the neighbours' kid to frighten him, also once when we were playing cricket you-"

"Alright, alright," I interrupted, "I see your point, I see your point. You don't have to worry though. I don't want to draw too much attention to myself if I can help it, because of," I inclined my head towards where Yamamoto and Dino was, "you know."

His eyes flicked over to the KHR cast members. "Ah."

Lindsey looked back at me and frowned. "Also, be nice."

"I'm always nice."

"No, you're not," he deadpanned.

"You're right, I'm not," I agreed easily. He sighed. I smiled prettily at him.

Romario called for me to finish my goodbyes. I nodded to him in acknowledgement and faced Lindsey.

"Well, I guess this is it," he said.

"Don't talk like we're never going to see each other again. I'll give you a call as soon as I get back to Japan," I promised.

We hugged and punched each other's shoulder one more time, and then it was time for me to go.

"Yoohoo~!" I sang, bursting through the front door with my luggage. "I'm back!"

"Nee-chan!" Tsuna appeared at the top of the stairs and started hurrying down. "You're b- ack!"

He tripped and almost flew off the steps. With Lindsey's words still fresh in my mind, I moved and caught him easily.

"Oomph! Ah, thanks, nee-chan."

I put him down and dusted him off.

"You should be more careful, Tsuna," I chastised. "You could really get hurt one day."

"Okay," Tsuna said obediently. I ruffled his hair.

"Well then, I'm gonna go put my stuff away, then sleep off my jet lag." I yawned, grabbing my luggage and moving up the stairs. "We've got one more day 'til school starts up again, so let's go hang out at the park tomorrow, and I'll tell you all about my trip, alright?"

"Sounds great, Nee-chan. Sleep well," Tsuna said.

"I will."

After I had unpacked, I collapsed into my bed and dreamt of a life long past.

Omake - Boss!Ietsuna as suggested by BOSS02109 on ff.net

"Yo, little brother!"

Tsuna immediately spun around in his rather comfortable swivel chair at the sound of his sister's voice.

"Aneki!" he exclaimed, slightly panicked. (He had switched from calling her Nee-chan a few years ago at her insistence.) This wasn't good. He was supposed to be meeting up with the new boss - oyabun - of a powerful yakuza group soon, and he didn't think he wanted them to know about his sister lest they tried to use her as leverage.

He had reluctantly informed her of the mafia world around two years prior, after an assassin had managed to find them on their semiannual sibling catch-up week. Tsuna had been expecting her to freak out, or call him a liar, or something. He had not expected her to simply nod in understanding and call a waiter to replace her cocktail, which had been knocked off the table in the struggle between him and the assassin.

Her existence was kept quiet, with only their closest allied families being privy to the knowledge that the young and powerful Vongola Decimo had a sister, whom he was quite protective of, though only the top tier of the Cavallone, Tomaso, and Simon families knew who that sister was. There had been leaks, of course, but all of them were swiftly dealt with before they could cause any harm. All in all, Tsuna was pleasantly surprised that no one had kidnapped his sister yet.

(There had been attempts, of course, which had all been dealt with by the woman herself, but he didn't know or need to know that.)

"What can I do for you? Actually, um," he glanced at his watch - the yakuza group was due to arrive any moment now, "can it wait for later? I'm kind of supposed to be meeting with a yakuza group right now."

"Oh?" His sister, to his chagrin, did not leave and instead plopped down in the seat adjacent to his. "Meeting with a yakuza group, huh? Are you proposing a peace treaty or an alliance? Or did they overstep their bounds or something? Oh wait, you wouldn't be meeting with them here if they did something offensive so it's gotta be the what I thought first, right?"

"Aneki, you should go, th-"

"Come on, Tsuna, just tell me," she coaxed, patting his hand. "Please?"

"Aneki, I-"

"Please?" she repeated. "Come on, just tell me if I'm right or not."

Tsuna sighed, only mildly concerned with how quickly he gave in to his sister, and shifted through the papers in front of him until he found the one that contained the basic outline of the terms of the treaty.

