Summary:
"..I don't want to kill you."

It's a far cry from the first time they'd met. Him and another Tsunayoshi. Neo Primo. The Dying Will Bullet that killed, then resurrected. Or just killed, if no regrets were present.

(If someone shot Reborn with one now, he'd probably die and come back with the regrets of a thousand lives on his lips.)

Warnings: lots of fatalist morbidity. brief, nonchalant suicidal mention. casual talk of murder.

A/N: i guess this is the time to add in 'tsuna is not dame'. gets a little dark and angsty, but this is just one of those quasi-darkangst fluff Groundhog Day type things.

WindmillQuil: actually i had initially intended that it was reborn who was drawing little things in the corner of the calendars, to remind himself which memories belonged to which. but. now you've put in the idea that tsuna could do it to. maybe some worlds reborn draws it, and in others it's tsuna that puts down something that reminds him of reborn. like weird math equations for his weird math-inclined tutor haha.


/ / / / / / / / /

plow the old under, prepare for the new

/ / / / / / / / /

It's been 3 days and Tsunayoshi has done nothing but work out in the sun, wearing that same sunhat, those same plaids and those same denims. Sometimes the neighbors come by to say hello and sometimes they have items to trade for a sack of Tsunayoshi's homemade pickled vegetables.

There are moments when Reborn wonders if Tsunayoshi has forgotten that he's here. He wouldn't be surprised, given that the other man can't actually see him padding around the house while he's working out there. Reborn even forgets he's here sometimes. Tries to turn down a hallway with no turns, open a door expecting an office but finding only jackets in a closet too large for the rest of the house.

The back yard is especially large. Much larger than Reborn ever remembers it being. And yet Tsunayoshi moves across it with ease.

"He doesn't need me here, Leon," Reborn murmurs to the reptile on his shoulder. They're in the living room, watching Tsunayoshi work through the open door that leads to the back yard and patio. "I wasn't sent here to teach him. Or change him."

The folders said a lot about what he wasn't. He didn't leave the house much, except occasionally for groceries or supplies. He didn't stay indoors much, except to eat or to sleep. He usually had a dog, except when the dog's actual (other?) owner would take him away for days, or weeks.

He has a cat, but it's never around, except to eat.

He lives alone, except when he has company that leaves but never arrives, or arrives but never leaves.

He's interfering with Vongola's business and he needs to be removed.

"I'm not going to kill him." He takes his eyes away from the doorway that leads to what may well be the Garden of Eden.

(Does that make Tsunayoshi Adam, or Eve? Or is he the serpent, whispering promises and lies? Or the apple, temptation incarnate?)

"I swore it once. Even if it's in the past, I'm not going to break an Oath."

Leon licks his cheek understandingly. Reborn doubts he actually knows, but Leon has always been understanding in every Cycle. Sometimes he wonders.

"Do you miss the Neo Primo, Leon?" Reborn muses, taking the chance to kick his feet onto the coffee table while Tsunayoshi isn't looking. Not that it would matter if he was. "I bet you don't. Can't miss someone you've never known."

Can he? Miss someone he's never known. Does he miss all the ones that died too soon, before they could go from Decimo to Neo Primo? Does he miss the ones who refused and remained Decimo?

"I do. Tsunayoshi grows up to be a tetchy old man, did you know? He probably wasn't even that old. Maybe 40, 50 at the most, if I remember right. Still put up with having an infant riding around on his shoulder."

He had wondered, at the time, why the Arcobaleno curse wasn't killing them off. Had known all along that his days were numbered, that he would die a dog's death, when the time came.

The time never came. He kept living. Kept killing.

Neo Primo would look at him, sometimes in pity. And where Reborn would once scold him or rebuke him, maybe even smack that silly expression of his face, sometimes he would do nothing.

Sometimes they sat in front of the fireplace together and said nothing, while the world fell down around their ears.

(And then Neo Primo would have to go stop his guardians from destroying the compound and Reborn would go back to hunting down traitors, as usual. Like nothing ever happened. Until the next time it did.)

"It's odd not doing anything," he says, quietly now. Leon crawls onto his finger and stares up at him, eyes unblinking. "Even more odd that I haven't Cycled out yet, even though I'm not needed around here... But do I want to wait around for it to happen eventually?"

Leon's head tilts.

"I've never tried killing myself to get out of a Cycle before."

Not even the ones where he wasn't interested. He still stuck around, just to see what would happen if he didn't intervene. How Iemitsu would handle his son's training, how an oddly grownup Basil might. If Tsunayoshi was tossed into the Varia and made to carve a bloody path to the throne.

(He'd won that one. But a Vongola divided falls easily as prey to other predators.)

