A/N: AU, alternate universe. Originally a one-shot, now continued. Mildly dark, mentions of homelessness, child abuse and neglect, but nothing explicit. The highly sensitive are warned.

I. The End and the Beginning

His name was Tsuna. Just Tsuna.

He was one of thousands. A no-name street rat, half-starved from too many years barely scraping by, with a small frame made smaller by malnutrition. He had no talents to speak of. He wasn't strong, or charismatic, or overly intelligent. He wasn't sneaky, or a good pickpocket, or any good with weapons. He was too small for physical labor or fighting of any sort. He wasn't nimble, or fast, or creative, or insightful. There were a whole host of things he wasn't.

But he wasn't stupid, either.

He was about seven years old, and he knew he wouldn't survive much longer.

It was the irrefutable law of the Italian underworld: to survive, you need a famiglia. To get a famiglia, you are either born into one or recruited by one. To be recruited by a famiglia, you need to be strong. You need to be desirable. You need to have some quality that sets you apart from the others, that sets you above. You need to be an assassin, or a prodigy, or a master thief, or have a brilliant information network, or have connections to the black market.
You need to be better than the rest.

And Tsuna wasn't. He was average at best, pathetic at worst.

He had no family, no friends, no gang. No home, even. Every time he found a nice patch of sidewalk or grass to sleep on, someone else would come and chase him away within a matter of hours. He filched his food from garbage cans. He was weak, skinny, and frequently sick. No one would want to ally with him; what could he ever offer in an alliance?

Nothing.

Compared to his competition... well.

There were thousands of kids on the streets. All of them were fighting hard to survive, to surpass the rest. There were gangs everywhere. Girls that knew how to skin someone with a pocketknife. Boys that were ten times his size and muscular as oxen. Prodigies in every field; hand-to-hand, martial arts, street fighting, explosives, sharpshooting, ranged weapons, projectiles, slingshots, blades of every size and variety, poisons, strategy, bladed fans, pressure points, blowdarts, glaives, brass knuckles, and crowsbows.

Others went beyond simple combat prowess. There were people who had connections everywhere: the black market, the government, the mafia, the military, the business tycoons, the celebrities, the plastic surgeons, and the best hitmen. These go-to people were famous for being able to arrange anything... for a price. You want an assassination? Done. You want the girl you love to marry you instead of your best friend? Sure, no problem. You want a pet tiger for your favorite grandkid? Done and done.

It was unnerving.

And there were others, ones that Tsuna hated thinking about. The ones that could give grown men nightmares.

The kid, just eleven or twelve, who had tamed the rats in the street- the real ones, big and black with glittering eyes- to obey his every order. No one crossed him. The last one to do so had been found dead in the river, with his fingers and toes gnawed off and his eyes eaten out. When they took the body into the morgue to be autopsied, rumor was that they found a big hole where his heart used to be; and inside the hole, a live rat was curled up inside him- despite the fact that there were no cuts on his torso.

The one- no one was sure if it was a boy or a girl, it never spoke- who was said to be able to take your worst fear and make you think it was coming true, over and over and over until it drove you insane and you were a gibbering mess, laughing hysterically and tearing at your skin with your fingernails, trying to kill yourself and end the suffering. And if no one stopped them, they usually did die, bleeding out from some artery or other, cursing the world until they took their last hysterical, rattling breaths.

No.

Tsuna did not stand a chance.

He was weak. He couldn't stomach violence of that level, and he couldn't carry it out even if he wanted to. He had no talent. He had no family.

No chance of getting into a famiglia. No chance of survival.

He just wandered. Waiting to die, waiting to be killed, waiting to see what would happen next in the bloody, cruel, painful, friendless world he lived in. Like a ghost, wasting away without food or water or rest, he aimlessly traveled the streets that would be his grave.

Because, really, death was a foregone conclusion for no-name, street-rat, seven-year-old Tsuna.

Until...

...that day...

...when everything changed.

Tsuna was numb.

From exhaustion, from starvation, from dehydration; you could really pick any reason. His little body was so overworked that his mind couldn't even function well enough to perceive the pain he was in as he crouched on the edge of the street, too weak to move. Too weak to do more than breathe. His pulse fluttered weakly in his ears. He wondered if that meant that his heart was going to give out or if he was just hallucinating altogether.

