Mia Tempesta
Summary: Reborn never liked being a (secondary) Sky, but he can't deny his nature forever, so one day he starts collecting his Elements. Except now there was a tiny Storm that packs quite a punch that he doesn't know what to do with. Denial leads to trouble, trouble leads to possessiveness, possessiveness leads to ... something else much more tender. Throw in Checkerface and the Arcobaleno Sky into the mix and things get quite complicated.
Reborn looked down at his cards and smirked as he put three cards down at the center pile, leaving him with only two more in hand. The fact that all three cards were identical had his dearest son glaring death at him even as poor, poor Kusakabe obediently drew six cards. And then another one because, despite the twenty cards he now had in hand, none of them were yellow or the right symbol.
Almost all the yellow cards somehow kept coming to Reborn, which might be why Kyoya was glaring at him.
"What?" The oldest one there asked, blinking innocently at the teen Cloud. Kyoya's glare, if it was at all possible, got deadlier. If people could literally die from glared daggers, Reborn would no longer be the world's greatest hitman. Kyoya would.
"You're counting cards," accused the Disciplinary Committee Chairman without hesitation, bringing a pause to their game as Shamal and Kusakabe observed the family drama. Usually the rest of the Disciplinary Committee would play along, but there's been some sort of commotion as of late with three members ending up in the hospital, along with one of the students from Nami-chuu, which meant the other members were out patrolling the streets since Namimori as a whole was their territory. Kyoya's been particularly bloodthirsty and very tense lately, which was why Reborn had suggested they hold a game night. If it turns out to be some random gang, Reborn will gladly let the idiots feel the steel of Kyoya's tonfa, but he had received a call from Bermuda asking him if any suspicious teenagers have arrived in Japan. Reborn didn't want Kyoya involved with anyone that the Vindice would be hunting. He'd sent an inquiry to Dino about what might have the Vindice's bandages in a twist, since Bermuda had all but hung up on him as soon as it became clear that he had no useful information, and so he was still waiting for an answer.
Until he has some information on what might be happening, he will keep Kyoya out of any possible trouble. If something were to happen to him, Reborn would never forgive himself and, bond or no bond, neither would his Guardians, Fon especially.
Hence the game night and the glaring.
"You can't count cards in Uno, Kyoya."
The glare, once again, became impossibly deadlier. Reborn almost whistled appreciatively. "Maybe the rest of the world can't, but I'm not putting it past you, babbo."
Reborn opened his mouth to protest but had to acknowledge the point. "Okay, fair. But I'm not. Not this time, anyway." He usually did it to mess with Viper - since they usually really rather appreciated that little talent of his when they roped Reborn into playing poker or blackjack for the big money because it meant Reborn won lots and lots of cash for them - and Verde - who could do it but saw no sense in wasting a brilliant mathematician brain like Reborn's or his own on such frivolous activities, though the scientist did have a bit of a hard time with keeping up with the cards in Uno and he didn't understand how Reborn could do it seemingly effortlessly. It wasn't easy, let him tell you, but Reborn can do it whenever he pleases. He'd done it once after a drinking contest with Colonello, back before they'd taken Kyoya under their metaphorical wing all those years ago.
Colonello and Skull still occasionally checked to see if Reborn will sprout a tail or some tentacles at random, like some sort of cliche alien.
(Then again, Checkerface wasn't the same species as the rest of them, so maybe it wasn't as impossible as they'd thought.)
"Maybe he's just reading our minds with that weird trick of his?" Shamal suggested, already resigned even as he drew two more cards but played a new one. "Red," he said, changing the color. Kyoya had the same card, which meant Reborn should draw eight cards now. Except he smirked and put down the same card.
"Uno," he purred in wicked satisfaction. Kusakabe, the poor sod, just sighed in resignation and followed the rules of the game. Shamal groaned but didn't complain. Kyoya kept glaring. "Oh, and I say yellow."
The pompadour teen groaned at that, too, and drew a card. Suddenly, he went very, very still. He shifted uneasily, eyeing everyone at the table. He looked like he wanted to flee. "Can I just fold?"
"This isn't poker, kid," pointed out the doctor in the room. Kyoya narrowed his eyes suspiciously and the hitman arched an eyebrow.
"Can I skip my turn then?"
