Disclaimer: I do not own K. Hitman Reborn. All rights to the characters and world goes to the author Amano Akira.
This is just a simple fanfic I've been writing for fun. This is complete. Feel free to still give feedback.
This story picks up right after the events in the Fanfic "Flames and Family II".
Will be rated M for Mature Features such as Violence, Blood, Gore, Language, Alcohol, Tobacco, Drugs and Sexual Encounters. Do NOT read this if you can't understand the word MATURE. Mature means adult frame of mind, people. I.E. Don't read this if you're not allowed to watch R rated movies! You have been warned!
Warning: Spoilers follow for those who haven't read Flames and Family/Flames and Family II
I strongly suggest you read the original and part II before you read this. For the sake of all of you that don't want to, Chapter 1 is a poor summary.
Tsuna smiled to himself and quietly drank from the glass everyone kept refilling in celebration of his miraculous Resurrection. None of his friends and Family knew exactly how miraculous it had been, however. After everything that he'd went through, he'd almost decided not to return to life. In that moment when he'd been alone, he'd looked over his whole life to try to decide.
The Ring Battles had been a catalyst for his growth. After that, everything had begun to change. His perspective on life's troubles and his ability to deal with them for one. Second and possibly more importantly, he had become frustrated with himself for his inabilities. Having always been uselessly alone, suddenly having a Family around him had changed him. He had wanted to grow and become more powerful in order to protect them. In order to protect those people that had believed in him despite how No-Good he was.
So he had underwent a personal trial in order to gain control of his Flame. He had 'bit the bullet' in the most literal sense. Knowing that Reborn's bullets would no longer have an effect if he succeeded, he made the resolution to no longer do anything he would regret. With that in mind, he had swallowed a Rebuke Bullet while already in Dying Will Mode. The force of the second release injured him greatly, but he succeeded in harnessing his Flame. After that, Tsuna had personal control of his Flame, able to sense it ever-burning within him and able to increase or decrease it at will.
He had slept for three months after that in order to recover and had awakened to find the first of many scars he would receive through his life. Even worse than a scarred hand was the loss of his White Mittens, which had been destroyed from the force of the second release of Flame during Tsuna's trial. Despite the loss, Tsuna had looked to start training under his own will, wanting to finally return the gestures of protection and caring that his Family had given him previously.
It was during that time that Reborn had given him the very Club he was sitting in on behalf of the Ninth. Although it hadn't been a Club back then. At first, Club 27 had been called Black Glove Mountain and had been a recreational gym. Attached to it had been Sawada Dojo, where Tsuna and his friends could train...while Reborn sold their images off to fan-girls and boys alike. Tsuna had taken it in stride, used to Reborn's crazy schemes, although he still had to smile when he remembered how he'd fainted over hearing the number in his new bank account.
The Ninth hadn't been stingy and Reborn's information gathering had found Tsuna the perfect way to make money.
Around then had been a strange time. Tsuna had gained enemies and friends alike. Sakura had joined the Family and Hana had found out about Tsuna's rich and powerful Family, although she didn't find out about the Mafia strings until later. Hana aside, Sakura had proved to be Tsuna's private physician. The name wasn't something to judge him by, however. Sakura was a surprisingly young male adult, who had been tagged with a girl's name during his training under Dr. Shamal. Tsuna could only guess the reason, considering Shamal's penchant for ignoring all things male. Considering Sakura had trained under him for several years, it was probably safe to assume that a dress and a fake identity was involved.
He'd also gained a supernatural jeweler as a friend during that time. In a fated meeting, Tsuna had come across a store called Patchwork Jewelry and had been introduced to the wonders of Demitirus metal. Forged through a secret process involving a White 'Hephaestus' Flame, Patchwork had forged him a ring made of the rare and precious metal. Putting it on had stored a small portion of his Flame and had given life to a Salamander, a creature of pure Flame. While Patchwork's Salamander had taken the form of a white dove named Adamant, Tsuna's had been an orange eel that he'd strangely named Salmon.
Salmon had proved to be very important in saving him from his enemies. The first time had been when the creature had become a surrogate Flame for him when his own had been sent into Limbo after he had been shot in the back three times by their hidden enemies. That had been the first time that Tsuna had truly come close to death, although the afterlife had been nothing like he expected. For one, Mukuro was in it.
