"Can I hug your brother?" asked a random girl on the street.
Fon and Tsuna stared at her for several moments, as if wondering how she made the Herculean leap in logic that they were in any way related. If anything, she should have been asking Kyouya to hug his 'brother'.
"Excuse me?" said Tsuna very confused.
"I said can I hug your little brother? He's so adorable and he must be a good sibling to walk you to the bus stop every day!" she said cheerfully.
Tsuna stared at her.
"Wow. How many ways can I explain what is wrong with that?" said Tsuna out loud. The girl bristled at the tone alone. "First off, he's not my brother, and quite frankly you need to get your eyes checked if you missed the fact Fon-sensei looks more like a miniature Hibari Kyouya than me. Second, do you have any idea what you sound like when you say stuff like that to people who have no idea who you are?"
Seeing the offended look on her face, Tsuna continued without mercy or hesitation.
"Besides, Fon-sensei is older than I am. He is Hibari's grandfather after all."
"You have to be joking," said the girl incredulous. "He's only two!"
"Actually he has a rare form of dwarfism that makes him look much younger than he really is," corrected Tsuna. "That doesn't change the fact that you walked up to us without even bothering to introduce yourself and asked to hug him, which makes you sound like a pedophile to pretty much everyone. Or at least a child predator attempting to kidnap him."
She stared at him in disbelief.
"I am not a pedophile!" she shrieked at him.
"No, but the way you came up to us and asked to hug a random child on the street makes you come off at one," Fon added, rather bluntly. "Never mind the fact that we have never seen you before today, let alone been introduced. And that's not getting into how rude and inconsiderate you are assuming that the caretakers would allow you to hug their children."
She looked mortally offended by that, and walked off with a huff.
"...I can't help but feel as though I dodged a major bullet there," said Tsuna.
Fon shuddered.
"Agreed. That was highly disturbing, even for me," said Fon.
"...Should we have Kyouya flag her just in case?"
"It might be for the best," said Fon. There was no telling how far her 'interest' in small children went.
"How come you never complain when I randomly snuggle with you at night when you stay over?" asked Tsuna curiously.
Fon looked amused.
"That's because you never do it while awake and you always have this amusing expression on your face when you become flustered. Besides, your hugs are rather warm and comforting without trying to be cloying about it."
Tsuna blushed at that.
They had learned quite by accident that if either of the Arcobaleno were within grabbing range, Tsuna would latch onto them and cuddle with them like teddy bears without waking up. It had been rather embarrassing the first time it happened, but now Skull made a point to visit regularly and cuddle with him.
He made a strange comment about how Tsuna was a 'cute bunny' or something and how his flames felt really snuggly.
Fon had learned to tolerate it because Tsuna was never awake when he did it, and he would hesitantly admit that he didn't particularly mind being wrapped up in Tsuna's flames since it was rather comforting.
He suspected Tsuna was unconsciously trying to harmonize with him and he wasn't entirely certain if he wanted to test his luck. It certainly felt closer to a proper harmony bond than he had ever gotten with Luce, which was the closest any of them had ever gotten to one.
Today Tsuna was planning to make another sword. Sometimes he would get this urge to create something, and he would be restless until he went to the forge and made a new blade.
His grandfather called it the "forging itch". He said it was a sign of a natural weaponsmith that they would get the urge and create something extraordinary that would last for centuries and be appreciated by everyone.
Fon jumped onto his shoulder, and Tsuna didn't slow his stride in the least. He was used to it by this point.
"So what are you planning to make this time?"
"A wakizashi. For some reason I have the feeling I'm going to be meeting someone soon who will need the cleansing power of one of our swords," said Tsuna. "I thought about a tanto, but something tells me it might accidentally bring bad luck if I did."
His 'Hyper Intuition' as Fon had called it, said that he would be meeting someone who would need to have a lot of misfortune cleansed from their lives. Besides, he hadn't made a sword in a while and there was another convention for collectors coming up. Some up and coming actress was going to be there because she planned to sell some katana her ex-husband used to own, but she wanted a higher price for them than the shops were willing to give her.
What made Tsuna suspect that he would be meeting a girl was the fact his 'intuition' warned him against making a tanto, which was much easier to hide. After all, tanto were traditionally given to young women at their wedding as a warning against infidelity.
Since he planned to sell some of his weapons to collectors, Tsuna got the sword done first before moving on.
The sword had a beautiful tempered pattern and something made him think of a white owl in the moonlight when he looked at it.
He decided to call it Fukurou, and even made a decorative owl to put on the outside of the sheath. He still wasn't up to engravings, to his disappointment.
Tsuna kept an eye out for the person he was supposed to meet. And then...it happened. He saw a young girl about his age with a thin frame and skittish demeanor and he just knew Fukurou was for her.
He walked up to her, calm as could be.
"Hello. My name is Tsuna, what's yours?"
The girl looked at him startled, as if surprised to see a boy her age there...much less talking to someone like her.
"N-Nagi."
"Which swords are you here for?" asked Tsuna.
Seeing her blank expression, Tsuna blushed slightly.
"Which swords are you trying to buy or sell," he clarified. "Maybe I could be of some help."
