Okay, a lot of people are complaining that Natsu should have told Reborn to shove it when he came to make him Decimo. There is a reason why he hasn't.
Natsu has been training with Fon for four years, and at some point he mentioned the "creepy baby" that forced him to split up with his brothers in the first place, and Fon immediately identified said person as Reborn. Needless to say Fon warned Natsu about his colleague and told him that if Reborn had had a contract on him at the time, then it was easier to humor him (unless someone was trying to kill him, then he was doomed anyway) than it was to fight.
Ergo the second he found out Reborn was there to train him under orders (meaning under contract) Natsu knew he'd never be rid of Reborn any time soon and decided to go along with it. He didn't bring up his Hunter's License because he knows better. If Reborn knew he had it, then he would have likely gotten rid of it or sold it, because it's the only solid proof Natsu has at this point that he's a Hunter.
I hope that clears up the confusion... also, there is no way in HELL I am making Lambo Natsu's Lightning Guardian. There's a reason why I had Gon and his group awaken their flames and why I made Gon a Lightning.
Reborn knew he picked the right way to at least start some form of trust between them when he saw the look on Natsu's face.
It was a picture of Nana holding a smaller Natsu in her arms, smiling at the camera during a vacation. Reborn had several photos he took from the home, mostly to use as incentive to get Natsu to do something.
From the notes he was sent from Lal Mirch (who was absolutely disgusted Iemitsu hadn't shared them already, considering Reborn needed to know this), Natsu either shattered the seal out of desperation or it was broken by the experiments. Several of the dead bodies showed signs of having gone into Discord before they were disposed of.
And the only way that would happen would be if they tried to connect with an Active Sky and their Flames were rejected in a way that made them turn on the owner.
The only Sky in that lab was Natsu.
Combined with the well written reports Fon made to his clan about his apprentice (Fon never explicitly stated what the boy's Flame type was for obvious reasons), the Storm had noted something odd about Natsu while he was training him.
The boy instinctively knew how to inflict Discord on others with his Flames. Fon had been safe, mostly because he had developed a minor bond with Natsu during training, but the foolish Storm and Lightning who had accosted them had fallen victim to the dangerous condition when they tried to force harmonization on Natsu while they were out. Fon had been forced to eliminate them as a result.
Considering what had been done to him, it was likely he had developed that particular ability as a self-defense technique.
It was very dangerous, but Natsu was too kind to use it normally. Not unless he felt his safety was in genuine danger against another Flame user.
Which was the only reason Fon had completed his basic training at all. The boy had far more morals than most of the Mafia put together.
Reborn and Chrome pretended to ignore the fact Natsu spent the entire night crying. He managed to hide it well enough the next morning, but Kyouya (the battle-crazed teenager from next door) still noticed it.
"Small carnivore, what happened?" he demanded.
Chrome enlightened him, since it was highly doubtful Natsu would.
"Reborn went back to Natsu's old house and gave him some of the pictures of him and his mother before she was killed. Natsu still hasn't gotten over how she died, which is why we live here and not in the home he grew up in."
Kyouya's eyes narrowed.
"What was the old address?" he asked suspiciously.
Because he had the sneaking suspicion the small animal that had been taken from his territory had come back as a trained carnivore. He had not been pleased with what happened over seven years ago.
Natsu told him in a flat voice, confirming what he already suspected. Considering Natsu had already proven that he was indeed a recently licensed Hunter, Kyouya made a decision.
He would not let the small carnivore be harmed again.
A strange warmth blossomed in his chest, and it fit almost perfectly with the explanation the damn carnivore (Fon) had given him shortly after he first manifested purple flames on his tonfas.
The fake baby smirked at them both.
"Congratulations Natsu, it seems you've gotten your first Guardian."
"Wait, what?" said Natsu, head whipping to look at Reborn.
"You can feel it, can't you? That warmth in your chest is harmonization, and with a particularly strong Cloud to boot. Those are nearly impossible to find, and take forever to bond with."
"Oh, is that what that feeling is? I just thought it was a really strong connection with someone. I know my brothers tended to get a bit clingy after we escaped, saying it felt painful to be away from me."
Reborn blinked.
"You've felt it before?"
"Multiple times. Hell, Nii-san mentioned feeling it when we were escaping the lab, how the warmth shielded them from whatever I did to send the experiments berserk."
"...Didn't you show Gon and the others how to awaken their Flames before we left?"
