AN: My first KHR fic... the pairings are tentatively hints of All/27, sort of R27 and sort of X27. I hope you like it!

Disclaimer (for the entire story): I don't own KHR. It belongs to Akira Amano and Shounen Jump.

Part 1: Alone Boy

Episode 1: Reaper Blood

On Monday morning, Tsuna wakes up and there's a baby in a suit, standing on his chest. A baby with a fedora on his head. Also holding a gun. The baby, that is.

Tsuna stares. The baby stares. They both stare.

"Ciaossu," says the baby, "I am Reborn, the afterlife's number one exorcist and hitman, now your live-in home tutor. I'll be training you to exterminate and control all spirits in this realm as the head of the Vongola clan."

Tsuna only stares some more. Maybe if he lays very still and pretends that he's still sleepy, then this particular apparition will leave him alone (as is Tsuna's plan for most spiritual encounters.) If he's lucky, he'll never see this… baby-spirit-thing again. Yup. Back to sleep.

Except then he hears the click of ammo jumping eagerly into the cockpit of a pistol and Tsuna only just opens his eyes to see the mouth of the pistol pointed at his forehead before he dodges just in time to miss the bullet hole that now graces his favourite pillow.

"Hieee?!" Tsuna backs away from the bullet hole and the baby, blankets pulled up against his nose as if they could protect him from the dead (but, oh, Tsuna knows very well they can't.) "W-What did y-you do that f-for?!"—and then—"Oh my god, you're real?!"

Another bullet whizzes towards him and Tsuna falls off his bed to miss it. He winces and rolls around, clutching his knee while staring forlornly at the new hole in his wall. Oh well, his idiot father makes enough money to pay for that (god knows how) but back to the point—

The baby or Reborn or whatever-he-is crosses his little arms together and smirks down at Tsuna. How a smirk from such a small adorable thing can be defined as the most terrifying image in Tsuna's existence, well, Tsuna has no freaking idea and Tsuna has seen some freaky things.

"Yes, idiot-Tsuna, I am corporal and can be seen by other living beings. If I choose to. I am not like the everyday spirits that you can see."

"How—"

"I know everything. Get used to it. And your father's side of the family has been involved in the exorcism business for generations," Reborn's smile becomes eerie, "…you could say that they make a great profit out of it… especially in the criminal world if you understand my meaning…"

Suddenly several odd things that Tsuna has always ignored begin to connect together. His father's odd jobs. How his parents were never bothered by Tsuna talking to his 'imaginary' friends. How Nana never called him a liar (unlike the other kids at school and strangers at the market) when he started playing with someone who wasn't there. The lectures his father gave sometimes about never going near any gruesome crime scenes… to let the 'family' take care of it…

"Y-y-you mean my dad's part of some sort of… of… exorcist mafia?!"

"Yup."

In retrospect, Tsuna should have seen this coming.


"I don't want any part of this," Tsuna says after he recovers from his fainting spell and has enough tea to balance his senses. Never go outside without a good cup of tea, Nana always tells him and Tsuna supposes that the habit has rubbed off on him.

"The Vongola family has profited from capturing and controlling the most dangerous spirits to do their bidding for them. Europe would be a plague of evil spirits if not for the Vongola. They are the most powerful family. Their spiritual powers give them the advantage in their business with the criminal world," Reborn lectures him, drinking yet another cup of expresso (and is that even allowed for babies, Tsuna wants to blurt but he knows better. Reborn is no infant.)

"Are you even listening to me?!" Tsuna scowls. He looks to Nana for some help but his mum giggles to herself and hands him a bowl of miso soup. "You can't be serious. I can't be a mafia boss or an exorcist leader or whatever you're talking about. I can barely keep dangerous ghosts away from me when I'm outside. It's no good. You should get someone else."

When Tsuna's cup seems to explode from Reborn's bullet and hot tea spills all over Tsuna's shirt and lap, Tsuna doesn't know why he's even surprised anymore.

"Now Reborn-chan," Nana crosses her arms, "that is not a nice way to play. My favourite cups are ruined now and Tsuna could have been burned!"

Apparently the little demon has some form of good manners, at least for mothers, because Reborn bows his head. "I sincerely apologize, Mama. Next time, I will make sure to keep the collateral from Tsuna's… discipline… to a minimum."

Nana only nods and gushes about how adorable Reborn is.

"Mum, are you just going to go along with this?!" Tsuna stands up.

"Well," Nana tilts her head, "it's not my place to interfere… Your papa always said that you'd take over the family business and that I shouldn't get involved…"

"Dad hasn't been home in years! What does he know about the qualifications for this… head boss Decimo thing anyways?! If he actually remembered that he had a family maybe he'd see that his son can't do anything let alone run a criminal organization! I can't believe you're taking his side again!" Tsuna shouts before he squeaks and clamps his hands over his mouth.