"Just play the card, Kusakabe Tetsuya," snapped a fed up Kyoya and the Second in Command of the Disciplinary Committee had no choice but to do as his Chairman told him. He put the card down - a yellow! Imagine that! - and Reborn burst out into laughter when he saw that it was the one that switched the flow of the game, bringing it back to him. He put down his last card, a yellow with the number one, and did a little victory jig as Kyoya threw his cards down hard at the table, Kusakabe looked close to tears because he had let his Chairman down and Shamal just faceplanted to the table.
"Maybe Kyoya is on to something about that counting thing," the other adult commented, voice muffled against the table.
"I didn't cheat!" Protested the hitman.
"This is why no one likes playing games with you," Kyoya groused, pouting. It was adorable. (And no, he was not biased because this was his son.) Reborn just grinned and reached over to ruffle the Cloud's hair. The pout got cuter.
"Viper does."
"Lie," hissed all three of his gaming companions of the night. "Viper nearly has an aneurysm every time the others agree to try out Monopoly again," Shamal pointed out in a deadpan. "And no one wants to play Operation with you because you keep pushing people so they'd get buzzed. And no one appreciated you getting Verde to crack up the volume."
"Yes, well, no one likes arm-wrestling with Fon, either, and Risk is on our blacklist because of Skull. And Kyoya here," he ruffled his son's hair again, making the teen go back to death-glaring. "Takes Go way too seriously so we really don't have many games we can play."
"What about jenga? Or chess?" Kusakabe asked because he's been around only for about five years and wasn't there when the last game of jenga turned into a war between the Hibari(-Sinclair) family while the others watched or cheered or even made bets. Kyoya had won by the virtue of not having anyone to be distracted by, unlike his chichi and babbo. Reborn had started it by breathing into Fon's ear in an effort to get him to make a mistake because he had thought Kyoya would be easy game afterwards, but Fon had retaliated to the point they'd escalated the whole thing until Reborn had Fon against the table and they were in the middle of a very intense make-out session.
Nine year old Kyoya had been disgusted and exasperated and didn't even care about his victory, he'd just wanted to get away from them.
"Verde and Reborn are not allowed to play chess," Shamal and Kyoya answered and the Sun/Sky could only shrug. It was true. Even if they weren't playing against each other, they kind of start smack-talking whoever is unfortunate enough to play against them. Most of the times it was in a scientific jargon that the others barely understood, but the times it wasn't, the others really understood just how brutal they were. Fon is Reborn's limit while Kyoya is Verde's. (Yes, Reborn did use to smack-talk Kyoya, ever since the tender age of five. Fon had been aghast but Kyoya had never cried about it - or anything for that matter. Instead, the kid had learned quickly to smack-talk right back - in science jargon, too! Even if he knew only a few comebacks back then - and then Fon forbade Reborn from playing with him because Kyoya was apparently too young to know that one word? Reborn didn't get it but he wasn't going to get acquainted with the couch over something so stupid.) It's worse if the two play against each other, but Fon wasn't innocent, either. Don't play shogi with the martial artist if you want your pride intact afterwards. Not only was his youngest Guardian really good at the game, but he was also patient enough to play the game for literal days. And he sometimes low key mocked others for lacking that patience.
Viper hated him for it.
Colonello hated him for making it a rule of endurance to sit seiza throughout the whole game because the blond soldier, while he could be perfectly still for hours at a time if he gets comfortable enough, can't last longer than fifteen minutes in that position and he actually liked the game so he always tried and then was near tears later when his legs fell asleep and the pins and needles sensation hit.
Lal adored the game but refused to sit seiza. Every time Fon made her, she retaliated by making them all play charades, which Fon fairly sucked at.
Game night was always interesting with the Arcobaleno, but it should be declared an extreme sport, too.
Or at least a test of survival.
"And Clue is a big no with Viper around. Or babbo."
"You're really shitting on me today," Reborn complained. "I don't think that's fair. I'm not that bad-"
"You counted in Uno!" They all shouted and Reborn just grinned.
It was a good game night.
00000
The next day, though, was not so good.
Namely because Kyoya fucking disappeared.