"Fine, fine." He sighed again, this time at the thought of the paperwork he would have to do if the treaty was accepted. He really hoped they would either accept it fully or reject it outright, because revising it would mean even more paperwork, along with the headache that was sure to come as a direct result of negotiating the terms. That was quite unlikely to happen, but a guy could dream, okay?

"So," he started, ignoring his sister's small smirk of triumph, "you're right, we are indeed looking for an alliance with the Sonohoka yakuza, who control about half of Japan, including the towns right outside Namimori."

"Oh, so they're like the Japanese equivalent of Vongola?"

"You could say that, yes. The Japanese underworld is rather closed off though, so they don't hold as much power with foreign crime syndicates as we do. We plan to use the fact that they'll be pretty much the first ones to ally themselves with foreigners - and the Vongola no less - to make the treaty a more attractive prospect."

"Nice one. What are the terms of the treaty though?"

"Here." Tsuna handed her the sheet of paper in his hand. "I've tried to make the terms as fair as possible despite Reborn's advice. I don't want to accidentally offend them and be banned from Japan or something. There's rumours that their head is actually a woman, so I'm hoping that they'll be more liberal minded about signing a treaty with foreigners as well and- Aneki, what are you doing?"

His sister had read through the sheet, flipped through the rest of the papers, and had just lowered a pen to the last page of the documents.

"Signing the thing. I scanned through it and it seems fair, and I trust you, so," she wrote her name and title with a flourish on the lines she needed to sign, "there. It's done."

"Um." Tsuna was very confused. Ietsuna tilted her head cutely and smiled at him.

"The rumours are right and I am indeed a woman."

"What." His brain still hadn't rebooted itself.

"Tsuna, you just called me aneki. Why are you so confused that I'm a woman now?"

"No, it's not that, just." Tsuna struggled to put his dilemma into words. "What?!"

His sister kept smiling at him.

"Since when?! I don't- I'm so- I have no idea what's going on," he proclaimed. "You're apparently the leader of the most powerful yakuza group, which - if my sources are correct - swore in their current leader five years ago,three whole years before that incident with the assassin, and you didn't bother to tell me?"

Ietsuna shrugged and poured herself a drink from the water jug placed in the middle of the table.

"I thought you knew."

Tsuna carefully lowered his head until it was about five centimetres above the table, then slammed it down hard.

"Why," he groaned, "is my life like this?"

(He regrets ever hoping that the treaty would be fully agreed to.)

Chapter Text

"No."

"But-"

"We are a school club, who do odd jobs like finding stuff and finding information. We are very competent, but something like this is not something I will permit my club members to get involved in."

"Buchou! We can handle ourselves! Or at least, I can. Let me go investigate this."

I turned away from our client and glowered at Suzuki.

"I won't allow it. Most of the people beaten up were Disciplinary Committee members, and they're known for being exceptionally strong. Sasagawa Ryohei was assaulted, and he specializes in hand-to-hand combat. If all those strong people were beaten up and their teeth removed, what chance do you think you have against their assailants?"

Suzuki fell silent, scowling but reluctantly accepting my words. I nodded, satisfied that she wouldn't run off and get her ass kicked. Our client looked disheartened, so with a sigh, I turned back to her to give her something she could cling onto while her boyfriend recovered in the hospital.

"Look, Tsukada-san, I understand that you want the perpetrators to be caught, and so do I, but I can't allow those under my care to come to harm." I walked to the clubroom door and slid it open, gesturing for her to leave. "But I don't think you need to worry so much. All the people attacked were Nami-chuu students, and what's more, most of them were part of the Disciplinary Committee. You know what that means, don't you?"

Tsukada processed my words and looked up at me with a hopeful expression on her face.

"A-Are you saying that Hibari-san will go after the attackers himself?"

I smiled at her. "That's exactly what I'm saying."

She beamed back and bowed to me and then each club member present.

"Thank you so much! I'm very sorry for troubling you!"

After she had left, I returned to my very comfy president's chair and leant back in it with a noisy sigh.

"Sorry, Suzuki, but you're part of the Investigation Club, and therefore under my care, so I can't allow you to get injured on a job. Understand?"

She grumbled, but conceded.

"Good. Now, Hashimoto-san, have you sought out Terauchi-san for advice yet?"

"My phone ran out of power. I'm outta here."