Mukuro, Tsuna's Guardian of the Mist, was able to cross between Life and Limbo due to the anchoring force of Chrome. Tsuna himself had been able to return due to the anchoring force of Salmon. Upon his return, he'd come to know the true faces of his enemies. One of which was himself.
In a previous life, Tsuna had been one of the Four Horsemen. One of a group of people who held Demitirus Rings. One of four who had once held a Black Flame, the corrupter of Flame. One of four people who used their rings to store their memories along with black horse-shaped Salamanders. One of four who had returned to the Path of Humans time and time again out of the simple desire to destroy it. In one of his previous lives, however, Tsuna had betrayed them. He had sealed away his ring with the powers of one of Patchwork's ancestors and had started a new life with a fresh slate and a new Flame.
It had been difficult to defeat the other three Horsemen, during which time he had been forced through two very difficult trials. The first had been watching his first murder. The second had been the corruption of his own Flame. The first had made him realize that death was sometimes necessary to protect. The second had made him realize that he never wanted to loose an important friend ever again. The reason why was because of the price to purify his Flame after the Horsemen and their rings had been destroyed. That price had been for Salmon to sacrifice himself. Tsuna's ring had been shattered and the Flame that made Salmon had returned to his body carrying the love and caring of Tsuna's Family with it, overcoming the filth that had turned his Sky Flame black.
It had taken Tsuna a very long time to come to terms with everything that happened during that year, but the happenings had hardened his resolve to protect those he loved. So, when the Ninth had sent a polite invitation to Tsuna not long before he'd graduate Junior High, Tsuna had accepted. Not only for the sake of his Family in Japan, but for the sake of the Family Tsuna had yet to meet. What he found in Italy had been nothing like he expected. Neither the Ninth's training regimen to turn him into a proficient boss or the High School that he attended.
Don Girarde High was a Mafia-Based school with Mafia-Based rules and Mafia-Based studies. It was a place where firearms were carried openly and gym class was either sparring or a dangerous obstacle course. Tsuna hadn't taken long to get used to the surroundings, however. Under the guise of a member of the 'Sawada Family', Tsuna had quickly come to terms with the culture shock and his new classmates. The classmates in particular had been interesting. They'd ranged from middle-school age to middle-age with people attending from nearly every country and Family under Cease-Fire agreements on the school grounds.
It was there that he'd met and befriended Cheri Olwick and Jack Wilde. Cheri had been a girl who had only been enthusiastic when all things Japanese came up. She'd taken to Tsuna like glue upon arrival, although her true nature had shown up once his true identity of Vongola the Tenth was revealed. She was a demon. With blood lust almost rivaling Hibari's, she lived for the thrill and challenge of battle. Jack Wilde, on the other hand, had seemed almost normal in comparison...until the time came for his Family to test his loyalty. In a late night attempt on Tsuna's life, Tsuna had killed him without knowing who it was.
Tsuna still didn't know if he could have truly avoided killing his friend. The training he'd received at the Ninth's orders had changed him, but the murder hadn't been truly connected with that. It had been an unexpected and unfortunate accident, despite the fact that Jack had been trying to kill him. Yet, Tsuna couldn't deny the feeling that he might have been able to save him if he had only had a better trust in his Flame's intuition.
The murder of his friend had been just one long string of pain that Tsuna had already been undergoing. The Ninth's regiment of training had foremost started by assigning Xanxus as his new tutor. It was from him that Tsuna learned the three strike rule that most of the Mafia stood by and learned how to implement each stage. A threatening warning for the first strike. A punishment for the second warning, typically involving either a beating or the collection of a 'trophy'. Execution for the third warning with either a cover-up or a ritual mark on the corpse. He's also learned the practice of 'Information Gathering' which was purely torture rather than the non-violent techniques that Reborn practiced. Finally, he'd learned the usage of a hitman's common tool: a gun.
For the following year or so, Tsuna had learned from the man despite his hatred and disgust for the acts. Tsuna had quickly learned the Vongola thinking process of the 'Lesser of Two Hells'. It was due to this that he learned how to feel remorse instead of Regret. His training had cracked him a few times, but he hadn't shattered under the pressure. A timely visit home had helped him regain his balance enough to return to the bloody training, A.K.A. the 'Bloody Gauntlet'.
Upon his return to Italy, Tsuna had quickly found himself in company of his Guardians with the sole exception of Lambo. Their arrival had slightly unbalanced Tsuna, but he'd regained his normal self after seeing their acceptance of what he'd become. He'd introduced them to his school and his work with enthusiasm after that.
