Lavina lives by the beat of her own drum.
Nana grows as a person, a parent, a fighter, and a dolphin.
Snake reads books sometimes.
Hibari.
Reborn is a baby.

-00-

Hope Reborn

-00-

Nana ran towards her house, both fists raised in the air for victory.

"I won!"

"I'll bite you to death!"

Okay, so tripping Kyoya into the river wasn't the nicest thing to do, but goddamnit if they had to go over the best muscles to use when strangling a fully grown, heavily muscled man (don't ask, his parents were literally insane) one more time she might actually lose her mind. It would never have come to this if Kyoya hadn't found that damn loophole. He had to choose something from the list, but Nana had never made a rule saying he couldn't pick the same thing more than once.

Her mistake.

One bullet fast tonfa skimmed her hip. Nana shrieked and sped up her pace. The best thing about Kyoya jumping what could be considered five levels in a single day all the damn time while Nana was stuck struggling to level once a week was that she could use the struggle to relate to Tsuna more. Her son took one look at how hard she was working against odds so unfairly stacked against her it was like she was going up against the devil himself armed only with a plastic spork and felt motivated to do his level best at school too.

The worst thing about it was she needed to come up with increasingly sneaky ways to beat the now sixteen-year-old war machine.

Luckily, during the times her plans actually worked and sent Kyoya into a seething rage, Nana had Lavina. Beautiful, kind, probably psychic Lavina.

Case in point, as Nana was running for her life Lavina was opening the front door to get the mail. She left it wide open, creating a perfect opening for Nana to escape.

"Yes!" Nana cheered, turning just enough to stick her tongue out at the boy chasing her. Not her most mature moment, no, but totally worth it. Kyoya looked like he had sucked on a lemon. An angry, murderous lemon.

Lavina was at the door now, turning to look at them with a fond smile. "Good morning Nana, good morning Kyoya-kun!"

Nana called back happily, so glad to have a friend like her. She hadn't actually thought through the whole escape plan part (the river had been a bit of improv) so it was sweet that she might actually be able to avoid death that day. All she had to do was-

Lavina closed the door.

"You bitch!" Nana screamed with crystal clear fear in her voice as she slammed into the wood. "I take back all the nice things I ever said about you! You are a horrible, horrible- AHHH!"

Lavina giggled behind her hand on the other side of the doorway.

Tsuna's head popped around the top of the stairs with his toothbrush sticking out of his mouth. The mountain of bed hair on his head made Lavina laugh harder. "Was that Mom?"

There was another loud scream, followed by what sounded suspiciously like a very low, very smug chuckle. Tsuna frowned, seemed to debate with himself, before disappearing back into the bathroom.

Lavina wiped a little tear for the corner of her eyes. Using the banister to support herself she walked towards the kitchen. It was still hard to stand for any long period of time but actually being able to walk around in the morning was such a wonderful feeling. Ignoring the tortured sounds outside with the ease of years of practice she carefully lowered herself into the closest chair of the dining room table and began to sort through the mail.

Three of the letters were for Nana. Two were taxes but the last one didn't have any postal mark or return address. Lavina flipped it over a few times before setting it aside. She'd make Nana open it when she was in the room. The last time they had gotten one of those there had been an astonishing amount of money paired with a tiny thank you note and a child's drawing of a hospital room with four smiling children. Nana had been upset about the money ("What the actual hell did they do to earn this much?) but ecstatic with the note. They had never told her who it was from or why they had gotten it ("I swore an oath Lavina, and as much as I want to believe they don't have the ability to immediately know when I break it I totally think one of them might actually be a prophet."). The only way to gather clues was to read the notes as they came, few and far between though they may be.

One of the letters was for Tsuna from Hayato. She loved that the two got along so well but honestly, Hayato wrote to Tsuna more than he did to her! She wanted to hear all about his day too!

Pouting a bit Lavina placed that on in a different pile and looked over the last two in her hands.

"Oh!" she blinked. They were both for her. One from Hayato and one from Salvi. It was probably another love letter…

Leaning back to make sure the front door was in fact locked and Nana would have to do some serious acrobatics to get it open she giddily opened the letter from Salvi.

Scanning over the beautiful cursive Italian she felt her cheeks heat up.

"What's that?"

"Nothing!" Lavina shrieked, slapping the letter face down as Tsuna walked in.

Tsuna paused, one eyebrow raised. Idly messing with his tie his eyes flickered down to the letter. "Is that from Gokudera-san?"

"Shh!" Lavina motioned for him to be quieter, glancing frantically towards the door. If Nana heard about the letter they would stop at nothing to figure out what it said.

Tsuna laughed. Tugging the knot in place he let his tie fall flat against his chest as he moved towards the toaster. "I'll keep it a secret Aunt Lavina but you know Mom will find it anyway."