"What?! Look here, Gokudera, you can't just leave like that, what do you think you're-"

I rolled my eyes as the teacher continued yelling after Gokudera. You'd think that by now, he would have realized that unless you were my brother, getting him to do something he didn't really want to was pretty much impossible. At best, he would ignore you; at worst, you could get blown up by the boy's ever present dynamite.

Yamamoto woke up and the teacher scolded him for always sleeping in class. He was ignored.

Ah, Tsuna and the others should be getting ready to go to Kokuyo right now, shouldn't they?

I contently sipped from the cup of tea and tapped my pen against the desk. Right now, I was in the club room and circling the places that some kid's lost puppy was most likely to be. I almost felt like laughing at how stereotypical all our requests were.

This girl lost her lucky pen, that guy wanted to know what his crush's favourite things to do were, another wanted to know their rival's weaknes, and so on, so forth. We were in middle school, so we'd get the occasional chuunibyou insisting that the apocalypse was coming, or that they had some kinda strange power, or had been reincarnated into this life for some grand purpose I rarely bothered to listen to.

I always had to suppress the urge to snort disdainfully at those. The apocalypse was definitely not coming, I was personally acquainted with people with flame powers, and if anyone had been reincarnated for some grand purpose it was me.

'Cept, y'know, without the grand purpose bit.

All the other members were either occupied with personal matters or out investigating so I was the only one in the clubroom. That was a good thing, because the universe was a bitch and kept trying to involve me in the story, so if there really did end up being one more Bloody Sibling, I could just beat them down without having to worry about anyone seeing.

I hadn't sensed Lambo, I-pin, or Shamal's presence at all during the time I'd been here, so I could only assume that either I got lucky and it had remained the Bloody Twins, or that Reborn had decided that I could take care of myself and also wanted to see how I'd fare against a serial killer.

I didn't get lucky.

When the third bloody sibling appeared behind me, I ran my hand down my face, passing it off as exasperation from a request the club received.

Why.

Judging from how easily they'd been taken down in the manga, I'd have no trouble either, but it was still annoying as hell. For a moment I wondered how they'd been stuck with the label of serial killer when they were so weak, then remembered that Shamal, future Lambo and I-pin had grown up in harsh underworld, and that normal people wouldn't be able to sense these stealth type killers creeping up on them.

Then I was struck with another thought.

Wait, if Kyoko and Haru were targeted, why wasn't Nana...? Was it because she was a blood-relation? No, then they wouldn't be coming after me now. Then because maybe she went out and was with someone else- no, Hana accompanied Kyoko to the hosp-

Ah.

Fuuta.

Right. Since they had probably gotten the rankings for which girls were the most precious to Tsuna from the kid, Fuuta, who absolutely loved both Nana and Tsuna, had probably wanted to spare my brother at least some pain and only asked for the actual 'girls'.

I was jolted from my thoughts when another slimy presence joined the one already there.

Bloody Quad- no, that's ridiculous even for this - both Bloody Twins must have been sent after me.

Well, it made sense. Mafia was big on family, and I was Tsuna's literal family, who also looked like a delicate beauty (if I do say so myself) incapable of fighting. Mukuro and co. probably hadn't bothered to do their research too well if they thought-

Wait, why are both Bloody Twins here? Just one should be enough to deal with me right? Unless they got overconfident and- Hm. Or, they could have set up Haru and Kyoko as decoys, and then sent both Bloody Twins to me to make Tsuna feel the ultimate hopelessness and really stab himself when the monitor switches to show me, bodyguardless, with the two poised above- buuuuuuut, to do that, they'd have to know about the existence of bodyguards first for them to set up decoys, but since this is a pretty shoddily formed plan in the first place, and the real goal is to exhaust Tsuna enough that he'll submit easily to Mukuro anyway, it's highly doubtful that's the case and I'm overthinking things and I should really just beat up these creepy ass fuckers already.

I wanted to put down my pen right then and beat those grey faces in, but decided it'd be more fun to wait until the last moment, when Tsuna began to bring the knife down. Even if I couldn't see their faces, just imagining it all would put me in a good mood for the rest of the week.