He looks fretfully at Nana, whose smile of frozen sunshine seems to wobble against her face.

"Mum… I…" his hands want to tremble against his lips. "I'm sorry. I… I'll just clean this up…" Tsuna reaches over towards the shards from the broken tea cup and sweeps them into his hands, ignoring the cuts they create against his skin.

"Tsuna…"

"No," Tsuna quietly shakes his head, avoiding Nana and Reborn's stares. "It's alright. I can clean it."

They don't speak as Tsuna throws away the shards and then washes his hands of the blood and broken bits of clay. He stares at the tiles of the kitchen like they will speak back to him to replace the heavy silence as he rushes out the door with his backpack.


A massive ooze of eyeballs and hands slithers across Tsuna's path as he runs down the street. But unlike every other day, Tsuna doesn't scream and hide behind a stop sign. He doesn't try to stifle his screams so as to not draw attention to the monstrous things that haunt his neighbourhood. For once, he runs past them as if he can't see them at all.

"…Why did I say that…?" Tsuna wants to bury himself in the deepest parts of the ocean and never resurface. "Mum hasn't done anything wrong…"

But still, all these years of seeing the unnatural and Nana couldn't say anything to him? Couldn't reassure him and take the time to explain things? Tsuna's shoulders shake as he tries to stop the burning in his eyes. Mum had to have her reasons, Tsuna tries to tell himself, even if they were unbelievable and relied on his no-good father…

"That was rude of you, Dame-Tsuna, leaving me behind," says a presence that lands on his head.

Tsuna shrieks and tries to wave it away, only to be smacked on the hand. "Ow! What are you—Reborn?! But I just…" he looks back down the street. It's been four blocks, "…and you were…?"

"I'm coming to school with you, idiot," Reborn remarks from his perch on Tsuna's head.

"What?! But why?! People are going to see you! And ow!"

"Don't sort me into your mortal standards, Dame-Tsuna. I don't belong to any of the living or non-living realms. I can make myself be seen by will… except for those of your blood, with the Sight. No one without the Sight will see me unless I wish it. Now onwards, slave," Reborn taps against Tsuna's ears with his pistol. "Show me what a typical day of your meaningless existence is like."

"Do I even have a choice?"

"No."

Right. Stupid question.

Tsuna glances around and notices, finally, the gathering of disfigured and mis-mashed spirits that have gathered around him. His hand rushes up and Tsuna nearly bits his fingers as he tries not to shout. Instead he freezes in the middle of the street, eyes darting back and forth at the usual guests around him.

Old man Minami who died three weeks ago in a brutal car accident waves lazily at him. A high school girl who was chopped to pieces, dangles her torn leg at him, waiting for any reaction that he can see her. Construction workers that were buried to death all slushed together like a child's figurines of play-do crushed back into a ball.

He has to fight the urge to vomit as he shuts his eyes tight and walks forward.

"What's wrong?" Reborn remarks from above. "Is this why you miss so much school?"

Tsuna doesn't answer. Doesn't want to think of countless days where he collapsed in the middle of the road and stayed at home, sick for a week, because so many spirits wanted to touch him, wanted to steal back vitality. (Come on, boy, just another sip, another touch. You have so much life in you and you're so young, you don't need it all, come on, just another sip for Auntie…) Or the days where he hid in the park and curled up against the slide, waiting for Haru to come.

"Yeah," he says. "Sometimes."

Reborn snorts. "You have the Sight. You should be used to this."

Tsuna stops in his tracks.

"How can anyone get used to this?!" he gestures to the blood, to the limbs and distorted human features.

"Well, with the amount of gory films that your generation seems to enjoy watching—"

"No one should be used to looking at this!" Tsuna shouts. "That's not right! We should be shocked by corpses and blood. We should be terrified. How can I just walk past this and be okay? How can I walk past them and not wonder how they died? Or if I'm next?"

The being on his head stills, "…Tsuna…" but it's too late.

They've heard him. The other spirits. There's no way that Tsuna can cover up his outburst for anything less than acknowledgement of their existence. They gaze at Tsuna which such hunger and shock that Tsuna's surprised that he hasn't been devoured immediately.

He shrinks back, "I… I didn't mean… please just leave me alone…!"

But they inch closer, almost reverently. You see us, they seem to moan all at once, you see us, you see us, you see us…

Reborn suddenly jumps off Tsuna's head and hovers in front of Tsuna protectively. Tsuna gapes as Reborn's infant form seems to… grow… into the shape of a tall man, all in black, and a deep, frightening voice tells Tsuna to look away. Look away or be shot.