Tsuna gave a small chuckle at the memory of his former workplace. Gokudera and Yamamoto hadn't known what to think. They'd never expected Tsuna to have taken a job in a strip club, albeit a strip club in the hidden, underground city named 'Mafia Row'. Pink's, run by the woman codenamed Pink, had been a strip bar with Mafia-only clientele. It had also been a place where 'Deluxe Services' could be had for the right price. Tsuna's job had merely been that of a weekend bouncer under the codename 'Orange'. After getting over his shock, Gokudera had joined him in working there under the codename 'Scarlet'. Yamamoto had chosen to work at Benji's, a repair shop for all things sharp and pointy.
On the way home from getting their new jobs, Tsuna had been kidnapped. That event had become an incident that would haunt Tsuna for a very long time. The Wilde Family had gained the partial blueprints to Gola Mosca and had taken him to be a new 'power source'. They hadn't known his identity outside Mafia Row, so they'd only known his codename 'Orange' and that he used a Flame to fight with.
He'd been stripped and beaten in effort to break him for usage inside Gola Mosca since the blueprints they had been using didn't include the 'Human Restraint System'. The person assigned to break him had unfortunately been one with a grudge for 'Orange' and had went beyond simply the idea of breaking his mind through pain. Using the torture-drug Flare, which rendered Tsuna painfully unable to control his Flame, and a leather strap, the man had beaten him non-stop for seven hours in revenge, putting him within an inch of death for the second time in his life.
His Family had managed to save him, but Tsuna still bore the scars from the torture. A normal person was could be bruised within a few hits, but Tsuna had been hurt until his flesh had turned to pulp and his bones had been broken from the blows. It had taken several weeks in a comatose state for him to be able to regain consciousness without pain, which Shamal had only been able to induce due to a wide range of tranquilizers and the damage within Tsuna's own body. When he'd woken, however, everything had changed.
More than just his scars, Tsuna woke to find part of his mind broken and his friends undergoing the very training he'd been doing. Only the aid of the spiritual healer Lilith, codenamed 'White', had put him back together enough that Tsuna's Family could return him to near-normality. After that, Tsuna had returned to his training as Vongola the Tenth while hiding his newly-founded dislike of being touched and his newly-found fear of needles. The only difference other than that had been the presence of his friends training with him, giving him both the strength and determination to do anything he needed in order to protect his Family.
Then Tsuna's eighteenth birthday had come around. Having not been home in over a year, Tsuna returned to find that his beloved Kyoko had moved on without him. While sulking over his defeat by Mochida, Tsuna got drunk off of V Special, a special alcohol in which only those with a powerful Flame could handle. Through inebriation, Tsuna opened his eyes to the other woman that had always been there for him. Haru soothed his torn heart and accepted him in every possible way, healing him of his hate for physical contact. Falling for her because of that, Tsuna had given her the only clean thing he had left.
The new addition to Tsuna's Family had been greeted enthusiastically the next morning.
Not long after, while still on his vacation to Japan, Tsuna had been assigned his first duties as a Boss Apparent. Namely, to destroy the Momokyo-kai's Flare factories. The process had been harder than expected, however. Once it was all said and done, Tsuna had ended up with Mochida's blood on his hands and a mob of enslaved children. Some of the children had been fostered out to retired Mafiosos, but most of them had been placed in a group home named Hayakeshi House, named after their secret saviors Yamamoto Takeshi and Gokudera Hayato.
Only two other things had been gained in that visit home for Tsuna. The first had been Hana joining his Family during the Grand Opening of Club 27 and the second had been Toshi. Through a quirk of nature, Toshi was Tsuna's physical double. Everything about him was the same, with the sole exceptions being the color of his eyes and Flame and his lack of scars. The man had joined Tsuna's Family in order to break his life-long streak of bad luck under the guise of a household helper within Tsuna's new Japanese Headquarters.
After that, Tsuna had returned to Italy to resume his training, bringing Haru with him. Although settling in for her hadn't proved easy due to some of Tsuna's more eccentric fans, she had found a friend in a woman named Sangia who was not only an attractive non-combatant Mafioso, but a brilliant scholar. Life had returned to near-normality after that, with Tsuna living joyfully each day despite the gruesome afternoon tasks that he and his three core Guardians had grown accustomed to.