Lavina sighed. "Yes, I know. For now though, what would you like for breakfast Tsuna-chan?"

Twitching at the 'chan' added to his name (Lavina couldn't help it, he was so cute!) he looked in the fridge. "Pancakes?"

"We had those on Monday," she reminded him.

He deflated a bit. "Just toast is fine then."

Lavina huffed. Bracing herself on the table she stood slowly. Tsuna rushed over to help her, one hand lifting her elbow while the other rested on her back. Lavina took the chance to snag his wrist in a surprisingly strong grip.

"You need to eat more than a slice of bread each morning Tsuna-chan, how else are you going to keep up your energy for school?"

Tugging him over to the stove she bullied him into helping make omelets.

When Nana dragged herself in like a worm they were just setting everything on the table.

"Lavina, why-," she looked up where the silverette was happily puttering about, then around the room. Jumping to their feet the pointed an accusing finger at her. "Where is your wheelchair?"

Lavina blinked, looking around as though for the first time. Lifting a hand to her cheek she pointedly looked away. "A lala~"

"Don't you 'a lala' me," she narrowed her eyes, ducking down the hall in search of the missing wheelchair. Her voice echoed easily through the hallway. "You're supposed to always have it in the same room as you just in case! What if you fell?!"

Lavina happily ignored her and chose to instead sit with Tsuna and enjoy their meal.

The rest of the morning was as peaceful as it could get with Lavina getting ready for her job at the Sushi shop (ever since they were gifted that beautiful piano they hired her on to come play throughout the day and she loved it), Nana 'subtly' following after her to make sure she was okay, and Tsuna tripping his way through the rest of his morning routine. Both Lavina and Nana had tried to fix his skewed tie but three seconds after twisting and tugging at it the thing would hop right back to being off kilter and lopsided.

"Text me later if you have time to run by the store," Nana tried one last futile time with the tie as Tsuna finished tapping his shoe on the ground to adjust its grip on his foot. "If you want to hang out with Takeshi-kun instead that's fine but I need to know by one if you can't make it."

"Okay Mom," Tsuna's voice was long-suffering but he allowed himself to be manhandled to the door.

"Have a good day at school," she hugged him quickly, once again marveling at how tall he was getting. Fourteen-years-old and he was only a handful of inches shorter. Clearly, he would not be taking after her in the height department.

"Mooom," he groaned a bit, shuffling in embarrassment. It didn't stop him from hugging her back though and she beamed.

"I know, I know," she placated, stepping back. "Tell Kyoya he isn't invited to dinner tonight."

Tsuna gave a deadpan look to the door. He would most certainly not be bringing that up. Telling Kyo-kun not to do something was like asking a ravenous bear into your home wearing a sign that said 'please eat me'. Lavina was making her infamous steaks tonight; nothing was keeping Kyo-kun from that meal.

"Sure thing Mom," he said instead, eyes flicking away tellingly.

Nana didn't call him out on it. It had been worth a shot.

As Tsuna left (handing the impatiently waiting Hibari a small bag of snacks as a bribery tactic to start the morning slow) Nana went back to the kitchen to find Lavina flicking through the mail once more. Snagging her near-empty cup off the table she refilled it with tea and made another cup of coffee for herself before settling down across from the woman.

"Taxes," Lavina handed over two of the letters. "And Tsuna-chan got another letter from Hayato. I got one too this time, but I was just thinking about he seems far more interested in talking to Tsuna-chan then he does his own mother."

"He still doesn't know you're his mother," Nana pointed out blandly, scowling over the forms. She assumed Hayato didn't know, but there was a chance he had already put two-and-two together. If he had, he hadn't mentioned anything.

"That's beside the point," Lavina waved the comment away airly. "Even if he doesn't know know he still sends me a gift every Mother's Day!"

"If that's the case what's the harm in telling him?" Nana asked for what had the be the thousandth time.

"Oh no," Lavina suddenly looked away, hands clasped together nervously. "I don't think that's a very good idea. It's been so long now, what would he think of me lying to him all this time? He would be so disappointed, and what if that really hurt him? I can't do that to him."

Arguing against her for this kind of thing was futile. Nana had tried. Numerous times. For years.

She assumed that, at some point, Hayato would use that big brain of his to figure it out, confront Lavina on his own, and the two would hash it out then. With how much the two adored each other she was sure that however strained it might become they would be able to work through it.

"-and in the end, I think that's for the best," Lavina nodded herself. "Don't you?"

"Sure," Nana drolled, flicking to the next page of her expense sheet.

"I can tell you weren't listening, but that's okay," she accepted calmly. "More importantly I was wondering what you thought of this."

Nana set the tax information to the side glancing down at the paper held in place by long fingers. She tilted her head as she read it upside down.