Concentrating on the niggling feeling at the back of my mind which was my 'psychic twin connection' to Tsuna, I continued scribbling notes down and waiting until I was sure that the blade was pointed right at his stomach. Then, I moved.

Slamming down the pen on the table, I stood up, kicking my chair off to the side so it wouldn't get in the way, and snatched the bottle of sulfuric acid from the clawed hand of the twin about to pour it on me. As I punched that twin in the face, I threw the liquid in the bottle at the face of the other and knocked - him? her? it? it would suffice- it down. I then brought the desk I had been using down on the legs, breaking them, then stomped on the hands, and elbowed the twin I had punched before back away from me.

It didn't fly back, but the way its body bent back was so exaggerated that it wasn't even funny. Welp, whatever. I kicked it between the legs, then roundhouse kicked it in the chest - which actually did send it flying back this time - and used the desk again to break the legs.

Now that both Bloody Twins were on the floor, I could finally properly immobilize them. I kicked each in the head, using the movements of their bodies to determine whether they were unconscious or not, and when that was done, carefully kicked in their kneecaps to ensure that they would be not be running away even if they regained consciousness in the five minutes I was gone. Then I went off to find a sturdy rope I could use to tie them up.

Chapter Text

After flipping off the almost unnoticeable small yellow bird hidden in the trees outside the clubroom, I decided to drag the Bloody Twins, who I'd stuffed in a large potato sack, all the way to Kokuyo Land myself.

"Can you believe they sent both - both - bloody twins after me?" I complained. "Like, who does that? Who just sends two psychotic assassins after an innocent beauty like me?"

"Uh huh, sure," Lindsey said. "Ah, wait a sec-" there was the sound of the phone being put down on a hard surface and the sizzling of greasy food in a pan in the background for few seconds, "There. What were you saying again?"

"I'm sorry, am I bothering you, Luca de Luca? You sound distracted."

"Oh, I'm sorry, please excuse from trying to enjoy the one day I have off by cooking myself a nice, big breakfast," he snarked.

"Are you sassing me, Luca de Luca? Oh my god, you are sassing me. I just took down two internationally wanted assassins and you're worried about your breakfast? That seems a little unfair, don't you think?"

"Not at all," he replied.

"Are you still mad about the haunted house thing?' I said.

"..."

"Oh my god," I realised with dawning glee. "You are still mad about the haunted house thing."

"Shut up, I'm not."

"My, my, Luca de Luca. Did no one ever teach you it's unhealthy to hold onto grudges for so long?"

"I'm hanging up."

"If running away is how you deal with all your problems, then I fear for-"

The dial tone interrupted the very important life lesson I had been about to give to Luca.

Hmph.

I texted him a single word. 'Wimp.'

"You!"

I walked past the guy yelling in the middle of the street, before realising I was the only other person in the area.

"Me?" I pointed to myself, looking back at the blond guy. His eyes drifted to the potato sack I had slung over my shoulder before meeting mine in fierce glare.

"Yes, you! I have come for a rematch," he said, pointing rather rudely right at my face.

"Eh, rematch?" I squinted at him, bringing my free hand up to rub at my chin. "I don't remember ever having a match with you in the first place though?"

"Why, you...! How dare- what's that on your wrist?" he asked abruptly, eyes freezing on my arm.

I looked down at my wrist as well and raised an eyebrow at him. "A bangle? Obviously?"

The blond suddenly paled and I whistled in amazement. His skin was so white that I didn't think it'd be possible for him to get even more pale.

"What about it?"

He started trembling. I tilted my head to the side.

"Hey, you okay? What's wrong? Didn't you come for a 'rematch'-"

He suddenly turned and bolted into a nearly alley.

"-or whatev...er...?"

I blinked after him.

"Well, that was weird," I commented to no one. Hm, come to think of it, he did look a little familiar though...

I peered at the bangle he'd been staring at. I'd gotten this one from... oh. That was why he'd seemed so familiar. He was the Flamepire I'd bitten back in Chapter 32. He must have recognized the bangle I had taken from the jeweled casket before gifting it to Tsuna.

Maybe if he came to challenge me to a rematch again I'd ask him why he was so shocked at the sight of it on my arm. If not, oh well. It probably wasn't that important anyway.

