Here's my very first Q&A session, if any of you ever have any questions, please ask me in your reviews, as well as what you thought about the story. I welcome criticism as well as I believe it necessary to improve my story.

plume228: There are many things that are vaguely mentioned in the first few arcs before the Daily Life arc strikes, which might be after this arc, that will be explained in future arcs and chapters. About when did Tsuna meet Xanxus, the full event will be revealed during the Varia Arc, and I have a plan as to how Xanxus got there in the first place, but you'll have to wait until the Varia Arc to know. I can tell you this though, he met Tsuna during his two-months stay at the mansion. The canon Guardians (Hibari, Hayato, Takeshi etc) will still be with Tsuna and Ieyoshi will gain his own set.

Yuni will still have the Arcobaleno and Byakuran his Funeral Wreaths, both groups which will come later into the the story, preferably in the Future Arc. I don't think Nosaru, Tazaru and Gamma counts as Guardians, but I am rewatching KHR recently.

Deacog: Thank you for the review, and I apologize if the story seems pretty underdeveloped at many scenes, I've taken to editing it, heavily. Hopefully, this re-uploaded version of Chapter 7 would be much better than the previous one. If there are any more problems, feel free to tell me.

In this chapter, I tried to make Tsuna's memories seem as vague as possible and the inner problem Tsuna is dealing with. Just a heads-up, Tsuna will only be able to properly utilize two types of flames, one of which is going to be weaker than the first. I'll leave it up to you to guess which two types after reading this chapter, as you may have some sort of idea.


Chapter 7

The Heirs' First Meeting

She had just turned three a month ago, she smiled brightly at the memory. She was getting old enough to remember by then and she had vague memories of seven toddlers with different colored pacifiers hanging from their necks like her mother, who had an orange one. Then, after the birthday party her mother and her 'father' -Gamma- threw, the toddlers left to their own lives, leaving her presents and promising to come visit as long as they have the time. After they had left, there were three more visitors, though one was unconscious at the time, in the hands of the only adult among those three.

She didn't understand what had the unconscious brunette been through, and tried asking her mother or her father about it, but they always shot her a sad smile, and would tell her that it'd be better if she doesn't know right now.

The adult was a butler, and Yuni thought she had seen the butler often trying to separate the conscious child from some sort of sweet the child was clinging to. She quickly found out that the child, who was three years older than her was her half-sibling through her missing birth father. None knew their father, which was expected, and Byakuran even joking said that he might be a corpse. Though he said that when they were both alone with the unconscious brunette, so Yuni, being the innocent child she is, just laughed brightly.

She also found out that Byakuran worshiped marshmallows like they were the deity, the sweets she caught him eating and trying to hide the endless bags -where did he even keep it anyway- from the butler.

Byakuran had somehow found out about her -and she still wonders how her mother isn't wary or surprised- and her birth date and decided to pop over for a visit before the actual party got underway. But they had a detour that involved the injured and unconscious brunette that was resting.

After listening to the story that was most likely exaggerated by the six-year old albino, Byakuran allowed the three-year old half sibling of his to cry in his chest. He was a little taller than most his age, and definitely taller than Yuni, who was just a little shorter than the five-year old brunette, whose height was shorter than the average five-year olds. Yuni found this a little strange at first but completely understood when Byakuran told her about his story.

Aria and Gamma, didn't mind both Byakuran or the brunette, who she came to learn his name later on as Tsunayoshi Sawada. Aria was strangely protective of both of them like she was with Yuni, though her priority would always be Yuni first.

It was when Byakuran and Michaelo had carried the child over, the child was wearing the traditional clothes they had seen the dead children at the lab wore, and the number 2727 was pinned on it. A piece of paper had fallen out from the grasps of the child's tiny hand, and written on it were child scribbles of the same name all over again, in nearly illegible and undecipherable handwriting, which Aria would later translate it as 'Tsunayoshi'. Below it was a date from five years ago, and the words, 'The day I was born'. Apparently, the child had either wrote the date down the day he was thrown into the lab, or he was smart and quick enough to sneak his particulars away from the scientists.

Judging by how old the paper looked, Aria was convinced it was the former.