"I guess I could just enjoy myself while I'm here. Drop by Vongola and see how they're holding up, try to see where the others have gotten to.. maybe Checkerface still lives in Namimori somewhere." Reborn waggles his finger and Leon's head bobs up and down with the motion, tail curled tight around his wrist. "I could sleep with him before we head off. Timoteo did say it'd be fine if I did, and he's old enough, for once. I don't know about you, Leon, but I haven't had sex since this whole Trinisette affair started. Honestly I'm surprised I haven't gotten blue—"

He stiffens and sits up. Turns around.

And there is Tsunayoshi, standing right there with a basket of produce in his arms and a strangely curious look on his face.

How long have you been standing there, Reborn wants to ask.

Instead he says, "We need to talk."

/ / / / / / / / /

Tsunayoshi fidgets on the couch. He has calluses, Reborn notes. Despite the gloves and everything, he has calluses. Tsunayoshi would never really get them in the previous Cycles, not after the cliff climbing. Blisters, sure. On his knuckles, on his knees, on his elbows. On any part of his body that he used regularly to fight with. No calluses, though. Not like the ones Reborn would always have, on his palms and on the back of his index finger.

Rough, not slender. Working hands. Not quite the kind you would see on a pampered mafia boss. Aside from the occasional writing callus from signing too many papers.

Tsunayoshi fidgets. Reborn notices this all the more because his head stays almost absolutely still, where normally it should have bobbed, twitched, looked around nervous and apprehensive. Instead he holds so still that Reborn almost thinks him calm, if not for the furrow in his brow and the downturn of his mouth.

"It's been 3 days," Reborn says, slowly. Tsunayoshi's head dips down just slightly. "..You haven't asked anything about me."

"I don't need to," Tsunayoshi says back. Somehow, Reborn understands that sentiment. "You haven't asked anything about me, either."

"I've never needed to, but I'm beginning to think I should have." He pauses. "You're.. different."

"That's the most cliche pick-up line anyone has ever said to me before," Tsunayoshi mutters under his breath. "..Actually, that's probably the only pickup line anyone has ever said to me before."

"Really?"

"If you haven't noticed, I don't go out very often. And I was average enough as a kid that about the only ones who said anything nice to me were my parents." He shrugs a shoulder. "I wouldn't be able to appreciate my own looks anyway."

"I didn't say anything about how you looked. I meant you. You're different."

Tsunayoshi does that thing where he tilts his head, like a confused little critter, except it's all the more odd and endearing because he doesn't actually look at Reborn when he does it.

"..Different from what exactly?"

Hoooboy.

"From the others that I've known. From..."

He's trying to figure out how exactly to explain this when Tsunayoshi says:

"The other Tsunas in the other worlds?"

Now it's Reborn's turn to blink. "..From the parallel worlds, yes. How do you—"

"I told you, your friends have been visiting for a while now. They talk a lot."

Well, that.. helps. A bit. Less that he has to explain, anyway. Assuming Tsunayoshi doesn't think it's all a bunch of horsecrap.

"And you actually believe it?"

"Not at first... I mean, I was 15 when Luce talked about it. And not the science-nerd sort of 15, either. The scrawny, softspoken, kid on the corner with nails and teeth sort of 15. I wasn't really the type to believe in that kind of thing."

"And yet..?"

"..They all kept saying it. Over and over." Tsunayoshi fiddles with his hands again, fingers laced together, running his thumb over his skin. He's always done that. "It.. kind of got to the point where I wasn't sure if I was just sick of listening to them talk about it, or if I wished I could do the same thing. Go to all these different.. worlds, see what my other lives were like."

"Nothing worth seeing," Reborn says. He feels sure of this, for some reason. "Believe me. You don't usually live this long in the others."

"Oh." Tsunayoshi makes a quiet sound, like he wasn't expecting that. Reborn doubts the other Arcobaleno ever considered touching on the fact that, with one world's Tsunayoshi being the key to defeating Byakuran, any other world that deviated from it was as good as fucked over.

..Actually, Reborn isn't going to touch on that either. Not unless Byakuran actually shows up again and tries to take over the world once more.

"Is.. that all you wanted to talk about?"

"No, not really. Sort of." He rubs at his chin. Leon peers up at him from the coffee table. "..What do you know about your father's job?"

"Mafia," Tsunayoshi says, neither too quickly nor too slowly. Reborn looks up into hardened eyes. "Vongola. He's... he's dead now."

Reborn lets out a little incredulous 'huh'. He wasn't really expecting that. Sort of, but not really.