"A home tutor?" Nana frowned, tapping her fingers along the edges of her cup. "For Tsuna?"

"Yes, exactly!" Lavina chattered away, pushing the flyer across the table for her to look at. "Salvi sent it to me after I mentioned how busy you and I have gotten lately. With your work with Kyoya, and whatever else you've been doing when you sneak out," Nana looked away from the pointed look, "and my job at the Sushi Shop as well as the doctor appointments neither of us really have time to help Tsuna-chan with his studies as much as he needs it. This way he still gets the help he needs and you don't have to run yourself ragged trying to look after everyone."

"I'm fi-"

"You fell asleep in your soup last night," Lavina shot back like a whip, eyes closing delicately as she took a sip of her tea.

Nana closed her mouth. Pursing her lips she found she didn't have an argument for that one.

"Okay," she conceded. Hooking her feet behind the legs of her chair she hunched over with a pout. "So maybe I've been a little tired lately. That doesn't mean we need to bring in some random person to our home. What if they don't get along with Tsuna? Or what if he thinks we're abandoning him because we don't have time anymore?"

Lavina very nearly rolled her eyes (out of fondness of course) at her friend's mumbles. "If they don't get along then we find someone new. And I'm pretty sure Tsuna-chan will actually feel relieved to know you aren't forcing yourself to stay awake to help him with math. You know he feels bad about asking either of us for help."

"He shouldn't feel bad about something like that," Nana grumped, folding over further until her face was nearly pressed to the table.

"No," Lavina agreed, "but he does. It might actually help even more if the person teaching him is a third party. Someone who is actually paid to help him as a job rather than someone who he believes is wasting their time."

"He's not a waste of time," Nana whined, legs releasing the chair to brush lightly across the floor.

"Of course not," she flicked her hair back over her shoulder, voice dropping. "But he feels like he is. Emotions aren't rational enough to get rid of that feeling, especially at his age. The longer he starts to feel like a burden the stronger he will believe he actually is one."

Nana peeked up at the softened, saddened tone in her voice. Lavina wasn't looking at her anymore, eyes riveted on the wheelchair tucked against the wall.

"...It's very hard to feel like you are falling backward all the time," she murmured, hand rising to brush over the scars hidden beneath her shirt. "That you are bringing others down with you. People you care about. Perhaps now is the time to start pushing Tsuna-chan to be a bit more independent. Self-reliant. Being able to take care of yourself is, well," she smiled softly, eyes turned up at the corners as her expression warmed, "it's not a bad feeling."

Nana's teeth clenched on the torrent of emotion traveling through her eyes and throat straight to her heart. "I-" she scraped at the rim of the cup still grasped firmly between her hands, eyes flitting away. "I don't want him to be independent."

It was said in a whisper, like a confession of guilt.

She couldn't look Lavina in the eye. It was a terrible thing to think, and she always felt it in the back of her mind. Beneath the immense pride and love for Tsuna's accomplishments was the fear of him growing up. The knowledge that he would be an amazing adult, but that as an adult he wouldn't need them anymore. Every time he showed signs of growth Nana wanted to simultaneously cheer him on and pull him back to the safety of their arms.

Thin, elegant fingers covered her own, adding to the heat of the cup seeping into her skin.

Nana hesitated before looking up.

The morning sun was streaming in through the window, soft and light. It made the dust particles twirling through the air illuminate the silver glow of Lavina's hair even more. Unlike the disappointed expression Nana had been expecting (even the thought of that look being directed at her hurt like a knife) her eyes were crinkled along the edges to match the warm curl of her lips.

"But you will support him anyway."

It was spoken as a fact, as though there were no other way things could be. The amount of faith and trust Lavina had in her was astonishing and, just like every time before, it drew tears to her eyes.

"...I love you Lavina."

The taller woman patted her hand once more with a happy little hum. "I love you too."

Nana lifted herself up. Turning her head to look out the window, eyes following the trails of dust as they danced around, she sipped at her own cup of coffee. Lavina reached out and grabbed the newspaper at the end of the table. Flipping it open to the cartoons she left Nana to think about things.

"Do you have someone in mind?" Nana asked several moments later.

Lavina nodded. Still scanning over the page she pushed the little flyer further across the table. Nana picked it up between her thumb and forefinger like it was diseased.

"Salvi told me that if we were interested we should call this number and ask for Reborn."

Nana was glad she hadn't looked up. Her own face had pulled back in horrified disgust the moment she heard the name. This was all suspiciously starting to sound like a trap. 'Reborn'? Really? She thought Snake had just been courteous by not interrupting her talk with Lavina. Now his silence was taking on a whole different meaning.

"Snake, you little shit," she grunted, flicking the flyer onto the table.

