Restless Origins

Chapter 1

There was a nice cool darkness. Encased, enwrapped, he felt warm and solid. There was a sense of security within him and he heard sounds.

There were many sounds, some higher pitched than others, but the vibrations made him feel a little bit of pleasure. When they left however, he was left alone again. It didn't matter to him though. He felt the rhythmic pattern and the ever present gentle sound, and then soft vibrations.

And then, astounding light and loud noises. A sudden hurt, and then he was screaming.

--

He was born on the fourteenth day of the tenth month.

It had not been a particularly exciting event. He was given his name and brought up to Don of the Vongola Famiglia before he was even an hour old. It had, however, been a memorable one. Time had seemed to stop as the young newborn child glanced up at the man whose arms he was held in. The gentle flame flickering against the man's forehead was a beautiful sight and little hands reached up to touch it.

"Why, hello there, Tsunayoshi. It's very nice to meet you."

The first thing he would ever remember as kindness would be that kind smile. That was also the last for a very long time.

--

It was in his nature to be soft-hearted and shy. While Timoteo would have taken measures to prevent that change, they were the mafia, and the sooner Tsuna learned what he was now growing up into, the better, so he employed all his men to take care of the child upon sight.

The appearance of a child in the Vongola headquarters was nothing short of blasphemous, and Timoteo's men did not take kindly, despite their best intentions to their Don. They were killers, and a reminder of an innocent haunting on them day and night did nothing for them except make their moods darker and their hatred for themselves even more. Many made horrible mistakes. To remedy this, Timoteo sent for a trustworthy Mafioso to take Tsuna in, but by then, it was already too late.

The presence of Timoteo's blood relation was already well known throughout the Underground, and many sought to eliminate the potential heir. One less of Vongola was one less future threat to worry about.

Mafia dealt with cards that were easily eliminated. The fact that Timoteo had been careless enough to reveal his grandson was more than stupid. It showed that the Vongola was getting weaker – they could take advantage now, they could destroy one of the most powerful Famiglia there was. Vongola had many enemies and the allies it had was mostly due to intimidation and fear, unlike respect, honour or friendship.

Tsuna, unaware of the conflicts of those around him – or even lack of, spent his first year learning how to run instead of learning to crawl and moving on from that. While the Mafioso may have been responsible, the man was by no means a genius when it came to children. He figured – and it was a good thing he did too – that the faster this child learned to run, the better chance of survival Tsuna would gain – provided Tsuna established a fear of everything.

That fear was easily taken care of. Tsuna was shy and fearful of new things and he did not like change. He was not allowed outside, so it was just as well. He followed his caretaker everywhere, shyly looking and glancing at the work before turning back to the mafioso.

Unfortunately, with this, Tsuna also became fearsomely dependent on others. He couldn't go to sleep without someone to carry him and slowly pace while rubbing circles on his back. He always wanted to be carried and wanted to be talked to. He always wanted to play at the worst of times, and always expected the other person to know what he wanted. Tsuna didn't like learning new things, so he refused to learn how to read and write – but he did like being read to. There were so many things – Tsuna was growing spoiled though.

It soon became very inconvenient. His caretaker was loyal to Timoteo and most certainly had grown to like this little boy. However, he was still a Mafioso at heart, and the instant he had joined the mafia, his heart had become with it. He gradually began to leave Tsuna on his own, in the desperate attempt to get away from the unfamiliar and return to that soothing, mechanical motion of pulling the trigger.

At first, Tsuna cried. He started wailing and wouldn't shut up for hours on end. The neighbours started getting involved, and the Mafioso had no choice but to report to Timoteo his own failures.

Child-rearing was not for everyone, but Timoteo was less than happy. His own job was hardly suitable for allowing allocated time to raise a child whose whims changed from one to another once boredom struck. That, and a Don's job was rather...psychologically disturbing for normal people, and for a child barely able to speak of all things... Timoteo most certainly loved this little boy, but he knew his duties.

After a long decision, Timoteo gave Tsuna a gun and brought him to a room. It was white on all four sides, with a single man kneeling in the center, blindfolded. His hands were tied behind him, and his arms and legs were bound. He was leaning forward, breathing heavily and sweat poured down his brow.

Tsuna instantly hid behind Timoteo's pants and started to cry, but Timoteo calmly knelt down beside him.

"Come here, Tsunayoshi." Old, calloused hands gently gripped the much heavier gun properly into Tsuna's grip.

In an instant, the near-dead man was wide awake and screaming furiously. Whatever he said was purposefully ignored but Tsuna started to cry harder and harder until the man's fiendish and hellish roars were directed at him.

Tsuna wanted to run, Tsuna wanted to hide. Timoteo did not allow for that, and the Mafioso who had taught Tsuna to walk came in and quieted the little boy down, handing the gun back to Timoteo who stepped back to wait. Timoteo called for someone to silence the man still kneeling, and then all was silent. There were only soft murmurs of empty words, and a carry, and a slow pacing around the room.