He would die soon.

With glazed eyes, he looked around him at the people there. His vision was fuzzy, he was having trouble focusing on anything at all... And his head was spinning now, and he couldn't remember where he was. And now he couldn't see, everything was black, what was going on-!

Oh. Silly him. He had closed his eyes without realizing it.

When he opened his eyes again, what he saw made him want to laugh, if he only had the energy. The people around him were starting to notice him, starting to notice that a seven-year-old child was sitting there in front of them, dying. And then, in true street-rat fashion, they looked away, hurrying on to purchase their groceries or meet with their dentist or catch up to their friends, carefully pretending that they had never seen him in the first place. People were so predictable, always hoping someone else would take responsibility.

Or maybe it was just these people. Was the whole world like that? He had lived on the streets of just this one city all his life, so he supposed he couldn't make generalizations about people everywhere.

A pity, really.

It would have been nice to go somewhere else before he died. Nothing big, nowhere grand. Just... to see someplace different. The cold, hard city he lived in had sheltered him for as long as he could remember. He knew its back allies better than an ant knew an anthill. He had never seen anything but its brick roads and gray concrete buildings. He had never known anywhere else... but he had the feeling that this city was not a place he could call 'home'.

'Home.' He wasn't sure, but something about that word made him think of something like friends. Family, maybe. He, of course, had never had either of those things in his life, but he had some idea about them. Family was something better than the shrieking wives and the drunk husbands and the affairs they got into in the city he lived in. Something better than the cowering children and the parents who beat them when they cried. Family, he thought, was something more wholesome than that. A feeling like warmth, and a full belly, and a place to sleep that was dry and soft...

And friends. In the city, friendship was more a word for loyalty, or an alliance. Something you engaged in so that you could make connections to the right people to get what you wanted and to survive. Friendship was an exchange of a contract, 'I'll watch your back if you you watch mine,' or 'If you pickpocket for me, I'll make sure that no one mugs you and steals what you earn.' A business agreement, fragile as an egg dropped on pavement. Tsuna wondered, then, if friendship was more than that elsewhere.

A place where friends were friends and family was family, and both were lumped together in that feeling of warm-full-belly-sleeping-soft-bright.

Perhaps, elsewhere, people smiled.

Seized by a sudden inspiration, Tsuna opened his eyes once more.

"-Oi. You dead, kid? Hey- holy crap!" the loud person that he hadn't noticed earlier swore in surprise and hopped back. "Hey, Chikusa! Mukuro! Guess what? This kid's actually still alive!"

Into Tsuna's hazy vision floated the shape of three children, not much older than him. One, closest to him was blonde. Not far off, a black-haired boy and and indigo-haired boy looked up from their conversation.

"Shut up, Ken," advised the black-haired boy. "Let the poor kid die in peace."

"Play nice, Chikusa." The other, the indigo-haired one, raised a dull eyebrow and sauntered over. "Is he really alive? I could have sworn that he wasn't breathing a minute ago."

"I was just poking him, and he opened his eyes," insisted Ken. "Look! He just blinked!"

Tsuna had indeed blinked. He blinked again, sure that something was wrong with his vision. What kind of a person had one red eye? And purple-blue hair, too. He was probably just hallucinating again, he thought.

"Well," said Mukuro. "Hanging on by his fingertips, go figure. I should probably just put him out of his misery." He reached for a long thin polearm with three pronged tips that was slung across his back.

Ken opened his mouth to object, but fell silent.

Well. Tsuna didn't really mind dying. But then, maybe this was a hallucination after all. Did he want to do anything in his final moments? Have any regrets? Any final words? Deathbed prophecies? He couldn't thing of anything at the moment. He didn't have anyone to say goodbye to. His life had been short, and miserable, and full of suffering. He didn't think that he would mind leaving it behind.

Wait.

There was just one thing that he wanted to see before he died.

"Wait," he said, and the words came out in a hoarse whisper, a croaking sigh of air escaping from his lungs. He licked his lips and tried again. "Wait."