Lavina ignored the harsh language, far too used to her best friend randomly arguing with her imaginary friend. She had thought it was weird the first few times it happened when they were children but she had long since gotten used to it. At this point, she had a strong belief that this 'Snake' person was actually a ghost with strong ties to her friend that stopped him from passing on for some reason and if Nana wanted to defend their own sanity by stalwartly believing they were imaginary then Lavina saw no harm in letting them. Not everyone could handle knowledge of the supernatural calmly after all.

"You totally knew about this," Nana continued to argue on the other side of the table.

"I had no part in this."

He sounded smug.

"But you knew about it," Nana scowled. Crossing her arms she leaned back in her chair.

"Reborn is a popular choice for infuencing change in others. If Gokudera Salvi is going to reccomend the best then there was no doubt who he would mention."

"Influencing change?" she scrunched up her nose. "The hell kind of phrasing is that? I need a tutor, not a life coach."

"Is that not what teachers are?"

"Ugh," Nana groaned. "Fine. Whatever. You've steered me to weird ass places but you've never actually steered me wrong so I'll-" oh god, it was so hard to say, "I'll trust you."

"Nana," he sounded genuinly touched.

"Shut up," she sighed without any real heat. "Consider this your reward for going a whole week without making any vague, ominous sounding remarks about the future."

"Ah," he sounded introspective. "You are correct. I've been lax."

"Wait, you've actually been aiming for that?" Nana gapped. "You son of a bitch, do you know how often you've freaked me out?"

"I've helped you prepare for the future," he sniffed snootily.

"You've given me anxiety is what you've done," she sniped back. "Can't you go one day without being an ass?"

"You mentioned just a moment ago that it has been an entire week-"

"Being ominous and being a dick are two different things!"

"You've always used the two terms so synominously that I had assumed you believed they meant the same thing."

Nana made an irritated popping sound with her lips, shaking her head. "I'm muting you for the rest of the day you ass."

"You can not 'mute' me."

No, she couldn't, but she had gotten really good at pretending she could.

"Okay," Nana nodded strongly, pushing the flyer back across the table. "Okay, we can give it a shot. Would you mind setting things up Lavina? I don't have a lot of experience with home tutors and stuff."

Lavina nodded and folded the newspaper back up so she could focus on the flyer. She had more knowledge on what to do and look for thanks to Hayato. Even if she wasn't there for everything she knew all about his teachers and how they were hired. Salvi had been very adamant about her being involved, which she was grateful for.

"Of course Nana. I have to get going soon but I can call over my lunch break."

"Cool," she breathed, a tension lifting off her shoulders. Until the tutor actually showed up she could pretend it wasn't happening. "Mind if I walk with you?"

"Of course not."

Lavina noticed very quickly when Nana went over to the wheelchair but didn't actually push it closer to her. Instead, she rolled it over to the door, waiting for her to catch up. Her heart warmed when Nana caught her eye, flushed a bit, then looked away. She really did love it here.

-00-

"Very good," Snake commended as she let her Flames fade away. "Your focus has grown. When using your Flames both offensively and defensively you should be able to cover your arms and the majority of your torso. If you focus purely on defense you can protect your entire body but spreading them out so thinly leaves them more vulnerable against someone with a higher power level than you. This is a problem that can be solved by increasing the intensity of your flames so continuing your training as you have been should be ample enough to continue forward."

"Cool," Nana huffed, hunching over with her hands on her knees. She'd been able to hold it for an hour this time. Sweet.

The weird thing about using Lightning Flames to protect yourself was how they actually protected you. The first time Snake had talked about it Nana had assumed it was like a force field bubble or something where as long as the Flames were around her she could reflect harm and stuff.

Haha, yeah. No.

She'd learned all about the two attributes of her Flames, hardening and strengthening. Strengthening she used when she was putting it into objects like the time she had been kidnapped. She could kind of use it on herself to make her physical strength higher but it drained her a lot so she preferred using outside objects and just running the Flames through them like a conduit. She hadn't quite grasped how badass that was until one day when she had been traveling in England with Kyoya a few years back while Lavina watched over Tsuna. He'd been out checking the perimeter of the hotel (the paranoia was strong in their family) so she'd been alone in the hotel room. Room service had brought some food by and she was folding the little napkins this way and that in boredom. The neighbors had been quiet for the most part but they dropped something when she had been experimentally running her Flames through the napkin to practice. The loud noise startled her into ripping it, except the paper hadn't ripped. While her Flames were going through it, it had practically been impossible to tear. Out of curiosity she had tried adding the hardening attribute and tossed it to the side.

It had flown through the air rapidly before sinking into the wall like it was made of butter. She could totally turn paper into knives, it was awesome. It worked on other stuff too, but the paper thing was by far her favorite application. Beating someone up with a sticky note would be so satisfactory.