He clears his throat and swears he can see Leon shaking his little head. "I'm.. also mafia. More specifically, mafia-contracted. I think. Currently working for Vongola, probably. Usually am."

Leon is still shaking his head. That's odd. Then again, maybe Leon knows something that Reborn doesn't. Assuming this Leon isn't his original reptilian partner, and belongs instead to the Reborn of this world...

He wonders if this world's Reborn was much different. Maybe he should explain things properly to Leon. The chameleon is pretty smart though, for all that he is little more than a shape-changing magical reptile powered by Sun Flames.

"I'm sorry for your loss, Tsunayoshi," he says. When he finally looks away from Leon, it's to look into the suddenly very wide and upset eyes of a boy he was supposed to have started looking after more than a decade earlier. "I-"

"Reborn." The whisper is quiet, and Tsunayoshi still isn't quite looking at him, but rather somewhere in the direction of his chest, where a pacifier no longer rests. He wonders why Tsunayoshi doesn't simply keep his eyes shut, or wear sunglasses. "As in.. Renato? That Reborn?"

He doesn't respond, shoulders drawing tight as his earlier conversation with Timoteo (probably Timoteo, probably not) replays itself in his mind.

Oh.

"That... you're- you're a hitman. You're that hitman, you're— Vongola—"

Upset turns to anger and anger into fury. A Dying Will Flame lights itself on Tsunayoshi's forehead. It flares, pulses, spreads around them like a warning beacon and a welcome home all at once.

Oh.

Tsunayoshi snarls and leaps at Reborn across the table, all teeth and nails and a bright, coppery eye.

"You're the one who killed my father—!"

So this is his place in this world.

/ / / / / / / / /

The ensuing fight is more of a scuffle. Reborn is trained, experienced, though he hasn't fought properly in at least 7 Cycles now, and only every few Cycles before that. Muscle memory is a blessing, and so is being able to use his Flames as freely as ever before.

Tsunayoshi is younger, more energetic, has been doing minor physical labor far more frequently than Reborn has. He fights like a scrapper, like a kid on the streets with no weapons but his own body and no teacher but himself. He is blind.

Or he's supposed to be blind.

As it is, the younger man lands punches with unerring accuracy. Add that to the fact that his physical strength is enhanced in Dying Will Mode, and Reborn ends up with a few more bruises and split lips than he normally would.

At any other time, in any other situation, Tsunayoshi would be faring just as well. But Reborn isn't looking to hurt him, has no reason to, and he most certainly does not want to kill him.

So it ends with Reborn pinning him to the floor, both arms locked behind his back, trapping both legs with his own in a position that would be otherwise very compromising. He licks the blood away from the split in his lip as it heals and barely holds back an adrenaline-fueled grin.

Tsunayoshi seethes through a bloody nose from being (accidentally) elbowed in the face, but is otherwise uninjured.

"That's longer than 5 minutes," Reborn notes as the seconds tick by. The Flame on Tsunayoshi's forehead remains where it is, flickering and smelling of heat and a scorching desert. Flickering like it belongs there, like it had never left.

"Iemitsu taught me how to control it," the other man spits out. "Before you killed him."

'What Iemitsu left behind,' probably-Timoteo had said. 'He's getting in the way, just like this father.'

'Take care of it.'

He actually thought he was being given options as to how.

"Is that what you're here for?" Tsunayoshi hisses into the wooden floor. Maybe it would have been better to pin him against one of the rugs. Comfier. Though they'd risk rug burns and might get weird looks next time Tsunayoshi is in town. "You're going to kill me too?"

"No, I'm not. I told you that already. Now, if I let you go, will you stop trying to rip off my sideburns?"

"Your what?"

"My sideburns. They're curly and next to my ears."

"..I thought those were earrings."

"Why would you think—" Hurgh, right. He keeps forgetting. "You shouldn't be ripping earrings out either. Is that a yes to keeping your hands off?"

"I still have teeth." But Tsunayoshi nods, if slightly.

"Please, I prefer teeth." Reborn rolls his eyes and eases himself off of the younger, smaller man so he can sit up. "I'd be impressed if you even managed to get close enough for a proper bite."

"I managed a black eye and probably broke something in your mouth." Tsunayoshi licks the blood from his lips, then presses the corner of his shirt against his nose to sop up the blood and hopefully stopper it too. "I could manage a bite or two."

Reborn tongues at a loose tooth thoughtfully.

"How did you manage to aim that well, anyway? If I'm not mistaken you've lost sight in at least one eye, you should have crippling depth perception."

The one visible eye actually moves for the second time Reborn has seen in the past 3 days. The first was when Tsunayoshi socked him in the jaw. He had pegged it as just his imagination, seeing things that weren't actually there so that it made more sense in his mind. Things like aiming a punch without looking in the same direction.