Then he began to have strange dreams and Tsuna found out that his unthinking exertions with Haru had lead to their natural conclusion. Also due to the fact that Tsuna's Flame answered the will of his body as much as the will of his mind, the child's Flame had proved to be strong. He'd barely been able to come to terms with both the occasional visitations from his unborn son and the fact that he was going to be a father when the beginning of a seemingly endless run of bad luck hit him.
First, Officer Takahashi of Japan had been tipped off to Tsuna's involvement with Mochida's 'unfortunate car accident'. That had been fixed with some quick lawyer work and surveillance footage from the Italian Headquarters, proving that Tsuna had been out of the country when Mochida's car accident had taken place. In effort to force Takahashi back to Japan unsatisfied, the Family had taken a trip to Mafia-Land. Upon their return, Tsuna had begun a new phase of his training which included shadowing the Ninth.
Then the worst moment of Tsuna's life had taken place. Haru had been attacked and his son died due to Flare laced in the sedative used on her. The culprit had proved to be a lackey of Violet Havlock, a woman who's determination to wed Vongola the Tenth had turned ugly. Tsuna had killed the lackey in a fit of rage and Violet's own sister had executed her in order to protect the Havlocks from Tsuna's wrath. Once it was over, Tsuna lost the will to live. Only the interference of Xanxus and his Family had kept him from dying.
Yet not all hope turned out to be lost. A touch to Haru's mind with his Flame had shown him two very important things. First, that Haru's Flame was that of a White 'Hephaestus' Flame. Second, that his son's Flame was still being carefully protected within it. This led to a mad rush back to Japan where Tsuna got Patchwork to forge him a Demitirus Ring.
Using the Demitirus Ring, Tsuna's son had been born as a Salamander. In the very form that Tsuna had seen in his dreams, Hotaru was brought to life, looking like a five-year old Tsuna with Haru's dark hair. Due to the strength of his Flame as Tsuna's offspring, he showed precocious intelligence along with the ability to separate the balanced attributes of his Sky Flame. Using the separate attributes, the Salamander of a son learned how to created himself a human body.
Tsuna barely had the time to enjoy his son's birth when Officer Takahashi's determination to jail Tsuna appeared once more. Tsuna was arrested in a raid and sent to jail using ballistics proof gained in Italy, marking him as a murderer in multiple countries. While waiting for trial, Tsuna was sent to a prison known for crooked guards and gained a known pervert as a cellmate. Again, the light of hope didn't forsake him, however. While he did encounter several issues, including a scumbag as a enemy and a visiting widow with a grudge, Tsuna managed to add three new members to his Family, included his cellmate, and a liking for Sakura's laced Cherry-Blossom cigarettes.
One of the issues Tsuna had to deal with while in prison was a hitman hiding in plain sight. This turned out to be a clue to an even greater threat that Tsuna didn't come to understand until after he'd been released. At his Welcome Home Party in Club 27, one of his Family members tried to kill him. Cress had been Tsuna's quiet manservant who'd been beside him since the beginning of his training. Even so, Tsuna killed him mercilessly after Gokudera took Cress' bullet to his chest.
The incident had paralyzed Gokudera despite the attempts at intervention from Hotaru. While he would later be healed, it left him in a wheelchair for a long while. This made the second phase of the greater threat's plan even harder to deal with. That greater threat being the silent brainwashing of hundreds of Mafiosos, many of whom were brainwashed into turning themselves in and confessing all their dealings. Tsuna barely managed to retreat to Mafia-Land ahead of police raids.
While in Mafia-Land, Tsuna was treated for several wounds he received in the escape and unknowingly was infected with the very substance that was brainwashing Mafiosos into killing their leaders or to turn themselves in. Once triggered, Tsuna had attempted to kill the Ninth with intention to kill himself afterward. Able to partially fight the nanobots in the guise of electrolytes that were controlling his mind, Tsuna allowed himself to be taken prisoner. Even so, the effects continued to linger and disrupt his mind.
Although he knew a single touch from Hotaru could heal him, he instead choose to not subject his son to seeing him in such a murderous and suicidal state. Unfortunately, Sakura was also unable to find the combination of drugs that Shamal had used to sedate him for an extended period of time. When that failed him and he injured two Vendiche in an attempt to kill himself, Tsuna used a lucid period to ask the Ninth to put him into stasis.
Putting all his hopes on his Family, the Ninth agreed and froze him. A week later, he was freed once Sangia and his Family found a cure. His time in stasis left scars upon his scars, however. Even so, he'd taken part in the world-wide Mafia operation to wipe the 'Nano-Electro' incident from memory. Due to his recent betrayal, however, he wasn't permitted to take part in the raid against the enemy. Instead, he took over a prison break in Japan where two of his lost Family members were being held.