Mukuro, the indigo-haired one, stopped abruptly in surprise. "Well, well," he said with a laugh that was belied by his wary eyes. "Talk about stubborn. On the verge of death and still hanging on to your life, little one? You have a strong will to live. Whatever for, though? It isn't as though you have anything to look forward to in life except death."

"No." Tsuna shook his head as he tried to concentrate on summoning the energy to speak. "I... I... w-want... sssshimmmmmmlllh."

"Sorry?"

"W-want... t-t-to... sssssee," Tsuna paused for breath. He hadn't spoken so much in weeks. His head was spinning. "A... sssmille."

Mukuro snapped his fingers in realization. "You want me to smile at you?"

Exhausted, Tsuna could only drop his head in a nod. He didn't have the energy, didn't have the words to explain his request. But he knew, he knew, that the one thing he wanted desperately before he died was a smile. A warm smile, a bright one. A smile that would give him that feeling of warm-full-belly-sleepy-soft-bed-bright that he remembered only faintly from a distant, forgotten memory.

"Strange little one," commented the purple-haired kid. "But who am I to deny the last wishes of the dying?"

He knelt down before Tsuna so that he could look him in the eye. The dying child didn't dare blink in case he missed it. Mukuro reached out and tilted his chin up so that they were eye-to-eye.

And then he smiled, bright and warm and slightly amused, a mischievous look in his mismatched set of eyes.

So radiant, that Tsuna smiled back.

And then the world went black, before he could see the shock on Mukuro's face.

Rokudo Mukuro was not expecting anything unusual to happen on that Monday afternoon.

He was running an errand with Chikusa and Ken: Chrome-chan needed some medicine for her cold, and he wasn't about to entrust such an important task to those two. Knowing them, Ken would pick a fight and Chikusa would back him, they would both fight until they were bloody and come home late at night, forgetting the medicine entirely. He couldn't let that happen.

So there he was, doing something as utterly menial as running errands.

The pharmacist's shop didn't open for another ten minutes, so they were just sitting around, killing time. It wasn't a very nice part of town. It was in the slums, where you couldn't throw a rock without hitting four beggars, three pickpockets, two knife fights and a tavern brawl all at once. This wasn't technically in their gang's territory- it was no-man's land. They had come armed just in case.

Ken, being Ken, tried to occupy his time by bickering with Chikusa. Chikusa, being Chikusa, ignored him. And so Ken had slunk off to sulk in a corner.

Mukuro looked around the street in distaste. He wasn't fond of this area. It was a place that could accurately be called the scum of the earth. The murderers, the torturers, the rapists, the child abusers, all of them chose this place to roam about, more often than not. There wasn't even a semblance of law enforcement. The shop owners all had to hire bodyguards to keep their shops safe.

With disgust, he noted the dead body of a child on the ground.

The child was crouched down a huddle on the street, eyes closed. He wasn't breathing even a bit. His limbs were thinner than sticks, and it was hard to imagine him walking on them without them snapping. His stomach was bloated and overlarge, the cruel joke that the world played on starvation victims. He was so filthy that his hair was about the same color as his skin.

And the pathetic humans around them didn't even take a second glance at him.

Mukuro resisted the urge to spit on the ground as he turned away, a foul taste in his mouth.

Ken sauntered over, poking the kid with a stick and talking to him on the off chance that he might be alive. Unfortunately, the kid really wasn't breathing. Definitely dead. Mukuro sighed as he checked the ancient clock outside the pharmacist's shop. There was still about five minutes left until it opened. The pharmacist would probably be late opening it anyway. All the shopkeepers around here were damn crooks.

"Holy crap!" he heard Ken curse. "Hey, Mukuro! Chikusa! Guess what? The kid's actually still alive!"

Chikusa snorted and said scathingly, "Shut up, Ken. Let the poor kid die in peace."

But Mukuro's curiosity was piqued, and he turned back to the gruesome figure of the huddled child. He was still just as grotesquely starved, just as filthy, just as ragged and dead-looking. But his eyes were now open.