The hardening part of her Flames is what she mostly used for minor defense. At first she just tried her clothes and stuff. Since it could turn slivers of paper into veritable blades of metal she figured using it on her clothes would create armor. That was totally true. It also made it really hard to move. Imagine your clothes suddenly being impossible to bend. They are stiff and unbreakable. There was a reason metalworkers created armor joints friends and Nana had gotten a very personal look into that thought proccess. So yeah, if she used it on her clothes she needed to be really careful. Either reduce the amount of protection they offered or wear clothes that didn't cover any of her joints (which was, like, shorts and a tank top). Not a lot of options there that made for a good defense so she tried it on something a little more readily accessible.

Snake had told her it was a bad idea, so of course Nana tried hardening their skin.

Skipping over the traumatizing frozen solid pain moments it had turned out pretty okay. She couldn't do it to all of her skin at once because, once again, joints were a thing that needed to move, but as her control grew she was able to quickly harden specific places that were going to be hit (very useful when facing Kyoya).

All of these things made her pretty confident in her fighting abilities, which in turn helped her when researching various members of the Italian Mafia.

Ever since Iemitsu, Nana had been horrified of the possibility of people coming after them. That fear only grew the more she learned about the people he worked for. The Vongola was huge, and it spanned generations. Their enemies were almost innumerable and the more she dug the more she feared. Iemitsu was the head of a huge part of the Vongola. He was, technically, the second-in-comman during times of crisis. That was... big. And dangerous.

The Estraneo Family (and now that she knew more about them she wished she had been far more aggressive when escaping) had found her easily thanks to one small letter. She had sent it normally, instead of the usual weird ways Iemitsu always encouraged her to use (a lot of security measures really helped her paranoia about his job back then) and that one petty mistake had both her and Kyoya captured within moments. The Estraneo Family was gone now (and she had a horrible inkling as to who may have done that) so no one else should have known about them but a simple slip up is all it would take. She owed Kouske big time for helping her research everything. What she lacked in technological understanding he made up for in spades. The sheer amount networks he could get into was... alarming. But really, really cool.

Since learning what could one day try to come after her loved ones Nana upped her training every day. Training wasn't just about freeing Tsuna. It was about protecting him and the rest of their family. She needed to be as strong as she possibly could in case the worst happened, and she needed to get that seal broken. Nana didn't want Tsuna fighting, but she absolutely wanted him to know how to defend himself if it came down to it. With his Flames locked away, his physical abilities were always slow to develop and she couldn't push him much further without letting him know that something was wrong. He shouldn't have to deal with that kind of shit so young but she was running out of options.

"Am I any closer?" Nana breathed slowly to help regulate her pulse.

"...No."

She hated his honesty some times.

"How much longer?"

"If you continue to grow at the same rate, without the aid of any Flame born technology, then... years. At the very least."

"Fuck!" Nana ran her hands through her hair, flopping down to sit on the grass. "It will take years for him learn how to use them, let alone readjust to not having them sealed in the first place! How old will he be when he can finally get everything back? When will he feel right in his own body Snake? When will he feel like he belongs?!"

Years- Years of Tsuna telling her that the world looked funny; like it was tilted wrong on its axis. Of him smiling blankly on the side after getting pushed to the sides during sporting events because he just couldn't keep up. Night after night of strenuous studying because the words and numbers didn't fit right and even though he knew something wasn't quite right his stunted comprehension kept him from knowing why and that just added more and more stress to his already pressured mind. It was a miracle he hadn't just given up on trying at this point. Nana honestly thought he almost had a few times. Fourteen-years-old and ready to throw in the towel because nothing was working, when Nana knew exactly what was causing the problem and she could do nothing about it. Before he had been born she had known something like this was a possibility. That kids were born that would always have to struggle more than others just to progress. She had known that, accepted that, and promised to be there for him regardless of what he could or could not do because he was her baby and he deserved all the love she had to give. As long as he was truly happy, that was all that mattered.

But this was different. This was something caused by someone she had trusted above all others. Something that was broken by another but could be fixed if only she were not too weak to even be able to try. Everyone else that had Flames, the very few names she could find, were part of the Vongola or connected to them in some way. The very same people that created this problem were the only other means she had to fix it and goddamnit it wasn't fair! Tsuna tried so hard but she saw how he would come home after a long day with his shoulders hunched and eyes empty. How he would say good-bye to his friends and watch them enviously as they left to do something amazing while he went home to study so he didn't flunk out like he did every day. How sometimes getting out of bed was his greatest trial and Nana had to fight back the horrified lump of fear in her throat to encourage him to start his morning until he painstakingly started to move.