Tsuna was not allowed to sleep because soon after he had calmed down, Timoteo took him away and replaced the gun in his hands. Realizing the intent, the Mafioso said nothing, merely bent down to Tsuna's level and catching the child's eye.

"Shoot, Tsunayoshi-sama." The man murmured. When Tsuna looked up at him, wide-eyed and brown eyes swimming with fear and tears, the Mafioso said nothing but demonstrated with his own index finger. Tsuna unconsciously did the same thing.

...And that was how Tsuna killed the first person he ever killed.

--

But through time, after two more years of this, two years after the Mafioso that had raised him had been killed, Tsuna stopped crying completely. He stopped talking, he stopped begging for hugs and words. But what was most important to this story was that Tsuna stopped interfering. It was to the point that he no longer cared.

He grew up like this. He wouldn't touch or question anything or everything. He learned that doing something was better than being punished. He grew to fear Vongola Nono, and he grew to be wary of all the Mafioso around him. He grew up expecting death; he grew up with nightmares that would shock him up to the point he'd break out in cold sweat just remembering.

Tsuna learned things. He learned to survive, how not to infuriate someone. He learned to be indifferent – perhaps he was indifferent.

It wasn't until he turned five that Tsuna had made the complete transformation from that shy, attention-wanting little boy.

And it wasn't until he turned five that Timoteo finally had no choice but to send Tsuna into hiding, accompanied by one Mafioso to raise him as a side job.

--

By then, however, it had grown a bit too late.

Tsuna didn't care for who named him, who birthed him and who carried him crying. He didn't care that he must've been the most obedient child in history, speaking nothing, obeying everything and questioning nothing. Without an actual birth certificate, or his birth having been seen through by legal doctor, he had to be kept indoors.

His guardian was a strict Mafioso who did not care for children. It was to no surprise on anyone's part that he was often left to spend many days and hours alone in the small two room apartment they shared. It was a fairly cheap one, without many windows, located near the northern border of Italy to France. The colder climate was easily felt with the lack of proper insulation in the winters, but he adjusted and took it without complaint.

To entertain himself, he watched the silent flow of everything, as he leaned back against a wall and stared at the other blank wall. The apartment had not been furnished—it was not for someone to live in luxury for—it was a safehouse, a place where its only purpose was for a shower and a change of clothes. There were often times that different Mafioso came stumbling in, but he said nothing to them, and ignored them. They in turn, ignored him and it worked for some time.

He let his ears constantly hear the habitual ticking of the battery clock on the wall above him. He learned how to spend hours on end looking at nothing in particular, thinking of practically nothing. He probably would've spent his entire life like this. Then, one day, he heard the most amazing sound.

Like a cannon shooting out and the sudden burst of lightning.

It was loud, shocking, and it startled him to the point that his eyes were wide and he was half on his knees, hands scrambling at something. He was prepared to run away, but when no movements, no sound followed, he slowly relaxed to a sitting position. Still, he could not wrap his mind around this strange sound.

His own curiosity got the better of him that day, and heaving himself to sit upon the rusted metal balcony so he could see better, he saw something.

Sawada Tsunayoshi was seven years old the second time he saw someone die, and he watched until the police came and left. For some reason, he was unable to look away, and soon came back to it well after they had gone home.

--

He had never seen such blood. The last time had been a long time, and while it had been engrained in his memory to the point he knew exactly where it splattered and what patterns it made and where, there was nothing like experiencing it again.

Tsuna drew his lips in a thin line and traced the pattern of the blood splatter against the brick wall below, across from his apartment, with his eyes. The gunshot had been a fatal wound – no doubt it had been close to or about point-blank range. There had to be only one other person, because there showed signs of a struggle that wouldn't have been done as carelessly with a group—or if it had, the group couldn't have been more careless. That, or they were genius to have made it this far.

The dead body was slumped in a half sitting position against the wall. In an intricate pattern, Tsuna noticed, was how the head had seemed to blow up from the nose and then spread onwards. He marvelled at the decency of the job.

He had never been involved in elimination missions, warning missions to other Mafioso or traitors, but he knew it from repetition. Tsuna would often let his caretaker rant to him, and offer little words of rebuke. From this, he would've learned about the whole world, had the time permitted. Either way, Tsuna knew the current happenings whenever his guardian had taken a suitable bath and had relaxed with two beers.

The sudden unlocking of the door made Tsuna's blood freeze and his eyes instantly flickered to the doorknob straight across the room. It was now turning, and without a moment's hestitation, Tsuna slipped down and off from the balcony, quietly clambering down to below the balcony. The concrete was weak from age, but Tsuna found the familiar holes he had found a long time ago, and slid his fingers in.

