"Mama, Papa look! The new house has a garden!" An excited Tsuna squeaked, barely staying in the car seat like his parents had ordered.
"Yes Tsu-kun, maybe we can plant tomatoes, ne?" Nana said cheerfully, turning from the real estate man with whom she and Iemitsu were currently conversing with.
"Mhm!" Tsuna agreed happily, smiling with glee at his mother. He then turned to his older brother and asked, "Dino onii-chan what are you going to plant in the garden?"
"Oh I don't know….. Maybe you can help me pick something out at the store, o.k. Tsuna?" Dino replied, smiling at his adorable little brother.
"Sure Dino onii-chan!" Tsuna replied, grinning eagerly at his brother, and then turned in his seat towards his parents, who were beginning to wrap up their conversation. "Mama, Papa, can we go in now?" He asked, putting emphasis on the 'now' and pouting slightly.
"Alright Tsu-kun, you can head in, but be sure not to go too far." Iemitsu said, patting his exuberant son on the head, and turned to his other son; "You may go as well Dino, watch your brother o.k.?"
"Yes Papa! C'mon Tsuna, let's- oof!" Dino began to accompany his younger brother inside their new Japanese home, before he tripped on the curb and fell flat on his face.
"Hiiie! D-dino onii-chan are you o.k.?" Tsuna questioned, poking his brother's immobile form. Dino then sat up, and shook his head free of dirt, before pulling his brother along to the home once again.
"Tsuna let's decide where our rooms are!" The young boy exclaimed, pulling his laughing brother upstairs, while their parents trailed behind amusedly.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~1 WEEK LATER~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Tsu-kun would you like to go plant the tomatoes we picked out yesterday?" Nana said, washing the dishes from the mornings' breakfast.
"Yes Mama! Are you going to plant your vegetables too? And will Dino onii-chan plant his flowers?" Tsuna asked, his legs swinging back and forth as he sat squirming on the stack of phone books that had been placed on his chair.
"Of course dear!" Nana said, putting her towel down and helping Tsuna down; "Now go upstairs and tell your brother to come outside, I'll go get the seeds and trowels!"
"O.k. we'll be right there Mama!" Tsuna said, little legs working furiously to run upstairs and get his older brother as soon as possible.
"Dino onii-chan! We're going to go plant our plants now! Let's go, let's go!" Tsuna yelled, bursting into his brother's room.
"Hm? Tsuna?" Dino said, looking up from his homework. "Oh yay! An excuse not to do my homework- I mean let's go plant!" The blond said, smiling brightly and tossing his pencil down.
Soon all of the Sawadas were hard at work, digging and planting. Dino, who was sporting many cuts on his fingers, was being treated by his mother, and enjoying picking out the many Band-Aids he needed.
"I want this turtle one, and then I want this horsey one, ooh and can that pony one go on the cut on my face?" Dino said, pointing to each of the Band-Aids he wanted in his mother's hand.
"O.k. dear, now hold still so I can put them on." Nana said, smiling and patting her cute son on his head.
Tsuna, who was given a plastic trowel and banned from the scissors by Nana after witnessing Dino's many accidents, was digging determinedly in the spot where he was going to plant his tomatoes. He frowned as his trowel hit a rock; however, he was determined to find a way around the obtrusive object and began to dig a wider hole. Soon, (not without dropping his trowel at least four times,) he unearthed a grey box, about the size of one of his father's shoeboxes. The small boy's eyes widened as he opened the box and saw two dolls, both in perfect condition. Tsuna grinned and dropped the trowel, rushing over to his mother who was patting dirt over one of her cucumber plants.
"Mama, Mama! Look what I found!" Tsuna yelled excitedly, tripping in his excitement.