"Snake," she choked, curling up and burying her head into her knees. "What do I do?"

"Exactly what you have been doing," Snake informed her, voice uncharacteristically soft. "You seem to have forgotten again. Your selective hearing for the things I tell you is the biggest cause for most of your troubles."

Nana sniffed grossly.

"Why did I bring you here?"

"Cause your an asshole," she croaked.

Snake sighed, his eye roll clear in his voice. "No. Sawada Tsunayoshi is going to save the world one day, and you are here to make sure he survives and is cared for until then."

Nana coughed a bit, thinking about it. "That's... That's still going to happen? Iemitsu didn't fuck that up?"

"No," Snake replied easily. "If I thought he was going to interfere in a way that jeopardized that I would have intervened."

"So you do have a physical body?" Nana pressed, eyes peering over her arms at the dark trees around her.

"Nana."

"Alright, sorry," she laughed a bit at his dry tone. "I'll get that out of you another day. Tsuna's really going to save the world?"

"Yes."

"And he'll be okay, right? He'll save the world and be okay afterward."

"He will survive, yes."

"I don't like the sound of that part," Nana shifted, still curled up in a ball to ward off the night chill now that her adrenaline was dropping. "Surviving and being okay can be two different things."

"Just like every human being he will struggle and he will face pain. He does not have to be a savior to experience that." He sighed when Nana ducked away again. "He will be happy. He will be surrounded by people he loves who love him in return. He will be strong."

"...Okay," Nana let a few more tears drop.

"Why are you crying again? That was intended to be taken as a good thing."

"It was, jeez," Nana scrubbed at her face. "Those were happy tears. Despite your ability to piss me off by existing you're... surprisingly good at this comforting thing. Or, at least, you're better than you were."

"I have been reading books to help with that."

Nana snorted. "What, like self-help books?"

"Yes."

"Awww, Snake," Nana cooed, the cold doing nothing against the sudden bit of warmth she felt. "You read books about how to not be an asshole... for me?"

"I never said it was for you."

"You don't have to buddy, I know."

"You are severely overestimating yourself."

"Say what you want," Nana laughed, pushing herself to her feet. "I know you've got a heart in there somewhere. Now that you've shown it, there's no going back pal. I'll always know that deep down you care."

Snake didn't answer her for the rest of the night but that was okay. Her hope had been reignited.

-00-

One week later

"Oh. My God. Kyoya," Nana flipped away, barely avoiding the high kick. "I have to go. I'm already late!"

"The match has not been decided yet."

Yeah, well, if he had let Nana throw away the match three hours ago then it would have been! Damn Hibaris and their pride. Natsuki and Kouske weren't even trying to help! They were just sitting over on their deck, sipping their tea and watching them like some kind of sports entertainment show!

When Nana had first brought up the idea of creating handicaps it had been with the full intention of giving himself an edge against the inhuman teen. A game of, what was in essence, capture the flag (the flag being a ribbon tied up in their hair) was made far more interesting by the fact that their hands were tied behind their backs and they were only allowed to use their feet and the environment around them. Nana had this game in mind for awhile, but he had waited to bring it up until his son and Takeshi had been by to go swimming. The random pool toys lying around were the only way he would be winning this but god damn Kyoya did not know how to stay still!

"Do not let your frustration get the better of you," Natsuki called to her son encouragingly. Kouske drained what had to be his fifth cup of coffee and moved to get yet another while nodding along to his wife's words. It still freaked Nana out how quickly he could type (without error apparently) while staring them down without so much as a glance at the screen.

"Natsuki!" Nana bemoaned. Using his anger against him was, like, the one sure fire way Nana had to win any of these!

Maybe, if he was really careful, he could pretend to lose well enough that Kyoya believed him.

"You are a terrible actor. If you pretend to lose it will only infuriate him more."

"You know, it's times like this where you saying you can't read my mind sounds like complete bullshit," Nana hissed under his breath as he tucked and rolled behind one of the trees lining the outside area of the pool. He was running out of tools to use. Kyoya had already kicked the pool noodles to literal pieces and the water guns were useless for their purpose. Nana had just started using them as projectiles themselves but there was only one left way over by the deck.

"I can not read your mind, you are just very predictable."

"Predictable my ass," Nana muttered before rushing towards the deck.

Kyoya, having easily predicted the movement, intercepted midway with a kick so strong the air actually whistled around his leg.

Nana, having known Kyoya for far too long not to know he would totally kill strike them if given the chance, flung himself up and over the teen before making a mad dash straight past the water gun and onto the deck itself.

Kyoya darted after him, growling when he moved so that Kouske was between them. The man blinked once, slowly, before lifting his gaze to the sky. Whether he was praying for something or just watching the clouds roll by Nana didn't care. So long as they didn't mess with his work he wouldn't move to interfere.