In addition to those two, Tsuna broke out his three additional Family members that he'd gained during his own prison stint, as well as the four enemies he'd gained. It was during this time that Tsuna began to hear a voice in his head. Mostly shrugging it off as a temporary mental break due to all he'd been through, Tsuna listened to it long enough to add two of the four he planned to kill into his Family. Tsuna killed the two scumbags that were left and brought the rest home with him with intent to give them new faces and identities.
Returning home didn't prove easy, however. Despite the operation to clear the evidence against Mafiosos, the recent brainwashing and mass defections had tipped the public off that Tsuna was a Mafia Boss. It was then that Tsuna received orders to return to normal high school life in Japan and pretend that the Mafia didn't exist. As if such a thing was possible. Tsuna came to realize exactly how much he'd changed along with the depths of his integration into the Mafia.
Even in a normal high school, Tsuna was irrevocably Vongola the Tenth.
Then the Vendiche had come for the price of betrayal. Paying it for not only himself, but for the whole Family in the recent incident, Tsuna submitted to three torturous punishments. Each punishment came with a brand to remind him of the price for betrayal. On one arm he was branded with an image of a dagger and on the other he was branded for with an image of a bullet. The final brand had been a large X on his chest, symbolizing how many generations of his Family had been betrayed.
Once again Tsuna chuckled at the memory. Having already gone through so much, the punishments from the Vendiche had almost been a joke. A painful joke, but still a joke. He'd returned home to heal as if nothing had happened. This only worried his Family, however, when the voice continued to make it's appearance and he was caught talking to himself on multiple occassions. They'd called White to give him a checkup and unintentionally summoned up the Ninth, as well.
Tsuna had ignored it all, more concerned with the growing foreboding of what the voice sparingly warned him about. Giving in, he'd accepted the voice and let it help him to prepare for the 'Day of Reckoning', a supposed punishment and trial for all the crimes he'd added to the Vongola Family after accepting its bloodstained history. The Day of Reckoning came earlier than expected, however. In a battle gone awry, Tsuna paid the price of saving Hibari's life with his own time of preparation. Immediately afterward, his Flame had been ripped from his body and sent into Limbo, leaving only shadows of his soul lingering in his body while the voice, a Firebird named Prometheus, acted as a surrogate Flame.
The Day of Reckoning hadn't been what he expected, however. It was much, much worse. He had been faced with the spirits of those who'd suffered from his deeds while scales had weighed the good and evil of his acts. Faced with the imbalance before a Council of assembled dead Vongola Bosses, Tsuna had lost the will to live. His resolution to protect his Family was shattered in the process, leaving only his resolution to never Regret.
Coming to terms with his true resolution and the cost of it, the Bosses had ended the Reckoning and tossed Tsuna back into the Lake of Lost Dreams that stood between the Gates of Reincarnation and Limbo. Having lost his willpower, Tsuna had drifted until Prometheus had come to save him. The Firebird gifted him with one of it's rainbow wings of Flame, pulling him back into Limbo while his body died without the surrogate Flame. At Mukuro's insistence, he'd pulled on the anchor created by his Family's desire for him to live, but had paused halfway back.
While several days passed, Tsuna watched as his Family came to terms with his death and prepared his funeral. Only the cries of four people hurting more from his death than any other, a feeling from the wing that Prometheus had gifted him, and his own selfish desire to be with his Family had overcome his feeling of worthlessness and sent him back into his body. He'd been forced to use up the power of Prometheus' wing in order to heal his decaying insides. Even then, it had been a close call. The powers of the Flame had barely managed to undo all the damage that had been done inside and hadn't been able to reach the surface of his body before running out. Yet it had been enough. Two days of continuous rest and Sakura's care had done the rest.
When he finally woke, he'd found himself in possession of two new things. First, a blackened alteration to his X-Gloves. Second, a 'filter' on half of his Flame turning it hard and difficult to control. He smiled at the feeling of that Flame, though, finding it an interesting counterpart to his 'cold' Mafia side.
"Tsu-kun?" Haru asked softly, breaking into his thoughts. Tsuna looked down at where she cuddled against his chest and smiled while the Resurrection Party continued outside Club 27's VIP Booth.
"I'm here, Haru," he replied.
"I'm glad," she smiled.