The purple-haired kid tuned Ken's rambling out as he looked at the child's eyes. They were dazed and confused with just a hint of awareness in their depths. No special color, just plain, ordinary brown. All the same, they were filled with such a horrible pain and loneliness that Mukuro's blood ran cold at the thought of the life he must have led. Why was he hanging on to life? Wouldn't it be easier, less painful for him to just let go and fall into oblivion?

Wouldn't it?

"Well," he said thoughtfully. "Hanging on by his fingertips, go figure. I should probably just put him out of his misery."

It would be the kind thing to do. Just as it would have been kinder for the Mafia to kill him and Chikusa and Ken when they were in such horrible agony. He reached for his trident. Maybe if he did it quickly, it would be more painless. Or perhaps he should make him fall asleep before ending the job. It would be a simple illusion, one of the easiest in his repertoire.

As he hesitated on the decision, he heard a dull wheeze of breath coming from the kid.

He looked down, wondering if the kid had died already and if he was just wasting his time, when he heard the unmistakeable sound of a child's voice. It was rough and dry and hoarse, but clearly very young. "Wait," said the child, eyes bright with something in between insanity and desperation.

Damn. Mukuro was impressed in spite of himself.

The kid's body should not physically have held up this long. In the shape this kid was in, you were dead. At his age? You were past dead. Decomposing in a back alley somewhere. Talking at this stage of things should be impossible.

"Well, well," he said musingly "Talk about stubborn. On the verge of death and still hanging on to your life, little one? You have a strong will to live. Whatever for, though? It isn't as though you have anything to look forward to in life except death."

More wheezing. Mukuro was beginning to wonder if he was just killing the kid faster by letting him talk. He sure sounded like he was going into his death throes, and he didn't seem to have much strength at all.

"No." said the child, concentrating on enunciating each word with care, but failing anyway. "I... I... w-want... sssshimmmmmmlllh."

"Sorry?" inquired Mukuro, wincing.

"W-want... t-t-to... sssssee..." he broke off, panting, "a... sssmille."

Poor kid. Probably had never seen a shred of kindness in his life. "You want me to smile at you?"

He flopped his head down in a sort of exhausted nod, eyes dilated and oddly distant.

"Strange little one," said Mukuro with a laugh. "But who am I to deny the last wishes of the dying?" The kid really didn't deserve to die. He had nerves, and a stronger will than most gangers or mafiosos Mukuro had met in his life.

So, filled with the unconscious desire to please the starved, dying child, Mukuro knelt down in front of him and tilted the kid's head up. I'm going to give this kid the one smile that he ever got in his life, he thought. I'd better make it a good one.

He pictured little Nagi-chan, and her smile when she saw him enter a room. Chikusa and Ken, who were loud and irritating and who had been with him from the beginning. MM, as she delightedly counted a stack of bills from a paycheck. The feelings of warmth that he usually stifled and hid away in the back of his mind were opened and encouraged, until he finally was ready to really smile.

And he did. He hadn't ever had much practice, so he wasn't sure how well he did, but he managed it.

And then, the kid smiled back.

There were not proper words to describe that smile. By all rights, it should have been a hollow-cheeked, trembling, exhausted thing at best, but it wasn't. It was bright, and warm, and so full of gentleness and light that it practically hurt to look at it. And yet he couldn't tear his eyes away. He stared, drinking in the image through startled eyes. Ken and Chikusa were the same, he noticed in the back of his mind. All three of them , just watching this child smile.

It was a smile that made you want to help him.

A smile that was so true and bright and genuine and charming that it was a lethal weapon in and of itself, Mukuro realized. A smile that enraptured the recipient so completely that he only thought to help this poor, weak child, and never to wonder why. A smile that the kid probably didn't even realize he had, that would bring even the strongest to their knees.

And so it was that even though he knew exactly what was making him do it, Mukuro found that he couldn't summon the will to resist the compulsion. Why not look after this kid? He could use a helping hand. He didn't deserve what the world had done to him. He needed to be protected, defended. Mukuro needed to make sure that he would keep smiling forever.

And even though he knew that it was this strange compulsion power that made him feel that way, he still caught the boy when he passed out and scooped him into his arms.

"Come on, Chikusa, Ken." he ordered. "We're taking him home."