Kyoya, having a super weird love for trying to beat the shit out of his dad, had long since realized it was a mistake to do so when the laptop was out. Thus, they were at a stand off.

"You are taking a cowards way out," he glared, eyes sharpened like knife points.

"I'm surprised you thought I wouldn't," Nana shifted to the left when he stepped forwards, constantly shifting to keep the older Hibari between them. Natsuki, on the other side of the table, pulled out her phone.

The super fancy, totally unnecessarily large clock in their dining room chimed out six times.

Nana grimaced. "Kyoya, seriously. I have to go. Tsu-kun's tutor is coming today and I want to actually meet them before they leave for the day."

"Then fight."

"I have been fighting!" Nana would have thrown his hands up in the air if they weren't anchored behind his back (he would never ask, nor think about why Natsuki had various coils of rope of the perfect length to tie up people's hands in their garage). "If you just let me forfeit then it's your win! Take the win!"

Kyoya side stepped rapidly to the right, making Nana almost trip over his feet to keep the only blockade of safety he had left.

There was a long, put upon sigh in the back of his head.

"Only in the interest that I do not have to watch this any longer, it would be best to remember that Tsunayoshi left the diving pieces they could not find at the bottom of the pool."

Nana blinked.

Oh. Oh~

"Kyoya," Nana straightened, voice stern. The boy paused, one eyebrow raised. "I told Tsuna about fruit stall incident."

And then, with the very real fear for his life, Nana bolted for the pool. Just as he had hoped, Kyoya had been frozen by the sudden revelation giving him three extra precious seconds to reach the water before what could be considered the physical incarnation of the guillotine flew after him.

Let this be a lesson. Swimming with your arms tied is really, really difficult. You can propel yourself, sure, but you have practically nothing in the way of steering. The only way you could bypass arm motions is by having insanely precise body control and leg strength.

Not to brag, but Nana's legs were killer.

Kyoya in all that he was, was a killer. He was cutting through the water like a natural born shark and Nana was not about that shit.

Thankfully, the world took pity on Nana (as it should with all the crap he has to put up with, honestly) and a colorful little piece of rounded plastic was resting prettily on the bottom of the pool right next to where he had dived in. Pinching it between his toes was unnecessarily difficult, but he managed to grasp it decently right before Kyoya's looming face appeared next to them like a horror movie monster.

Nana shrieked, bubbles exploding out of his mouth and blocking both of their views for a moment. Focusing a bit of his Flames into the plastic Nana twisted around and shot it towards the young boy. It cut through the water like scissors through paper but Kyoya ignored it, choosing instead to press the attack.

Nana grinned, wide and vicious, when he kicked them to the side. The kick was hard enough to send them up and out of the pool.

The ribbon that had been cut from Kyoya's hair thanks to the hardened plastic was held carefully between his toes.

"Ha!" Nana cheered, shivering a bit when the dark mess of hair rose from the water. It was like the Creature from the Black Lagoon. Eesh. "There, battle over!"

Kyoya was not stopping.

"Wha- hey!" Nana ducked, scrambling away. "Come on Kyoya, I was lying! I didn't actually tell Tsuna what happened, I swear!"

"Send that to me," Kouske told his wife, finally turning his attention to the screen in front of him as the two began sparring again.

"Of course," she nodded, following the pair with her phone. The day was always interesting when Nana came to visit.

-00-

Nana had seen a lot of shit. Living with a disembodied voice that apparently knew the future as well as having even minor ties to the Italian Mafia you were bound to see and hear things that were a little out of the ordinary.

When he had finally gotten home (note to self, never bring up the fruit stand incident ever again. Ever) he had assumed the home tutor must have left. The sun had been long gone and it was a fruitless hope to want to meet the person on their first day. Lavina was a pretty good judge of character, so he was sure things had been fine, but he really didn't want to miss the first day of what might be a huge change in his son's life. Still, what was in the past was in the past and he would just have to wait until tomorrow. Instead, he slouched home, bemoaning his new aches and bruises but still feeling pretty jazzed about winning.

Walking through the doors with a tired "I'm home" he had expected to see Lavina and Tsuna eating dinner in the kitchen. Which they had been. Alongside Tsuna's new home tutor.

"...Lavina."

"Yes?"

"That's a baby."

"Don't be silly Nana, that's Reborn."

A baby wearing a suit with a matching fedora (was that a fucking chameleon looped around the brim?!) sipping espresso as it chilled out at her table and casually reading the newspaper was…

Okay, honestly, it was not the weirdest thing he had seen. It was pretty up there, sure, but it certainly wasn't in the top five. Didn't mean he was cool with it though.

"Judging a book by its cover?" Snake sounded far too amused.