Of course Tsuna does. (What was that story Nana used to tell him about? Yes, Orpheus and Eurydice, the man who walked into the underworld to bring back his wife but all he had to do to keep her was don't look back. But he did, foolish man, and Tsuna is too scared to look back even if part of him excitedly whispers look, look, you have to look.)

The inhuman shrieks of the spirits seem to carve themselves into Tsuna's very bones.


"What… what was that?!" Tsuna says from the ground. He tries to get up. He really does, but he can't seem to. Everything is cold and he can't feel his fingers and he saw light from the corner of his eyes, jagged red light devouring shadows…

"Exorcism. Or the execution of corrupted spirits," Reborn remarks, small and adorable again (but never innocent, Tsuna will feel that killing intent from Reborn for the rest of his life.)

"That… I've never seen an exorcism like that!"

Well, Tsuna has never seen a live exorcism at all but Reborn probably knows that.

"I thought I told you to look away…" a promise of something bloody crawls into Reborn's voice and Tsuna shakes his head vigorously.

"I didn't! Look, that is! I just saw from the corner of my eye and I could feel… I could feel their beings being just…" annihilated, Tsuna doesn't say. He shivers. Whatever those souls had become, they didn't deserve that fate; no one deserved it. "That wasn't normal," Tsuna ends up saying instead.

Reborn's eyes gleam and Tsuna shivers. Burning souls and spirits gleam in those eyes. Their shrieks. "That was the original and true method of exorcism by the seven reapers of the crossroads. What you felt were the reaper flames."

"…Reaper flames?"

"Flames that can end a soul's existence or purify them into heaven. Flames that let you see the dead and give you a connection with spirits," Reborn nods as tiny flickers of red flames twist and slither between his fingers. "This is why you've been chosen as Decimo."

"No," Tsuna shakes his head, "I don't have that, I don't!"

Reborn blows a tongue of hot fire towards Tsuna's face and Tsuna jumps back in shock.

"Idiot. Don't you see? Those with Vongola blood are the only human exorcists that use the true method of exorcism. Only you and those with your bloodline can use these flames to perform true exorcism. All other exorcists use wilder and unreliable methods of controlling the occult. None are as effective as the Vongola. The Primo was said to be have been the child of a reaper and a mortal, after all," Reborn shrugs. "Apparently reaper blood is still strong even ten generations later."

Tsuna stares down at his hands, trying to imagine fire flowing in his veins, burning him up.

"But I can't… I've never made that sort of thing happen…"

"That's why I'll be training you, Dame-Tsuna. The Vongola family need you to become a well-trained exorcist, to be able to kill any spirits you encounter so that you can kill a certain… pest… for them back in Italy," Reborn hops up onto Tsuna's shoulder.

"Wait, what pest?" Tsuna wants to run back home and hide while he still can. He tries to imagine the spirits they faced earlier and having to kill more of them just seems…

Reborn hits him on the ear again. "You don't need to concern yourself with that for now, Dame-Tsuna. You couldn't fight that pest if you even tried in your current state."

"What makes you think that I'll agree to you teaching me?!" Tsuna demands, feeling his earlier anger rush back. Those screams, that red flame just eating and eating and the feeling of nothing, of just empty space instead of those unpleasant beings just—

"Because you don't want to be scared anymore," Reborn replies, "do you, Tsuna?"

Tsuna feels his mouth go dry.

"I could teach you to protect yourself. You wouldn't have to be afraid to walk to school anymore. You wouldn't be called a liar anymore either, if you played your cards right. Who knows? Maybe your grades would go up because you wouldn't have to worry about this spirit nonsense anymore. No more spirits."

An uncomfortable feeling swims into his chest, clutching at Tsuna's heart and clawing at his lungs.

No more spirits.

What would that even mean for him? A normal life. Does he even know how to have one? Being able to look his classmates and teachers in the eye without seeing their ghosts and being pushed around for spreading 'rumours.' Being able to tell Nana about his day without omitting anything. Seeing her smile about his day and not feeling guilty.

He'd be normal. Fixed. (Almost.)

"I…"

"Hurry up, Dame-Tsuna," Reborn slaps the back of his neck. "You're going to be late for school."

Tsuna swallows down the tangled and prickly answer in his throat and nods. He can't help but scan the rest of the street for any more monstrous spirits but Reborn just hisses impatiently.

"I'm here to handle anyone that tries to touch my student. Now go!"

He jumps and dashes towards the corner, letting the wind wipe away the wetness on his cheeks. For all of Reborn's abuse, Tsuna is grateful that the baby doesn't mention how red Tsuna's eyes are when he finally arrives in class and the baby sits down on his desk to face him.

"Here," Tsuna folds up his jacket and puts it on the corner of his desk; he'll think about what he said to Nana, about this spirit stuff later, "this will be more comfortable to sit on."

Reborn only smiles.