"Oh yeah. Killua mentioned something about his chest feeling warm too..." said Natsu thinking about it.
"Brat. How many times have you felt harmonization and what color of flames were they?" demanded Reborn. Because that meant he had to track down the people in question to see them trained.
Natsu pulled out a well worn notebook.
"Let's see. There's my brothers, who had indigo, yellow and blue respectively. Then there was Master Fon, who had red though it was a lot weaker than what I felt with Nii-san. And of course Chrome here who has strong indigo... and then there was Killua who had indigo and light violet, Gon with yellow and green, Leorio who was straight yellow and Kurapika who has violet and indigo. And finally Kyouya who has the same but in different proportions," said Natsu. "So about ten."
Reborn stared at him.
"And where are they now?" he asked.
"Well Nii-san and the others said they would make their way here at some point, and the meet up spot would be arranged by dead drop at my old address. Killua and Gon are training in the Celestial Sky Arena at the moment, though last I heard they were almost at the top floor. Kurapika split up with us after we helped him put some of his family members to rest, though considering the lead he got from Chrome he might come to this area to deal with her mother. And Leorio is currently training to become a doctor in his home town," said Natsu, listing them off.
"Why is she with you then?" asked Kyouya.
"Because from a legal standpoint I'm Chrome's legal guardian," said Natsu bluntly. "The short and simple of it is that because she bonded to me during the exams, there was a bit of paperwork filed and she was placed into my custody since the only other option would be to return her to her abusive mother. So long as she has a regular check up and is well cared for, her mother can't remove her from my custody."
"Well that explains the odd notation in her application," muttered Kyouya.
He had thought it a clerical error when he read the files, but now it made perfect sense.
A small figure was looking around with wide eyes. She had tracked down the person she wanted to meet the most, and the voice in the back of her head had been rather insistent she find him. It hadn't been easy, but fortunately she had training...at least she was trained until the incident when she was seven.
Onii-chan wasn't going to be happy, but their family were mean. She didn't like being locked up.
If things worked out, she'd never have to be locked away again.
Seeing the teen and the girl, she brightened.
She completely ignored the baby nearby and promptly tackled the boy.
"Nii-chan, I found you!"
Natsu POV
This was not what he expected when he woke up this morning, but his intuition had at least given him fair warning something weird would happen today. He had thought it would be because of Reborn though.
Seeing the adorable little girl who insisted he was her 'Nii-chan', his intuition went on hyper alert. As if warning him that the wrong move would end up with something that would bring no end of disaster down on his head.
"Um... hello? What's your name?"
"Alluka!"
"Okay, Luka-chan. How do you know I'm your 'nii-chan'?" he asked slowly.
Alluka had a weird smile on her face, and his danger senses were going off big time.
"Because she told me that I wouldn't have to stay in that dark room if I found the same nii-chan who's attached to Onii-chan!"
Dark room? Natsu looked at her closer and realized she was ridiculously pale, as if she had been locked away from sun for a very long time. He could commiserate...and filed away asking who "she" was until later.
"Do your mama or papa know you're here?"
Alluka shook her head.
"Mama and Papa told me I wasn't allowed out of the room or to see anyone since those mummies came by and talked to them. Onii-chan used to talk to me, but he went away with his new friends," she said pouting. "They would be really, really mad if they knew I was here."
Natsu carefully prodded her with his Flames... and nearly gaped.
Dear kami, she was stronger than Mukuro-nii and closer to Reborn or Fon in strength, and he could tell she was Nen-active as well. Likely with a really dangerous ability, which would explain why they locked her up.
Well, there was no way he was going to let a little girl suffer being locked away for the rest of her life because of something she couldn't control. Besides, she looked familiar, like he had seen her features before on someone else.
"Well Luka-chan, how about you stay with us for a while?"
Alluka beamed at him, and when she realized he wasn't going to try and get rid of her or make her leave, she harmonized with him easily.
Reborn was very wary of her. Something about her was off, and not in a good way.
In the Celestial Sky Arena...
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN ALLUKA GOT OUT?! No she hasn't come here! Do you really think I would let her wander around outside the mansion with her ability, especially after the warning we got?!"
Gon winced at the volume level. Killua was equal parts horrified and worried.
Then again that could be because Illumi had called Killua directly. He wondered who Alluka was.
Killua looked really freaked out.
"What happened?"
"My little sister got lose from the mansion and is nowhere near our family lands. Which is bad. Really, really bad," said Killua openly stressed out.