"Tsu-kun? Are you o.k.? What-"Nana stopped speaking and gasped as she saw the two porcelain dolls. They looked to be twins, with matching haircuts and what looked like the same kind of uniform, just in female and male forms. One was slightly taller than the other; a pineapple haircut with indigo-coloured hair, one red eye with a kanji number in it and one normal blue one, and an outfit consisting of a green jacket with matching pants, black gloves, and a camouflage-army coloured shirt. The second was practically a female version of the first one; the same hair cut with the hair colour a slightly purpler version, one eye covered by a skull eye patch whilst the other was a deep purple as well, and the outfit was the same green as the first dolls'; though she wore it in a miniskirt and long-sleeved jacket that showed her midriff. Both dolls had matching black boots, and tiny tridents were clutched in their gloved hands.
"Aren't they pretty Mama?" Tsuna asked, eyes shining.
"Oh they are Tsu-kun! And in such nice condition! But where did you get them?" Nana said, tilting her head slightly with confusion at the end of her question.
"I found them in the ground! Can I keep them? Please?" Tsuna asked quickly, giving his mother the 'begging' expression.
"Well of course Tsu-kun! Just make sure you're extra careful with them, they look fragile." Nana said, giving her son a soft smile, "Why don't you go to your room and put them on your shelf, they should be safe there."
"O.k. Mama! Thank you!" Tsuna said, smiling and walking with calculated steps towards his new bedroom, not wanting to fall.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~LATER~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"And they're really pretty and shiny, and they are gonna be my new friends and they'll came to school with me and I'll show all my friends and it's going to be-" Tsuna's rant was cut off when he choked lightly on a mushed carrot, and Iemitsu hit his back to clear his airway.
"Breathe Tsu-kun, breathe." Iemitsu said, smiling at his son's indignant expression, "But your new dolls do sound cool, papa will come and look at them later o.k.?"
"O.k. daddy!" Tsuna said, forgetting all about his father's joke.
"Ne Papa, can I have your asparagus, pretty please?" Dino piped in, eyeing his father's unfinished food.
"Why of course Dino-"Iemitsu said, smiling and tilting his plate before a highly noticeable cough came from his wife. He cringed and looked over with a pleading expression at her stony stature; hoping against hope that she wouldn't reprimand him.
"Honey, you never eat your vegetables, you're setting a bad example for the children!" Nana chided, crossing her arms.
"But dear, Dino asked for them! Besides, when I don't eat them, it means that they can have more!" Iemitsu tried to reason with his amused, yet adamant wife. Unfortunately for him, Tsuna decided to pipe up with;
"I don't like my asparagus either, just like papa! You can have them Dino onii-chan!"
Iemitsu saw his wife's slightly raised eyebrow, before he sighed and gulped down the undesired food as fast as he could, (Earning a small sound of dissent from Dino.)
"Eat your asparagus Tsu-kun, they're good for you…" Iemitsu sighed, defeated.
"O.k. papa….." Tsuna said, eating the vegetables with a pout.
"Dino why don't you take your bath first, so Tsu-kun can show papa his dolls, ne?" Nana said, her cheerful atmosphere returning.
"O.k. mama, but I'm going to get my rubber ducky first!" Dino said, shooting from his chair and tripping over the flat floor, before running up the stairs.
"Be careful!" Nana said loudly, before wincing at the crash that came from the direction of the young boy's room. "I'll start the bath; can you two start to clean up please?" She said, smiling and heading down the hallway at her husbands' and son's nods.
Iemitsu started to help Tsuna from his chair when a scream suddenly pierced the calm air.
"DINO!" Iemitsu and Nana screamed, Tsuna blinking with confusion and a tad of fear as both his parents sprinted towards the small blonde's room. He followed them both, scared as to what had made his brother issue such a sound.
When Tsuna got upstairs and looked into Dino's room he stopped; eyes wide with confusion and disgust at the scene before him.
(A/N: BEGINNING OF THE GORE, BEWARE!)