"He's a baby ," Nana emphasized once again because apparently he was the only one realizing this. Oh, no. Wait. Tsuna also seemed to understand where he was coming from. At least his son had the common sense to know this was weird.

"You were once a baby too, were you not?"

"Uh, yeah. Babies can't really… do much. In case you forgot. Even when I was a baby I was still just a little lump."

"Not the second time around."

The baby was looking at him now and geez, those were some pitch black eyes. Nana wanted to say they were cute (cause babies were always cute) but the feeling he was getting from them was a little… unnerving.

Wait. Was Snake trying to tell him that this kid was like him?

"Ciaossu."

Nana blinked. The kid was standing on the table now so that they were closer in height with his hand stuck out.

"My name is Reborn. I am the home tutor."

"Uh," Nana replied intelligently. Reaching out he shook the tiny hand in his own. "Sawada Nana. Nice to meet you?"

"Reborn doesn't have anywhere to stay," Lavina informed her chirpily, piling a new plate with food. "I told him I would ask you if he could live here for a while."

"No where to- but he's a baby!" Nana balked. How could a kid have nowhere to stay?! "Of course you can stay here, but what about your parents? Shouldn't they-"

"I do not have parents," Reborn spoke up loudly over Tsuna's sudden spluttering.

"Oh," Nana frowned. "I'm sorry if I brought up any bad memories Reborn-kun. Please, feel free to stay. You'll have to room with Tsu-kun but there should be plenty of space."

"Dad!" Tsuna cried, slamming his hands on the table. "You can't be serious! He's a baby! And he keeps telling me he's trying to turn me into a m-"

Nana did a double take when Tsuna suddenly cut off, falling from his chair like he'd been flung from it.

"A magnificent student," Reborn finished for him. "I appreciate your offer. I would like to stay."

"Tsuna…" Nana shook his head. "You called me dad?"

Nana had yet to inform anyone of his change and Tsuna never mistakenly called him anything other then what he told him he was. Not since he was younger. Before…

Tsuna sat up, face flushing. "S-sorry Mom, I meant-"

"No, Tsu-kun you were right. I just… I wondered how you knew?"

Now it was his son's turn to pause. Tsuna frowned, a crinkle forming between his eyebrows.

"I-" he shook his head. "I don't know. It just… felt like it?"

Lavina looked up now, concerned when Nana breathed in sharply.

"Nana, are you okay?"

"Oh," Nana breathed shakily, eyes flitting from the baby watching everything with interest to his son. " Oh. Did you-?"

"Reborn is a popular choice for influencing change in others," Snake repeated his statement from before, when they had first talked about hiring a home tutor. "As much as you have progressed there is only so much you could do to weaken the seal on Tsunayoshi. Reborn will deal with that for you."

"You-," Nana blinked rapidly against the sudden burning in his eyes. He could feel his hands shaking when he reached out to take Reborn's smaller ones. " Thank you. "

His voice was shaking, filled with so much gratitude it felt like he was going to choke on it. His heart stuttered in his chest like a hummingbird.

He had to close his eyes against the tears of pure, utter relief threatening to spill over like a waterfall. He'd worked for this relentlessly for years, pushing himself past limits he hadn't even known he had just for a chance to give his son back what had been so wrongfully taken from him.

A little part of him had always worried that he would never be strong enough. That Tsuna would forever live feeling like something was missing. A peice of him, just gone.

Then this child, this person , walks in and offers to do what he could not. Had already taken steps towards that goal if Tsuna's sudden awareness was anything to go by.

"Please, take care of my son."

"Dad!" Tsuna sounded almost betrayed, baffled by the strong show of emotion. Lavina smiled again, glad to see the tears were happy ones.

Nana's eyes fluttered back open, vision wavering, when tiny hands squeezed back.

"I will," Reborn promised, looking them over with a curious gaze. "That's my job."

-00-

The next morning

"What the- Tsuna!" Nana called up the stairs, newspaper rolled up in his hand. "Why on earth were you running around town in your boxers yesterday?! The news says you were shouting out about telling your friends something? Get dressed next time before you leave the house! You'll get sick!"

"Hiiieeeee!"

A loud thumping sound came from the floor above and Nana sighed, shaking his head.

"Honestly," he huffed, moving back towards the kitchen. "What am I going to do with you?"

-00-

And thus, Reborn has managed to weasel his way in.
I changed up Tsuna's first Dying Will moment since he's already friends with Kyoko and less prone to turning into a babbling ball of mush when he's around her. Instead, he was just going to tell all his friends how amazing they are and how badly he wants to be able to do things with them all the time instead of just during the school day. They both have clubs and other friends (like Hana) so they don't hang out nearly as much as they had when they were kids and he's feeling a bit lonely.
Hope you liked it!