"I am, actually, completely and legally blind." The words are muffled by the shirt. Reborn has a hard time believing it now with the way that eye keeps staring at him without looking away. "..Sometimes I see colors."

"Colors?"

"You're yellow. I'm.. orange. Ish."

"That's probably the Dying Will Flames."

"You know about them?"

"I'm mafia, Tsunayoshi. It's a mafia thing."

The other's head bobs in something like nod. A few moments later, the Flame on his forehead flickers out, but the coppery light remains in his eye, still following Reborn's every movement.

"You didn't... attack." He scratches the back of his hand where there's a scrape from the both of them falling onto the coffee table. He's going to need a new one. "You didn't hit back."

"I had no reason to."

"I tried to break your neck."

"I know. You failed. Miserably." Reborn rubs at his throat. Maybe he'll have a bruise? That'll be a first. Tsunayoshi has never tried to kill him before. "I'm stronger than you, Tsunayoshi. I'm not bragging; this is a fact. I am a hitman, a professional killer. I do not fight for fun. I do not spar, I do not train, I do not practice. I kill."

He takes a deep breath. Cleansing. Sky Flames have that sort of effect, even just lingering in the air.

"..I don't want to kill you."

It's a far cry from the first time they'd met. Him and another Tsunayoshi. Neo Primo. The Dying Will Bullet that killed, then resurrected. Or just killed, if no regrets were present.

(If someone shot Reborn with one now, he'd probably die and come back with the regrets of a thousand lives on his lips.)

"Why did you kill Iemitsu, then?" Tsunayoshi asks, softly, looking down at his hands like a lost child. How long ago had Iemitsu died? How long had he been gone? How long as the mafia been hounding this poor family, what happened to Nana, what—

"Wait, you mean I actually killed him?" Reborn blinks. "You're not just directing all that Vongola-anger onto me? I didn't kill him."

"N.. o..? I'm not? You- yes you did! Dad even talked about it, he knew they were planning to—"

It's probably incredibly rude, but Reborn presses the tips of his fingers against Tsunayoshi's mouth to get him to stop talking. For this part, Tsunayoshi doesn't look nearly as offended as most grownup men might. And maybe ought to.

"Let me explain." He takes his hand away once he's sure Tsunayoshi is willing to listen. "..I'm from a parallel world. Many parallel words, actually. I've been through a lot of them. My.. acquaintances, as you've met them, seem to have arrived years before I did. I, myself, the one you're talking to now, woke up on a train bound for Namimori about.. oh, 3 days ago. I don't even know who's running Vongola right now. You wouldn't happen to know, would you? It's not Timoteo, is it?"

Tsunayoshi laughs. Soft, breathless, disbelieving. Laughs.

Reborn sees nothing wrong with it. He's a little crazy himself.

"Why did they even want Iemitsu dead? He's annoying, I get it, but isn't he CEDEF? You can't just kill off CEDEF."

"He got in their way," Tsunayoshi says. He's leaning against the couch now. The eye-patch seems to have been jostled in their scuffle, but he doesn't see any scar tissue or anything worth hiding. "They wanted to bring me into the fold and he.. didn't want them to. Tried to stop them."

"So they killed him." Reborn nods, idly. Doesn't really sound like something Timoteo would do or any of his sons would do. Maybe senility got the best of him in this Cycle. "But they wanted you in before. Why do they want you dead now?"

When he looks up this time, the coppery tinge is still there in Tsunayoshi's eye and it flares even brighter. Though the Flame doesn't return to his brow, he seems to gain some amount of self-confidence in the next few moments. Shoulders drawing up, level and straight. Broad. Self-assured. The blood on his teeth when he bares them is probably from licking it away earlier.

"..I thought to myself, what would Reborn do," he says, in a murmur like a whisper, like a secret. "They took away some dear to me. The least I could do was repay the favor."

Oh.

Now it's Reborn's turn to laugh. A bark of laughter, deep and scratchy and hoarse, and he rubs delicately at his throat. Tsunayoshi really did do a good job of trying to strangle him. He doesn't even look sorry about it.

"They killed my father. So I killed theirs."

What a wonderful thought.


also announcing that if anyone has any scenes or prompts, things you'd be interested in seeing happen, pls feel free to drop a line! either on my tumblr, as a comment, or a pm. though i will be picking and choosing, of course, since i need to make it all revolve around an eventual plot.

there's gonna be one suggested prompt coming up in the next chapter, though it might be a while before i post that one. maybe. i have no impulse control when it comes to posting chapters, after all.