Dino lay in a pool of blood, his remaining sightless eye wide open, and his facial features were twisted, as though he had been scared beyond belief. His left eye was gone, leaving a dark hollow socket, lined with scarlet blood. His arms were littered with punctures, blood oozing out like maple syrup. Gashes made their way across his previously flawless skin, messily ripped flesh and muscles dangling. His chest was riddled with large holes, as though something had been gnawing on the boy's skin. There was a large, dark hole over where his heart would have been, had it not been laying a few feet away, a trail of blood drops betraying its position. One of his legs was twisted at an impossible angle, foot barely still connected with a few strands of ligaments. The other became a messy stump just above his knee, cut as though by a doctor, clean and displaying a white bone among muscles and ligaments and tendons. There was only a small amount of blood there, almost as if the blood had been scared away by the swiftness and precision of the cut. His lower leg, chopped into pieces, lay in a neat pile symmetrical to his heart.
(A/N: DESCRIPTION IS DONE FOR NOW, JUST IMAGINE DINO WAS KILLED SOMEHOW)
Iemitsu and Nana were in shock, Nana crouching by her sons' head and uttering low keening moans, unable to form a coherent sentence. Iemitsu stood as though he was being propped up by a pole, eyes wide and unseeing. Tsuna screamed; a shrill sound in the thick horror of the moment.
"TSUNA!" Iemitsu roared; his voice raw and choppy. He picked up the sobbing child and pulled him close, shielding him from the sight of his brother's body.
"P-papa….. m-ma-mama wha…." Tsuna managed to choke out, before dissolving once more into sobs, his shaking frame held tight by his father.
"Dino…. M-my son, my ba-baby… D-" Nana muttered through her sobs, before breaking off into screams and wails, heartbroken testaments to her sons' unmoving frame, cradling his mangled body close to her.
Iemitsu shakily stumbled down the hallway, setting Tsuna down away from the sight of Dino, and bade him, "Tsuna, whatever you do, don not move from this spot, Papa's going to be right down the stairs, he just needs to call someone to- to help-" Iemitsu broke off into choked sobs, before turning the corner to reach the phone mounted on the wall, downstairs.
"D-Dino onii-chan…. He-he's going to be-" Tsuna stopped speaking when he heard a strangled cry come from the stairwell, accompanied by several thuds and a sick crunching sound. Tsuna, heart wrenching and insides churning, stumbled around the corner. The sight that greeted his stained eyes was one that he had never wanted to see.
(A/N: HERE WE GO AGAIN!)
Iemitsu lay, twisted and formless, at the bottom of the stairwell. Veins stood out, bright blue contrasting with his tanned skin, a shade paler than it had been when he was alive. His foot was twisted straight around, and one of his arms seemed to have come clean off at the socket, blood, veins, arteries, and bone protruding and pouring from the unnatural hole. His shirt was ripped, revealing his back and the slit skin along his spine, leaving said vertebrae exposed. His head, twisted so it seemed he was looking straight into Tsuna's eyes, held the same expression of fear as Dino's had, the same treatment given to the same eye. Blood oozed from his eternally screaming mouth, trailing down the slashed skin of his face.
(A/N: IN CASE YOU COULDN'T TELL, IEMITSU IS DEAD)
Tsuna screamed again, and again and again and again until his throat was raw and he couldn't breathe and he couldn't tell whether he was still making the sound. Nana ran towards her son's shaking form, and held him, sinking to the floor at the sight of her husband's corpse. Her eyes were dull, echoing her pain softly. Tsuna leaned into the warmth of his mother, trembling like a leaf.
A glint of indigo and purple caught his eye, and, eyes widening with horror, he looked down to the top of the stairs.
(A/N: SLIGHT GORE HERE WITH MUKURO AND CHROME DESCRIPTIONS, THEY'RE JUST BLOODY.)
There lay his dolls, his perfect, porcelain dolls.
Not a drop of blood adorned their clothes; however it did drip down their tridents in torrents. Mirror twisted smiles were evident on the two, blood speckling their teeth and gloves. Mukuro's left eye was surrounded by an indigo flame, and the kanji number four was prominent in the middle of said blood-red eye. Tsuna watched in horror as the flame disappeared, the kanji returning to six. Chrome's eye patch had been removed, exposing her eye; a neat line of blood separating the two halves. One was Dino's soft brown, and the other was Iemitsu's nearly identical brown.