Hanging there, he waited quietly, ears listening. If it turned out that it was another police raid, they would be sad to find out that it was just an ordinary apartment with rather suspicious intentions. For example, who didn't bother decorating the house, but had a closet full of assorted clothes, and barely enough items to call the place home?

Still, Tsuna mused, they'd be stupid to have realized this and gotten it right. If they were smart, they'd think something else entirely, assuming it wasn't the obvious. After all, they considered the person renting it to be of the poor side. Though that didn't explain the clothes, it probably was a group of people sharing it.

Tsuna wondered what would happen should he let go. The other balconies below had broken during time, and had disappeared. So now, there was only one balcony, and Tsuna was hanging with his feet dangling below him, five stories above the ground.

"Oi. Brat." The familiar voice called out to him, and Tsuna listened attentively. "I'm back. You monkeying around again?"

After listening for a while and deeming it safe, Tsuna finally clambered back over onto the balcony, where his caretaker was waiting.

"I don't monkey." He told him. "Stupid jerk."

"So I leave you for two months and you learn how to rebuke like an idiot. Good job." It was sarcasm, but it escaped Tsuna entirely. He learned to accept words as they came, and if possible, read the meanings behind it. There was a smile on his guardian's face, a bit of pride. Then, shaking himself out of his reverie, Tsuna's guardian spoke again. "By the way, I got you something."

"Something?" Tsuna was surprised to the point that he said it out loud without thinking. Flushing red as his guardian laughed, Tsuna settled for biting his lip.

"Here." An item was tossed to him and Tsuna caught it with ease, having to jump a little and land with a tumble because the landing was too sudden. Tsuna scowled as hands clapped at his acrobatic performance, and turned his moody attention back to the crudely wrapped, lumpy shaped item. He looked back up at his guardian. "Yeah, you can open it. It's your present, anyway."

Present? Tsuna blinked, before wandering to the battered old coffee table and setting it down there. He kneeled on the floor, slowly removing the newspapers that had the comics pages on them – last week, he noted – and then the absurd item finally became known.

"..." Tsuna had no idea what it was.

His guardian sighed, running a hand through greasy black hair. "It's a paperweight. You can throw it at people or something if you don't want it—just not at me, of course."

"...why?"

"Well, uh, I don't know. But, hey-! This is from Mexico, real cool, isn't it? They painted it all neat and stuff, so I thought you'd like a bit of culture into your life, y'know?"

Tsuna nodded slowly, and rewrapped the gift. He hefted it in his palms, weighting it before stating quite monotone and rudely: "Five pounds."

"Yeah. Got it from a contac—"

Tsuna calmly strode to the balcony, and clambered up to stand on top of the railing around the balcony. He judged the distance to the corpse below and threw it down. It exploded at the second story level and the dead body below was completely incinerated, leaving only minute traces of blood as to the proof there had been something indeed. Tsuna was not very pleased to see it also messed up the little patterns of blood specks flying. Still, it didn't matter to him.

"It's a bomb." Tsuna spoke smoothly, sliding his way past his shocked guardian. "Hot woman?"

"Shut up!" His guardian growled, but before his guardian could get any more defensive, he perked up. "Hey, kid, got some news for you from the Don. By the way, I don't like that tone of language, and I won't ask how you learned that, but don't use it in front of me, at least."

Tsuna ignored everything else except one. "Vongola?"

"Know any other dons—wait, don't answer that. I know you study like mad, you little freak. Anyway, yeah, it's the Don."

Tsuna was taken aback, but the surprise quickly left his face and was schooled with more reasonable features. "How come?"

His guardian shrugged. "No idea, kid, but he wants you by tomorrow. It's time for your nap, anyway. Two o'clock—you've been waiting for me to tuck you in?"

Tsuna ignored him and pulled out the blankets off the couch. "You can't have them." He said, which would've been rather childishly had his voice not been so monotone it was like a tired mother telling that to her child. "I'm gonna sleep."

"Sweet dreams, kid."

And in that dream, Tsuna dreamed of guns and a blind-folded man in the center of a dark room. There was a single lightbulb, dirt and old, hanging from the ceiling. The man was sitting on a chair, his hands bound behind his back, and his arms, torso and legs bound to the chair. There was were shackles on the man's bare wrists and ankles and the shackles were attached to...something Tsuna couldn't see.

"Tsunayoshi, come here." There was the familiar echo-like sound, gentle yet layered. Then, another one came, but this was different, harsher, like the person wore their heart on their sleeve. "Shoot, Tsunayoshi-sama."

Tsuna woke up slowly, sweating, but as he reclaimed his surroundings as he slowly sat up. In the darkness, there was a hint of moonlight streaming in from the closed balcony doors, and Tsuna saw the light hit some features of his guardian's face. Enough to recognize him, but not enough for someone who didn't know him to describe him.

Tsuna raised his arm and jabbed a finger towards his guardian, thumb sticking up.

He pulled the trigger.

"Bang."

END Chapter 1.