I stood at the gates of Kokuyo Land. Much like Tsuna when he stood in front of them, I also thought back to the time Nana had taken the family out for a fun day at the amusement park. Good times, good times.

Well, this was probably close enough. I tossed the Bloody Twins through the half melted gates (I could still smell the aftereffects of Bianchi's handiwork) and left.

I was a bit sad at not getting to meet Lancia though. He had seemed like a real handsome man, but oh well. There were plenty of other hot guys out there.

As I walked home, I recalled the power Mukuro had used in his fight with Tsuna. Six Paths of Reincarnation, I think it had been called? In the manga, he gained memories from his six past lives, but in the anime, his body had gone through the six paths of Hades.

I flipped open The Book to check.

Blah, blah, monologuing, monologuing, more monologuing, even more monologuing - aha! There it was.

Six paths of Hades it was. Man, this thing sure was handy.

That was probably a good thing. If the experiment the Estraneo Famiglia performed on him had given him memories of his past lives, I would have been compelled to find out if I knew one of his previous incarnations, and that would have led to a hell of a lot of trouble.

Come to think of it, Lindsey and I were the only reincarnators in this world as far as I knew. Were there more? Should I try to find them? Was there actually a grand purpose to me being reborn as the protagonist's twin sister, or was it just the whim of a bored god that I was here?

So many questions, too much effort to find the answers to said questions. For now, I'd just go with the flow and see where that took me.

Omake - On the other side of the camera

"The wall's become a monitor!" Tsuna yelled in shock. "Nee-chan!"

"You bastard! What are you up to?!" Gokudera growled from next to him.

The old man, dressed in a uniform he was a few decades too old for, chuckled and introduced himself as the assassin 'Birds'. Tsuna, focused on the image of his sister diligently working at her desk, barely heard the old man's monologue. It was only when he noticed a blur in the background that he turned his attention back to Birds.

"Hm...? What's that?" Then the blur became a grey-skinned creature humanoid. "Uwah!"

"Finally noticed, have you?" Birds giggled, in a high, reedy way that had him shuddering in disgust.

As another grey-skinned humanoid appeared, Birds informed them that they were the Bloody Twins, serial killers who'd been locked up for a full decade. Tsuna couldn't believe they were even human, with their grotesque movements and mutilated faces.

"My, my, she sure has a lot of hair, doesn't she? Would be a shame if someone were to... set fire to it!"

The lighter appearing in a Bloody Twin's hand left Tsuna no choice but to beg his companions to beat him up. He couldn't believe Reborn was asleep at a time like this. His sister continued working, oblivious to the literally looming threat. His friends' refusals were heartwarming, but now was not the time!

Thank god for Bianchi. But even she had to refuse when told to stab him.

He couldn't let his sister suffer the pain of having acid poured on her though, and yelled for Birds to give him the knife. Bianchi promised to call an ambulance and offered to stab him, but Tsuna knew this was something he had to do himself.

He took one last look at his sister. Tsuna held the knife above his stomach and was just about to plunge it down when suddenly:

"GHIIIII!"

Tsuna gaped as his sister punched one of the twins in the face. The rest of the beatdown was just as quick and brutal. When she was done, she made sure the two weren't going anywhere by breaking their legs with a disdainful look on her face. She flipped her hair over her shoulder, not even out of breath, before she set about cleaning up her spilt tea and righting the rest of the furniture.

She had just beaten up two serial killers and not even broken a sweat. His sister was amazing.

Chapter Text

One month after Kokuyo, at the baseball team's autumn game...

It had been a very quiet month, with Tsuna and his gang having been recuperating in the hospital for most of it. I did wonder why they didn't just use sun flames to heal the lot of them, but really, it was none of my business.

It was a bit unexpected that circumstances didn't conspire to have me meet Mukuro, but hey, you didn't hear me complaining. With my luck, I'd probably be thrust into Mukuro and Chrome's shared mind space or something in the near future.

...I just jinxed it, didn't I.

"If you guys don't work hard, I'll start a riot!" Gokudera yelled, holding several sticks of dynamite in his hands.

"That's not what you're here for!" Tsuna yelled back in alarm, trying to get his future Storm Guardian to put his explosives away.