Most of the experiments there, due to always being called by their lab numbers, tend to forget their names. And the fact that the child was holding this close to him, and tightly in his grasps as well, had the three adults finally deducing the name is mostly likely the child's one.

Tsunayoshi didn't look like he wasn't about to stir anytime soon, and the three adults took care of him. They may be mafia, but they still have a heart, especially one reserved for innocent children that didn't be deserve anything they suffered, just like him.

Within a day, he screamed more than he didn't, which was sad to say, he always screamed. Aria doesn't blame the poor child, which sane adult would? And to add to her reasoning, he's also gone through too much trauma for a child his age. And before that, Aria didn't even want to imagine what happened to him. His appearance was that of a typical Japanese citizen, his accent as well, though dwindled slightly due to spending more than a year in Italy, it was still noticeable, especially if you take his use of Japanese suffixes he screamed in his nightmare state into account.

He had been sleep-talking, which was how Aria found out about his small accent, and from time to time, she would catch a very broken sob and a Japanese word, "Why..."

Worried that the other two children might not be able to sleep due to his continuous screaming, broken and tormented, laced deeply with sorrow and pain, fear and hurt, tears and cries, she bought them each a pair of earmuffs. They wore it whenever they were about to sleep, well, Byakuran needed more persuading, Michaelo couldn't believe that his Young Master was already at the 'rebellious phase' before adolescence, it had gotten worse after he recovered two months ago, which he received his Sky Mare Ring when he was only four.

It had taken two entire days to chase down the young albino Gesso heir before convincing him to put on the earmuffs when sleeping. Ever since the Mare Ring and the sudden appearance of Sawada Tsunayoshi, Byakuran had stubbornly refused to do so, and intead insisted on staying by the brunette's side at least once a day, even when he was screaming. When asked why had his Young Master suddenly started caring for the young brunette, the young Gesso simply replied with that mischievous yet mysterious gaze and smile, that definitely spelled 'trouble', "Tsunayoshi makes their lives interesting, and I find him interesting."

Yet again, Michaelo didn't want to know what happened in the parallel worlds.

Michaelo had to persuade Byakuran with his marshmallows, and even threaten the sweet delicacies, as well as guilt-tripping Byakuran that when he and Tsunayoshi got to know each other more, Tsunayoshi wouldn't want Byakuran to do this, only then did he manage to slip the earmuffs over the six-year-old's ears every night. If he didn't, Byakuran would once again, return to sleeping without the earmuffs, how did he even get a wink of sleep?

Oh wait, he's Byakuran, Michaelo decided, that whatever nonsensical question or scenario that popped up, his answer to it would be, 'Because he's Byakuran'.


After nearly a week had passed, Aria finally decided to take things into her own hands and find out a way to calm the young brunette down, as well as find out what sorts of situations was haunting him-no mistake, Aria was highly convinced it wasn't only one that was haunting him-, and causing him to have endless nightmares. Seriously, she was glad the screaming died down to just sobs after three days, who knows how dehydrated he must be. During that period of time, Aria and Gamma had taken turns making the unconscious boy sip water and force-fed him some food, so to keep him alive.

She gave a call to two familiar contacts.

"Kora! Aria! What's up, kora!"

"Colonello." Aria breathed a sigh of relief that she managed to get through. "Can you come to the Giglio Nero mansion as soon as possible? I think, that you and probably your Flames are necessary."

"Of course, kora! I'll be right there a few hours later!"

"Thank you so much! Just please, like I said, as soon as possible. This is very urgent." Aria spoke with a tone of finality before hanging up on the Rain before he even had a chance to respond. She stared at her flip phone blankly before realization dawned on her.

Reborn must be rubbing off on me... Aria thought as she sighed.

Back in Mafia Land, Colonello also stared at his own flip phone blankly. Reborn is rubbing off on her...

Aria scrolled through her list of contacts until to she came to the 'L' part and selected the name she wanted to call.

After a few moments of ringing and some re-dials, the receiver finally picked up. "Hello, Aria. What's so important for you to call my private line?"

"You took your sweet time picking up the phone, Lal." Aria drawled dryly without a moment's hesitation before she realized what she had said.

"... Reborn is rubbing off on you."

Aria rubbed the bridge of her nose and sighed heavily.