(A/N: LIKE I SAID BEFORE, THERE'S JUST SOME BLOOD ON THEM. AND CHROME HAS DINO'S AND IEMITSU'S EYE(S).)
Nana looked at where her son was staring, and saw the dolls. In a moment she understood, and swiftly stood up, placing Tsuna down and gingerly picked up the blood-soaked toys; revulsion evident in her every movement.
"Kufufu~" Came the laugh, soft enough that it could have come from the wind itself. A smirk seemed to become more sinister, and Nana nearly dropped the murdering dolls. However, she kept her grip tight and sprinted outside, to the box. She had been planning to convert it into a mini-safe, and had Iemitsu reinstall a lock on it.
With a strong slam, she dropped the possessed dolls inside, twisting the lock with finality. She heaved a few strong breaths, creating a slight steam in the cool summer night air.
"M-ma-mam-a…." Tsuna managed to stutter, tears cascading down his face.
"Tsu-kun don't worry, mama's here, mama's here….." Nana said, staying strong for her son. The two clung to each-other, before Nana saw the red and blue of the law starting down their road. She told Tsuna to stay put, muttering words of comfort, and swept the accursed box off the table. Throwing it into the hole, she dumped dirt on top of it, stomping it flat before returning to comfort her son.
By then men were sweeping the house, and shocked cries were being uttered by the ones unfortunate enough to see what remained of Iemitsu and Dino. For the distraught Nana and Tsuna, the rest of the night was a blur of red, blue, and warmth.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~2 YEARS LATER~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Ushishishi~ The prince isn't scared to live in a haunted house!" Bel smirked and claimed, aiming for his younger and older brothers.
"Ushesheshe~ Yeah Mammon, Fran, I'm not scared either!" Rasiel said, crossing his arms with a confident smirk to match his twins' on his lips.
"Fake prince one and two, I never said I was scared." Fran deadpanned, causing both golden-haired boys to throw their plastic knives at the young teal-haired boy.
"Itai~ Long-haired mama, (A/N: I couldn't help it, I had to do it!) the fake princes are throwing plastic knives at me…. Again." Fran said, still in monotone.
"VOI! Bel, Rasiel, where the hell did you get those?! I thought I took them all away!" Squalo yelled, taking the knives from the two twins' hands.
"Aww~" The two complained at the same time, causing both to turn on each-other and fight over who was copying who.
"I'm not scared either. It's all a stupid legend anyways." Mammon said quietly, sliding his headphones down from their place underneath his hoodie.
"Now now, Bel-chan, Rasiel-chan stop fighting and Mammon-chan don't be such a doubter! It really did happen, it's in the police records and-" Lussuria cooed and addressed Mammon's statement, prying Bel and Rasiel apart forcefully; when he was cut off by Mammon's offhand remark.
"Oh please. The previous family who lived here were probably suffering from some genetic mental disorder, causing either psychopathy or hallucinations, or both, and imagined the whole 'incident'." Mammon said, placing air quotes around the word incident.
Lussuria only sighed and shook his head. "Teenagers, so cynical. Oh to be young and to know everything.~" The flamboyant man said, smiling good-naturedly at patting a reluctant Mammon on the head.
"Whatever." Mammon said, sliding his headphones on once again.
"So Auntie Lussuria. What exactly happened here? All I know is that the house is haunted." Fran spoke up, his voice as bland as ever.
"Oh nothing you should know at such a young age dearie, now I'm going to go stop mommy and daddy from murdering the poor real-estate man…. Stay put~!" Lussuria said, waving as he turned to help the cowering agent, who was under verbal attack from Squalo and being scared shitless by Xanxus.
"Oh well." Fran said, sitting on the ground to pick blades of grass.
"Ushishishi~ I bet it was a murder. Lots of blood and screaming would've been cool." Bel said, sitting next to Fran.
"Ushesheshe~ No way it's totally ghosts of human experiments." Rasiel declared, sitting on Fran's other side.
"Nu-uh, murder!" Bel insisted, taking out more plastic knives from god-knows-where.