"WHY DON'T YOU QUIT BASEBALL AND DO BOXING!" bellowed Ryohei, hands cupped around his mouth to amplify his already ridiculous volume.

"That's wrong too!"

Poor Tsuna. He had to deal with such loud friends. Then Bianchi turned up, Gokudera fainted and Tsuna panicked.

"That area is so noisy..."

"Yeah, your brother and his friends are really loud..."

"Why do you think I'm sitting with you guys instead of them?" I replied.

Akira laughed and Yuki chuckled. I finished off my popsicle and chucked the stick into the bin without looking. My friends didn't bat an eyelid at the feat. They'd been around me long enough that stuff like this just didn't faze them anymore.

"Anyway, I seem to recall that your birthday's coming up soon, Yuki."

"Oh yeah! You're turning 14, aren't you? Are you doing anything special?"

"Yeah, I am. And um, well, actually…" Yuki stalled, glancing at our faces, "My mum suggested I could invite a few friends over for a sleepover. So, um…"

"We'd love to come!" Akira cheered. "Right, Ietsuna?"

"Absolutely. I'll get you the best present ever," I assured Yuki. Akira squawked in protest.

"What? No, I'll get her the best present ever."

I smirked at Akira. "You can sure try, heh."

Akira puffed up, but before she could get too worked up, Yuki spoke up shyly.

"Thank you."

Akira immediately turned to her. "You're welcome."

I flipped my hair over shoulder. "Of course."

Now, what would Yuki want...?

I pondered the question as I walked down the streets of the Namimori shopping district.

Yuki was a rather feminine person, so bath products? Plushies? Cute clothes?

BOOM!

A building on my right exploded.

Ah, but those were all too generic. They were all good, but I wanted mine to be the best. I couldn't get something too expensive either, or she'd feel guilty.

There was a lot of screaming and yelling as people scrambled to get away from the explosions.

I crouched down and ruffled my hair in frustration, getting out of the flight path of a piece of debris. Why was choosing presents so hard?!

The explosions were getting closer now. I covered my ears as another one went off.

Can't they keep it down? I'm having a crisis here!

Plus my nice clothes were getting covered in dust. I cursed myself for not remembering that today was the day that Squalo and Basil made their explosive (heh) debut. It was also the manga chapter in which readers first learnt about the Vongola rings.

Hm? Wait... That was it!

Jewellery!

Yuki had been into jewellery recently, showing off new necklaces and charms on her bracelets to us. I skipped to a shop I knew sold the best affordable bling in high spirits. Then they came crashing down when I realised it was closed.

I sighed.

Right. Normal people would run away from explosions, not pretend they didn't exist.

I'd come back tomorrow.

"Hm? Oh, this? It's water! Drink up, drink up!"

I got home just in time to kick the bottle of sake out of Fuuta's hands.

"Iemitsu. You can't give alcohol to minors."

Look, it's not like I hated Iemitsu. He was an interesting character. A good Family man, but not a good family man.

But now, he wasn't just a character I had no connection with. He was my 'father', or more accurately, my sperm donor.

"Tsu-chan! My baby girl! Come here and give a kiss to your daddy."

He made a kissy face at me. I planted my foot in it.

"In your dreams, old man. Where's mum?"

"Out shopping."

While Iemitsu played the fool, lamenting the loss of the loving and adorable daughter who had never existed, Bianchi appeared.

"Oh, Bianchi, hi."

"Maman went out to buy food, since Papan finished all the food she'd made."

The large dirty platters scattered around the room were proof enough of that.

"I see. Just call him Iemitsu or old man. 'Papan' isn't a title he deserves."

"Tsu-chan! How could you?! Ah~ when you were young you ran around calling 'Tou-chan, Tou-chan' so cutely!"

"I never did that."

"When did you become so cold? Quick, give your Tou-chan hug!"

He lunged for me. I planted my foot in his face again.

"Aren't you having too much fun playing the fool?" I muttered. "Well, it's none of my business. I'm going to my room and I'm taking the children with me. Disturb us and die."

"Tsu-chan!" wailed Iemitsu, and was answered with the slamming of my bedroom door.