Reborn figured out what was going on with the attacks because the assailants were dramatic, arrogant, showy little bastards that wanted to get noticed so they'd left pocket watches on their victims that corresponded with the rankings Fuuta della Stella had made since he'd come to Namimori to ask for Tsuna's protection some weeks ago regarding the strongest people from Nami-chuu. He'd gotten Shamal to be on the lookout for anyone assaulting Tsuna's civilian friends or mother, though Nana should be fine since she almost never left the house with Tsuna so no one can associate them unless they have a vast information network.
And given that Dino had come through and supplied Reborn with some news from Italy, Reborn knew Rokudo Mukuro did not have the means necessary to do extensive research. Not if he wants to remain hidden.
Still, it was a fact Mukuro had come to Japan and was, for some reason, targeting Tsuna. Reborn had a guess as to why, but his biggest concern was Kyoya's sudden disappearance. Mostly because it made no sense for the criminal teenager to go after his little skylark. Kyoya had absolutely no connection to Tsuna or Vongola. Reborn had made sure of that. There was no reason for his son to be targeted, not even because of Reborn. Perhaps because of the ranking list, but Kyoya was by far the strongest constant resident of Namimori and the attackers have not yet reached the number one spot so even that went out of the window. The Arcobaleno have always been extremely careful about someone finding out their connection to the boy, ever since Fon came to their old 'headquarters' with an infant Kyoya in his arms, so it really should be impossible to track him down and use him as a weakness against the world's strongest seven. Kyoya should not have been targeted. At least not yet.
And yet Kyoya couldn't be found and sometime between Gokudera being attacked and Yamamoto, Kusakabe got taken down, too. The Disciplinary Committee Vice-chairman was more panicked about Hibari's continued absence than his own condition because, apparently, Kyoya had found a clue to follow and no one has seen him since.
And as if to add insult to injury, Timoteo sent a message to Tsuna, giving him and his still incomplete circle of Guardians the mission to fight and defeat Mukuro. With Gokudera and Ryohei in the hospital and Kyoya - who wasn't a Guardian candidate but always somehow got a little bit involved whenever a good fight was bound to happen; not to mention that Kyoya was Namimori's protector by choice and birthright, so he always dealt with these kinds of things in the past - nowhere to be seen, Tsuna only had Yamamoto, who still thought it was all a game and Reborn wasn't allowed to help. Bianchi was, but however good she was, Reborn doubted she'd be too much help as she wasn't Flame Active. She wasn't even Flame Aware. She knew something about them, yes, but that's not what 'Aware' means. She can't feel Flames, she just knows of their existence because of her mafia upbringing.
And sure, Gokudera managed to get Shamal to 'treat' him - though whatever the perverted doctor had given him to numb the pain and allow him to keep moving can't be healthy and without consequences - so he ended up going with them, too, but none of these kids were combat-ready, no matter what they thought. Reborn felt this urge to fly back to Italy and strangle good ol' Timmy with his own bare hands because the old man had sent Reborn to train his successor and now he expected Reborn to stand to the side and watch Tsuna face his first serious mafia threat without helping the boy? Yes, Reborn knows he can't hold Tsuna's hand through whatever hardships that come at him for the rest of his fluffy student's life, but judging from what Dino had told him, Rokudo Mukuro was not a suitable first test of Tsuna's current growth under Reborn's tutelage, nor was he an acceptable risk to determine how Tsuna will fare against the mafia.
Mukuro had killed several famiglias, starting with the Estraneo who had been doing inhumane experiments on their own children, before he had followed the growing rumors of the new Vongola Tenth Generation boss candidate to Japan. Reborn was starting to question the other candidates' deaths but Mukuro had not been active long enough for him to have been the cause of their deaths, no matter how ridiculous the actual causes of their deaths sounded. Sure, a gunfight is normal in the mafia world, but drowning? He doesn't know anyone who uses that modus operandi in the underworld.
And mysterious means that left behind only bones? Not even Verde could figure out what could have been the cause when Reborn and Viper had reported it to him for references. It wasn't Storm Flames, Fon reassured, as those would have either eaten away only the skin and the outer layer of muscles or would have disintegrated everything. He was fairly positive there was no in-between, saying one was either powerful enough to do it all away or not nearly enough, and Reborn was inclined to believe him. Fon knew his stuff.