"M-mother is trying to sell the swords father left behind. Her boyfriend insisted," said Nagi timidly.
Something about how the swords made him feel uncomfortable, despite the fact Nagi only uncovered them from storage a month and a half ago.
Her mother had agreed because she didn't particularly like her ex-husband and she had no use for the swords. Nagi didn't dare voice her desire to keep them, because her mother had a habit of getting rid of anything that reminded her of her father.
Tsuna went to look at the swords in question.
"I doubt she's going to get a decent price for them. From the looks of things no one has properly maintained these for some time."
"You there boy! Step away from those swords! I'll not have your clumsy hands damage them and lower their price!" said a somewhat shrill and condescending voice.
"Is this a friend of yours Nagi?" said another voice, a male this time.
Tsuna turned to face a slightly pretty woman, though the ugliness around her made what few looks she had seem pale in comparison. The man beside her had the same sort of ugliness as well, only it was far more concentrated.
Tsuna stared them down and made sure to allow Nagi to hide behind him. She gratefully accepted the move, and tried to make herself as small as possible.
"You're not going to get much of anything with the swords in this condition. When was the last time they were properly sharpened and cleaned up? The sheathes alone are in terrible condition and need replacing," said Tsuna bluntly, not backing down.
"And what would a child know about swords?" said the woman snidely.
"Tsuna, there you are," said his grandfather.
"And you are?"
He blinked.
"Narikawa-sensei!" said an excited collector.
"This is my grandfather, Narikawa Kozan. The fact you don't recognize him at all is a fairly good sign you know nothing about swords," said Tsuna. "And I'm telling you that no one here will buy these swords in such poor condition. If you want to get any money out of them you'll need to have them cleaned up first."
The woman stared at him in fury, likely because a mere fourteen year old was telling her off about a subject she could care less about.
Tsuna made a point to divert Nagi away from those people. He had the worst feeling they were the source of her misfortune.
So you could imagine his surprise when she showed up at his door with the three katana her mother had been attempting to sell.
"Ano...mother said I could bring them here to be properly cleaned," said Nagi timidly.
Tsuna let her in.
"How are you feeling? I noticed that woman wasn't particularly nice to you," said Tsuna gently, allowing a touch of his flames to wrap around Nagi like a protective blanket.
Nagi relaxed considerably once she felt his flames around her.
"Mother really wants to get rid of father's swords, but she was very unhappy learning she would only get a fraction of their worth unless she had them fixed up properly. She was even less happy finding out that the least expensive one in the business was your family."
"Akira is really good at sharpening," said Tsuna, gently leading her into the house.
Nagi looked at it all with open fascination. She had never been in a proper traditional Japanese home before. Much less a smithy.
Akira took one look at the sad state of the spirits Nagi was carrying with her, and agreed to clean them up. Though he noticed with some amusement (and a little jealousy) at how easily Tsuna hit it off with the shy girl who wasn't scared of swords.
Tsuna was lucky... Akira had yet to get a single girlfriend because of their family's craft. He barely had any friends at all because the adults all took one look at the fact his family still forged swords and even maintained them and told their children to avoid him because swords were "scary".
If it wasn't for his cousin, Akira wouldn't have had a single normal friend to talk to.
Even if Takeshi was a tad baseball obsessed.
A month later, after the swords were sharpened (and discreetly bought by Tsuna) Nagi somehow turned up at Tsuna's door with a small bag and a skittish look that was leagues above what she had before.
The most telling part? She had Fukurou partially unsheathed.
Tsuna let her in without a word, and slowly eeked out the story from her.
What he heard had his blood boil, and he was already making plans to introduce her to Kyouya.
Her mother, and he hesitated to use that particular word, had decided to marry the asshole boyfriend she had been dating. The same boyfriend who gave poor Nagi a really bad feeling and she had caught doing drugs more than once.
Really, the only smart thing to do with the adults unwilling or paid off not to notice the neglect she was suffering from, was to run away.
It was just coincidence that she somehow managed to find Tsuna's house out of all the hiding places she could have gone to, right?
Fon erased that notion from his head within an hour.
"She's a Mist, an Active soft type at that. She must have sensed 'safety' when she ran into you, which meant your flames naturally drew her to you when she ran away from an active threat," said Fon bluntly.
"...Do you think Kyouya would be willing to discreetly adopt her as a little sister, so that her mother doesn't find her?"
"Why Kyouya?" asked Fon, interested in hearing Tsuna's reasoning.
"Mostly because only an idiot would come after her while she's obviously under Hibari protection, but also so I don't accidentally slot her into a little sister role too soon," admitted Tsuna.
Nagi perked up at that a little.
In short order, the child known as "Nagi" disappeared from public record and Hibari Mei was 'born'. Officially she was Kyouya's "cousin" from China. Unofficially everyone treated her like Kyouya's sister and it really didn't help that the Disciplinary Committee kept a close watch for trouble that might bother her.
On an unrelated note, Akira couldn't quite keep the jealousy that his cousin managed to find a girlfriend before him, despite the fact that everyone knew Tsuna made weapons. He had trouble finding friends who didn't mind he came from an active swordsmith's house, so how was Tsuna that lucky to make friends so easily?