"... Changing the subject, I need you to come to the Giglio Nero Mansion as soon as possible."

"The mansion, what's the matter?"

"Well, I think I might need your help with something and your Flames."

"Which?" Lal questioned.

Aria had thought about it before dialing her number. "Mist. I need you to look through a traumatized kid's memories, the child has been screaming for three days and has been continuously crying in his sleep and hasn't woken up for almost a week now. If you come tomorrow, it'll mark it as one week." Aria informed the failed Arcobaleno.

"Then why not ask Viper? Oh wait, they go by Mammon now don't they?" Despite the question, there was slight worry in her tone. Aria couldn't blame her, a child, a mere child, in a coma-like state for almost a week, half of which was spent screaming and continuously sobbing.

"You forgot that Mammon has to deal with the problems the Varia is currently facing from some false information and it is currently affecting the Varia. Besides, I know how much you'd want to avoid both CEDEF and Iemitsu as of late. Not that I can blame you."

"Alright, I'm curious now. It's not like you to just say you dislike a person -yes, I know you're implying it, I've known you ever since you were six-."

"By the way, Colonello is coming as well."

"... I'll be there in an hour or two." Before Lal hung up, Aria could barely hear the hissed out, 'to make sure my idiot student does not mess up'.

Aria pocketed her phone and stretched her arms back, leaning into the armchair. "Don't worry, Tsunayoshi, I'll find out what is it that has you so traumatized."

Even without knowing him beforehand, the fact the the Gesso heir immediately went to rescue him, also without any prior knowledge of him, piqued her curiosity. Though, the main reason was because she couldn't stand to see a child in that sort of state.

And to be honest, he really reminded her of Yuni.


It was no surprise that Lal was the first to arrive an hour later, followed by Colonello half an hour later after her.

Aria smiled in relief and gratefulness as she prepared to explain the situation. However, Colonello beat her to it.

"Yo, Aria, kora! What's this urgent thing, kora!"

"Shut up, you idiot. Don't you see she was about to start talking?" Lal, who hissed at him in annoyance, no doubt from CEDEF's hassle, kicked him.

"Don't worry about it Lal. Anyway, I need you guys to follow me." She waited until Colonello composed himself before leading them to the now silent room. During the short walk, she briefed them on what she found on about the child, about his name, birthdate, nationality and possible flame type, all backed up with evidence.

She opened the door and the two toddler-sized adults followed behind her with a mix of curiosity and confusion.

"He's just stopped crying two hours ago, however, as you can see..." She trailed off, instead opting to gesture at the small, petite figure in the bed.

Though they had just gotten a small info dump on the child, they still found it hard to believe he was five. He looked more like Yuni's age, and if it wasn't for him being just a little bit taller than Yuni, they might've mistaken him for being younger than Yuni.

A malnourished body, scarred skin, tear stains, his face would display an expression of pain and torment from time to time, sometimes, a muffled cry would sound in his throat. The child looked clean, and it was obvious that someone had cleaned him up every day.

"Are you sure he's five, kora!"

"Colonello!" Lal hissed at him as he hurriedly mumbled up an apology.

Aria stifled a small chuckle, how unfortunate that Reborn or the others couldn't be here, it would surely make her daily life much more amusing.

"Let me guess, Aria." Lal spoke up with narrowed eyes. "I use my Mist Flames and try and peer within his mind, while Colonello uses his Rain to calm the child down after I'm done."

Aria nodded in confirmation as Lal sighed. "Alright, just watch my back."

Aria rolled her eyes with amusement. "It's not like you're gonna get attacked, Lal."

Lal huffed as she placed her hand on top of the child's eyes, they do say eyes are the window to one's soul, and activated her Mist Flames. Pity, she missed her Rain ones.


LAL

The child has it rough, rougher than any teenager as well, and not as good as a common mafioso child, that was her first impression. When she opened her eyes after using her Mist Flames to transfer her mentality to the child's, she was greeted by a disarray of colours.

Colours that represent flames, that the child could never use without severe consequences and damage dealt to his mentality and physical state both and that obviously didn't belong to the child.

The child tried to refuse it, but it was stuck in him. Fortunately, a strong, permanent seal for each would resolve it, and the child might have to take some Sun pills as well.