He sent a message to Lal to do her own investigation regarding the three heirs' deaths and informed Viper to be on standby for them both regarding information distribution before he focused on their little 'invasion' of Kokuyo Land, or its ruins as it were.
It was ... eerily silent as they walked through the crumbling buildings and dirty, cracked roads. Reborn itched for a gun but none of these kids have seen him with a real gun in hand and Leon was acting strange again, like that time just before Dino was about to come into his own as Haneuma Dino, when Leon had spat out the whip his former student now uses and Enzio. Tsuna looked rather eager to have a beast like Enzio on their side but Reborn actually doubted that Leon would finish in time for them to avoid fighting.
They did end up getting into a few fights.
Yamamoto fought some beastly blond boy that, apparently a Sun who had been experimented on by combining his DNA with that of several animals. Yamamoto barely got out of the fight alive because he wasn't taking the situation seriously, so Reborn had kicked Tsuna down into the dark botanical dome buried under rubbish and dirt. Yamamoto started fighting seriously after Tsuna was in trouble, which showed they were fairly compatible because it was an instantaneous, instinctive reaction on the Non-Active Rain's part.
Bianchi fights some redhead girl with a clarinet that's channeling her own Sun Flames to activate the oscillations of particles of air until the atoms are vibrating so hard, they create heat waves that all but explode everything they touch. She and Bianchi had a bit of a catfight about what was more important, money or love. The redhead, M. M., proved to not know anything about Bianchi because she let the female Storm get in close enough to touch her weapon of choice, invading it with her poison cooking specialty through mere touch and the girl went down soon afterwards.
Excellent tactics but Reborn would have preferred not to be fussed over afterwards just because he looked annoyed.
He was a Sun, too, damn it, and he wanted to show these showy brats how it's really done. Sun Flames are not just for healing. M. M. and that mutt brat seem to understand that but they clearly have no idea just how devastating their Flames can be. Though, now that he thinks about it, were they even Flame Aware? Didn't seem like it. He still tends to forget that he, his fellow Arcobaleno and the Skylarks are all the exceptions, not the rule, where the regular age of becoming Active is concerned. He'd been well on his way to becoming the best hitman in Italy - and the world - when he'd been these kids' age and Kyoya was just as deadly as any Arcobaleno as he was now.
The most annoying, but probably the most educational fight was with some creepy, wrinkly, old-looking guy calling himself Birds. Because, apparently, he trained yellow canaries as spies. He came as a set with the crazed, psychopathic serial killers, the Bloody Twins, and he is a sadistic sort of extortionist and blackmailer. At least he was a Lightning. Had he been another Sun, Reborn would have blown the place up with a Chaos Shot out of pure frustration. Anyway, back to Birds, the sadistic extortioner and blackmailer. Well, he made Tsuna's friends punch him - Bianchi did that with a little bit of glee, because she felt that Tsuna was now the one preventing Reborn from being with her - in order to spare Haru and Kyoko and Hana from the Bloody Twins who were twisting in glee in the background of the live footage they were being shown at the prospect of another kill. Reborn was at this point imagining all the gruesome ways he can kill Nono because Reborn really hated cowards who went after (civilian) women but Timoteo's orders made it so Reborn wasn't allowed to help Tsuna.
Shamal came through, though, as did the older versions of I-Pin and Lambo, that annoying cow.
Though he couldn't help but stare at the older I-Pin, with her two long braids and the red and white billowing martial arts clothing she was wearing, the way she moved, the moves she used. It was almost like-
So Birds went down with a single kick from Gokudera once he no longer held leverage over them, but a new opponent appeared, one claiming to be Rokudo Mukuro but the marks on his face had Reborn searching through his memories because the young man looked somewhat familiar, like a former target or something. Besides, Reborn could sense tempestuous Storm Flames in the man, not the Mist Dino's report suggested Rokudo Mukuro to possess.
'Hypnosis? Or possession?' It's not impossible and it would explain why Mukuro was being held and then hunted by Vindice when he'd escaped. Killing his own famiglia which had done experimentation on him wouldn't have caused a stir from the mafia law and rule enforcers. Killing other families on his way to escape from Italy might have had them chase him down and punish him, but he didn't break Omerta or reveal secrets of Cosa Nostra, so imprisonment wouldn't have been his punishment. If he'd somehow gotten his hands on a Possession Bullet, though ... 'Kyoya, where the hell are you!?'