"Bad as in..."
"We were warned by the underworld 'police' called the Vindice that if she went on a rampage again they would lock her away permanently and we'd never see her again. The problem is that with her ability she would be a major commodity in the underworld, and is something of a danger to the public if she starts her ability up again," said Killua, almost pulling his hair out in worry. "And now she's loose."
Gon winced.
"Do you have any idea where she would go?"
"Other than try to find me, not really. I mean I'm one of the few she actually likes, and she went missing less than a week after I left to train with you. If she hasn't tracked me down, then I have absolutely no idea where she would go."
He might not like his family's line of work, but he did love Alluka. He was so pissed that they took over a month to tell him she was missing.
"I'll help look, if we find any leads," said Gon firmly.
"Thanks," said Killua. There was nothing he could do, and wandering around without any idea where she was wouldn't help. Illumi was already on the hunt, as was his father and grandfather.
Natsu took one look at the new transfer and immediately pegged the boy as a classic Storm. Considering the exasperation Reborn had to the fact he kept attracting Mists as "Elements", it was likely he had called this kid in to start filling in the missing Elements in his collection.
He had already started to make headway when he accidentally busted the local baseball star for over-training his right arm in front of his dad. The second the sushi chef found out "Takeshi" had been experiencing a great deal of pain in his right arm lately, he put the boy on medical leave from sports until it healed up.
Takeshi had been giving him odd looks ever since, as if he didn't know whether to hate Natsu or thank him. To be fair, Natsu had never spoken to him before, and didn't really care if he was popular for his baseball skills.
He just saw a major problem and told someone who would actually act on it appropriately. He wasn't exactly in Namimori to make friends with the locals.
Gokudera Hayato had a major chip on his shoulder worse than the one Kurapika had.
Natsu could tell just by looking at him that the guy had something to prove, mostly to himself, and was a bit high strung.
He knew he had Hayato pegged when he started in on him during break and started drawing out dynamite of all things.
Natsu gave him an unimpressed look.
"Really Reborn? This was the best you could come up with? If I did take him on it's going to take forever to beat some damn sense into him, much less deal with the chip on his shoulder," said Natsu in complaint.
Reborn tilted his hat, likely to hide his smirk.
"Fine, let's get this over with. Otherwise Luka-chan will start stalking Kyouya again."
Alluka had taken a real shine to the older teen after she saw him fight, and much to the annoyance of the Cloud had taken to stalking him for fun.
The only reason he hadn't dumped her right back on Natsu was because the one time he tried to ditch her in yakuza territory she wiped out a decent number of thugs in less than five minutes. Her skills were good, but it was clear she hadn't had much practice in them for quite some time.
He had taken to showing her how to use tonfas out of boredom and to see how much more effective a carnivore she could be.
It was also very hilarious to see the double takes people did whenever she started calling him Kyouya-nii to his face and him letting her get away with it. Or it was likely because she had started carrying identical weapons and beating people with them if they annoyed her.
It was surprising none of the teachers had commented on the fact she had started to stay in the same room Kyouya had commandeered during school hours, despite being too young to actually attend their school. So long as she was doing homework and behaving, Natsu couldn't bring himself to care. Neither could Kyouya, for that matter.
Hayato was rough around the edges, had all the loyal enthusiasm of a frequently kicked puppy who kept coming back for more, and upon learning that most if not all of his bombs were home made, was something of a genius in chemistry. And quite possibly a lot of other subjects.
Most would simply look at his bad habits and not the good ones, before promptly dismissing him as not worth the effort.
But Natsu had lived with the likes of Ken and Chikusa, as well as the sometimes cranky Mukuro-nii. Ken, who was very much rough around the edges and inclined to attack others when he thought they were insulting Natsu, Mukuro or even himself, but was far more loyal and caring than he would admit to and had a major soft spot for abused animals and kids.
Chikusa, who didn't say much but was scarily smart and was the type to plot the most evil revenge before acting on it in a way that wouldn't be traced back to him later. The only one who shared Natsu's love of learning and had a lot of patience.
And finally Mukuro, who hated almost all mafioso for damn good reason, and who was very overprotective of his "minions" and little brother to the point he wouldn't hesitate to torture anyone who pissed him off, or worse, possess them. But he was also one of the first who would jump in to protect those he considered his.
So where most would look at Hayato Gokudera and see someone too troublesome to put up with, Natsu saw a diamond in the rough that only needed someone who was willing to make it shine.