Red was one of the causes of the child's continuous screaming and pain, Blue kept the child asleep, Green was flashing in different places each second, causing the child to be completely disconnected from his physical body and physical state, no wonder he had not awoken for at least a sip of water or a small helping of food.

Yellow would reactivate some painful memories that caused to child to cry from time to time. And considering the child's mindscape was that of an endless prison, Purple was another clause to the child's pain, and the occasional tormented and guttural cries.

Orange was his, it wasn't hurting him, but the other colours sure did try to hurt it. Indigo relentlessly protected it, the colour wrapped around Orange like a safety net, and only the latter colour kept the former from lashing out, which was settled in a protective barrier for its Sky.

The child was a Sky, Aria was right, however, they had overlooked the lingering Mist Flames other than this one, Lal thought as she looked over to the space behind the Sky Flames. There it was, there was the foreign Mist Flames.

And unlike the other foreign flames, this one was compatible with the pure Sky child only because the child had a Mist Flame user persistently helping him, and using the user's Mist Flames to calm the child. Thus, the Sky had accepted one Mist, why not another one, without ill intentions?

Lal confirmed that the child was very accepting, forgiving and kind.

Which reminds her, why did that child looked so similar to Baka-mitsu's son Ieyoshi? The birthdate was just ten minutes apart, with this child being older, and they were both the same age...

She shook her head, no craziness regarding the damn Sawadas today for her.

She ventured further and beyond the colours, and further into the depths of this endless prison. There, she was met with onslaught after onslaughts of terrible memories.

She couldn't believe what the child had went through, and saw him talking to some spirits, that looked suspiciously alike to the Vongola Primo's generation. The times when he talked to them were the only times he had a break, other than that, she couldn't spot any happiness in other memories.

Iemitsu, she narrowed her eyes darkly, he was the main cause. Even she couldn't understand what was going through his mind during the hospital, why ignore the elder one? What caused him to hate the child, Tsunayoshi? The child's memories went back as far as two years old, his last birthday celebrated with his mother.

The mother had been the one to care for his survival, food, water and birthday, until he turned three. During the period between two to three years old, the other twin had picked up on Iemitsu's attitude towards Tsunayoshi and started snatching away his mother's attention, finally, the older twin was forgotten by even the mother!

ESTRANEO...

She wanted to punch a wall after a single glance at his three year old's memories, who called the damn famiglia over to Namimori?! And to the Sawada household, no less!

She suspected Iemitsu the moment the memories went black during the time the child was reading up on an... Italian dictionary? Yeah, it was. In his room, indicating that someone either covered his eyes or knocked him out.

She would do anything to forget the memories of the Estraneo base. It was a relief that a Mist user, with pineapple style hair, helped hid the boy from persistent scientists who were hunting the children with Sky Flames. Once the boy figured our the child's flames, he had continuously expended Mist Flames to hide the child.

However, the boy had a limit, and one day, the scientists sent for him and he collapsed during an undetermined time. That led the scientists to easily discover Tsunayoshi.

A week ago was the Estraneo massacre, and the ones who conducted this was the boy, who managed to save Tsunayoshi and two others. Tsunayoshi had fainted during their final stretch to freedom due to the delayed results of the flame-related experiments conducted on him and was piggy-backed by the pineapple-hair boy until they got separated outside due to a delayed explosion.

Suspicious enough, Byakuran and Michaelo arrived at where Tsunayoshi ended up and carried him to the mansion.

This definitely explains the lingering Mist Flames that belonged to another, and why the foreign Mist Flames the scientists inserted into him countless of times until it stuck were accepted while the others weren't.

And the two sets of Mist Flames were the only thing keeping the boy alive, by keeping the other foreign and unaccepted flames away from his core.

Lal cursed as she released her Mist Flames and returned to her physical body.

They really need to permanently seal away the other flames that the mind was trying to kick out, and calm the boy enough for the prison mindscape to vanish.


The next time I update will probably be around the end of May or mid-June, due to scholl mid-terms and my school team. So please be patient until then and tell me how you guys think about the current story and chapter in the reviews. It means a lot to me, thank you for those who left reviews.

Like I said, this chapter was supposed to be as vague as possible towards the end.