He got a clue when they entered the theater building because there were bodies strewn all over the place, leading up to the building from the other walkway, too. Bianchi squatted down and checked over the nearest victim. "Alive, but this one has several broken bones, most probably a concussion and the bruising is at least a day old. All of it seems to have been done vie blunt force, seemingly with a hard, blunt cylindrical object. Not too thin nor too big in girth."
"Tonfa-freak seems to have gone through here," Gokudera commented and while that usually would have caused either fear or relief, because where Hibari was, no more dangers are left other than the teen himself, this time it caused only worry because Kyoya had not returned yet. He was still missing.
"You think Hibari might be in trouble?" Yamamoto asked, sounding openly worried. He was probably the only one who really appreciated Kyoya in all of his Kyoyaness so far because he acknowledged the older boy's strength, didn't attempt to 'crowd' him, openly respected his boundaries even if he did at times test his patience with his cheerful and friendly attitude. Reborn will have to check if his son actually has any compatibility with any of these people because if he does, the Vongola might try to drag him into their organization as a Guardian and Kyoya had made it clear he will stay unbound for life. Maybe Yamamoto Takeshi could be a friend, though, because the baseball star had a hitman side to him that Kyoya would definitely appreciate.
"As much as I hate to say it, it's Hibari," the youngest Italian present said as if that said it all. "I pity whoever's on the other side of this encounter. Though I guess it is worrying that he's still not showing up at school at least. I didn't think that bastard would ever miss a day of school, the stickler for rules that he is."
"Guys, I found a really expensive looking phone over here," Tsuna called and they all walked over to the future boss' side. Reborn went cold inside when he instantly recognized the black phone. It was Verde's work, hardened by Lightning Flames so not even a nuclear bomb going off could damage its outer shell, let alone the ridiculously advanced electronics inside. Kyoya always had it on him because he never knows when one of his 'godparents' or parents might call him, given emergencies take precedence over timezones.
Kyoya would never willingly part with it. Not even in the most intense, satisfying fight he could find. And no one could have stolen it. Verde had put in a defense mechanism that shocks anyone who doesn't have Kyoya's specific Cloud and Mist Flame signature. You literally can't mug him of the phone.
It started ringing, the Namimori Middle School anthem filling the empty, broken hallways of the ruined building. Tsuna dropped the phone in fright with a shriek but Reborn managed to catch it before it hit the ground. The picture that showed up on the screen with the caller ID nearly had him dropping it, but not in fright. More in a sudden desire to break the phone so he'd have an excuse as to not tell his husband that their son was missing for over twenty four hours now. Fon would reach through the phone to strangle the life out of him.
Reborn did the only thing he could: he blocked the call, which should serve as a signal to Fon that Kyoya was busy with something or was somewhere he can't talk openly if he wants to keep the fact that he's closely connected with the Arcobaleno a secret. Reborn just hopes that this wasn't an emergency call, because he hates the thought of his Storm being in trouble and needing help and that he had just thrown his last hope out of the window. He checks his son's phone and notices there had been another call from Fon a couple of hours ago.
Okay, so it wasn't an emergency.
This radio silence, though, is bound to make Fon worry.
"Let's hurry up and get this over with," he told his companions and started boldly walking further into the building. The others followed as they searched for a stairway that wasn't demolished. Reborn ended up impatiently throwing all of his companions up onto the stable platform between floors and then vaulting himself up with barely a flicker of Sun Flames. He was in no mood to fall into a trap. He just wanted his son back.
Being on the second floor, though ... His Sky perked up because it had sensed a familiar Cloud that they have both long since classified as family, though not in the sense Skull was family. It was a pure, unbound Cloud with a secondary Mist hidden underneath. And there was another rather pure Mist really close to it. Reborn almost broke into a run when he caught sight of a bid double doors at the end of a hallway. The others followed, but he paid no mind to them anymore because he could not sense another person except the two people in the room ahead, so they were relatively safe.
He kicked the door down with more force than necessary, causing Tsuna to squeak and his Rain and Storm candidates to jump a bit in shock. Reborn, though, only had eyes for the scene in front of him.
He had not been expecting this.