"Experiments!" Rasiel stubbornly said, mirroring Bel's movement.
Just when things were looking to become an all-out cutlery war, the knives were wrenched away and a loud yell pierced the air.
"VOIIII YOU IDIOTS WHAT DID I SAY ABOUT THE KNIVES!?" Squalo yelled, prompting Xanxus to kick him with irritation.
"Shut up trash, you're too fucking loud." Xanxus said, dumping his suitcases and boxes onto the street and on Squalo's hair. "Get this shit inside, I'm taking a nap." He said, walking to the door, and decidedly ignoring Lussuria, who was attempting to molest the traumatised real-estate agent.
"VOIIII XANXUS YOU ASS!" Squalo yelled at the slamming door, and then proceeded to let loose a huffy breath and grab a couple of the boxes. "Mammon, grab a couple of these." He said, nudging a couple of the remaining boxes with his foot.
"Pay me first." Mammon countered evenly, texting on his phone.
"Voi! Squalo yelled at the expected answer before pulling a 5 out of his pocket. Mammon looked at him, and although his eyes were covered it was clear what that look meant.
"Voi fine you goddamned fucking bastard!" Squalo said, before forking over a 20.
Mammon took the cash with a smirk before turning to Bel, Rasiel, and Fran.
"Carry these in and I might convince Lussuria to make cookies." The teen said, smirking as the three gullible children grabbed as much as they could carry and raced to the door.
"God you're so fucking lazy." Squalo said, rolling his eyes and walking to the house. "VOI LUSS STOP MOLESTING THEY GUY!" The shark yelled, kicking the gay man.
"Aw Squ-chan no fair!" Lussuria protested, swaying his hips slightly.
"Voi just get your ass in the house!" Squalo said, turning to the door once again.
"Hai~" Lussuia said, picking up the remaining 5 suitcases as though they were made of paper and slamming the trunk of their car closed.
Since the house was full of the sounds of unpacking boxes and the aroma of baking cookies, Mammon decided to escape and relax in the tranquillity of the garden. If tranquillity included the ding of an incoming text every five seconds and the background sounds of Judas Priests' 'Diamonds and Rust' playing as loud as it could in his ear. Somehow his 'mother's' loud voice could still be heard however, which was an annoyance. ("GODDAMMIT XANXUS I FUCKING SWEAR IF YOU DON'T LET ME GO RIGHT-")
"Yeah I'm going to attempt to ignore that…." Mammon muttered to himself, and as he swept his eyes over the immaculate yard, one spot caught his eye. A blemish, if you will.
"Hm. What's with the pile of dirt…" Mammon muttered. He then got on his knees and dug. "O.k. I seriously need to get some other entertainment if I find digging in the dirt interesting…" Mammon stopped muttering as his fingers hit something hard. He pulled and unearthed a grey box, and eyed the lock. Deciding to open it with one of his spare bobby pins, he pulled one from his pocket. After working on the lock for about three more songs, he felt the satisfying click and opened the box.
"No money? Oh god what a waste of my-" Mammon started to say, before being cut off by the appearance of three chocolate-smeared children.
"Ushishishi~ Mammon the cookies are done!" Bel said, waving a half-eaten pastry in the air.
"Ushesheshe~ Hey are you playing with dolls? Wow what a lame teenager." Rasiel said, grinning at Mammon with chocolate-covered teeth.
"Shut up Rasiel. And I can tell Bel. I only dug this up because I thought there might be money in it." Mammon said curtly, shoving the box into Fran's hands and standing to go snatch a cookie. No one could resist Lussuria's baking after all.
"So….. What are these?" Fran said in a bored tone, looking at the two porcelain dolls with little interest. "I suppose I'll give them to Aunty Lussuria or Long-haired momma, girls like this sort of stuff….." Fran said, trailing after his older brothers with the box tucked under his arm.
Unnoticed by the loud and unruly family at the dinner table, where Fran had presented his 'mother' and aunt his presents, (to much screaming, laughing, and squealing,) the dolls smirked as one.
"Kufufu~"