Title: fire in your heart (ice in your hands)
Chapter Title: A Ghost in Your Home
Full Summary: 19-year-old Sawada Tsunayoshi has a lot on his plate, from balancing work and school to trying to outgrow his "Dame-Tsuna" label, he has his work cut out for him. Given his history, he thinks he's doing just fine, just about average—suitable for an average guy like him.
Things are going fine. Until, that is, Rokudo Mukuro shows up in his living room at 3 AM on a Tuesday, declares that he's related to the largest mafia syndicate in the world, and for that, he must die.
But Tsuna's father isn't the only one with secrets: Sawada Tsunayoshi may not be able to light himself on fire, but he can use magic.
This fic was intended to be released as part of a KHR Big Bang, but the event ended up cancelled! So in lieu of that, I am releasing the fic on my own. It will contain some art I've drawn for the fic myself, eventually.
Additionally, the first six chapters of the fic were beta-read by an editor on the project, KnightPunk on ao3. Thank you for taking the time to edit the fic!
So, with all of that in mind...Hello again everyone, welcome to one of the biggest projects I've undertaken this year!
This is a Mage!Tsuna AU, where Tsuna was never inducted into the mafia and instead tried to cope with his frighteningly average life (until it wasn't so average anymore.) Of course... can your life really BE average (or unrelated to the underworld) when wanted criminal Rokudo Mukuro comes crashing into your life? Methinks not. It's set several years in the future, but since the characters aren't like the TYL!characters in canon I've elected not to use the tag, just to avoid confusion.
This is the shortest chapter, I think, and I've watched some chapters get steadily longer as the fic progresses.
Enjoy!
The day Sawada Tsunayoshi's life changed forever started off normal. There was no heavy rain or odd weather, it was neither too hot nor too cold, too sunny or too cloudy. It was a perfectly average Tuesday in all respects—it should have been a perfectly average Tuesday in every way.
'Well,' Tsuna figures, 'it had been a busier day than usual.' Even so, it's not like busy days were anything out of the ordinary!
It was a normal day. At least, for the first half of it.
Tsuna was an average person. He attended school, worked a part-time job, and spent most of his time haphazardly attempting to strike a balance between the two. He wasn't popular—not that it bothered him much, he'd never exactly been the most well-liked person in the room—but he wasn't being shunned. He wasn't really interested in joining any clubs, and he didn't have any strong passions for sports or academics, either. He had a loving mother and came from an average household with average goals.
In fact, on that average day in September, the only thing on Tsuna's mind was how dearly he wanted to take a nap—if only he hadn't procrastinated on that presentation, then maybe he could've gone home and relaxed.
(By ten-thirty that morning, tension started to bubble in his gut. 'It's nothing,' He told himself, 'just anxiety for tomorrow's presentation.' Tsuna knew what it meant to be unusual, to stick out like a nail that needed to be hammered down, and he wanted no part of it.)
Yes, except for a few minor details, he was a pretty average guy—just the way he liked it.
"Tsuna-kun!" someone shouts, stopping him in his tracks. He was on his way to the school's library, to work on his presentation before a shift at work in an hour and a half, but he looked up from where he'd been tapping away at his phone at the figure nearly skipping towards him.
"Kyoko-chan!" Tsuna yelps, as Sasagawa Kyoko bounds up to him, that same wide, carefree smile she's always worn plastered on her face. "I thought you were meeting up with Haru for lunch today?"
"I am!" she says, "but I thought I'd swing by and say hi before I did. You're heading to the Library, right? To work on that presentation?"
He pockets his phone, humming a little as he shoves the device into his hoodie. He's not exactly dressed to impress today, having woken up past his alarm. It was a bad habit he'd yet to fully break, spanning all the way back to his middle school years. Granted, he wasn't always this bad about it, but he hadn't gotten much sleep the night before.
(These days, he didn't have his mother to wake him up—he'd only had enough time to scramble for some clean clothes and grab his bag before rushing out the door. It was a miracle he made it to the train on time.)
"Yeah," he sighs, "I avoided it too long. I thought I could finish it up in a night if I hurried, but... it didn't turn out that way. I hate my life, Kyoko-chan."
Kyoko, for her part, only giggles. He's a bit hurt by that if he's honest. Couldn't someone be sympathetic to his plight? He doesn't know why he puts up with this. "Oh it's not that bad, how many times have you done this now?"
He groans, hiding his face in his hands. "Like, every time. I've really gotta stop doing this."
Kyoko laughs, "you do. But, I know you'll get it done."
He grunts noncommittally, doubtful at the prospect. Kyoko just shoots him an amused look and lightly pats him on the shoulder. Jerk.
"Well, I've got to get going, Tsuna-kun," she hums, looking down at her phone for the time, "but I'll see you tomorrow at the usual time and place?"
At this, he perks up. "Yeah! Did you find something new? Anything interesting, maybe?"
A wry smile makes it onto her lips, eyes twinkling in a way Tsuna finds extremely suspicious. "Maybe! You'll just have to wait and see."
"Wha—Kyoko-chan!"
"Good luck on your project—you can do it!"
"Hey—Kyoko-chan!" Tsuna whines, watching in dismay as she waves at him before skittering down the hall. He sighs, shoulders dropping, as she turns the corner without properly answering his question.
That was just like her.
Well, whatever. Tsuna would find out tomorrow when they met up during their study session. Right now, he had a presentation to work on, and there was no time to waste!
Later, he'd look back at this day and kick himself. One long shift at work and a hastily finished project later, Tsuna was nearly crawling with dread, the kind that sat heavy in his gut and made everything more frightening than it was. His commute home was a turbulent one, a strange sense of anxiety catching hold of him.
He really should have expected something to go wrong, but he'd been so tired and, well, it was nearly inevitable he'd fall asleep… his couch was so comfortable and he was absolutely exhausted…
He really should have expected it.
When he wakes next, something's wrong. Tsuna's eyes snap open; awake and alert all at once, and he's sure there's absolutely no reason for him to be up at this hour, as he's absolutely sure it's hours before his alarm is set to go off.
He's about to be frustrated, angry at being awake when he doesn't have to be before he registers what—or rather, who—is there with him, and the red-hot anger turns to ice. There's a man poised above his prone body, some—some sort of weapon? Jesus Christ is that a trident? What the hell—angled at his sternum.
For a single, hysterical second, he doesn't believe his eyes. Whoever's robbing him right now, because why else would someone be in his apartment, has a red eye with the kanji for six in it, and he must be imagining things because they glow.
Mismatched eyes narrow, and Tsuna blinks once, twice, three times.
He freaks.
Immediately, everything springs into action, with Tsuna lurching off of the couch with a high-pitched, strangled screech. The robber—and for god's sake, he's broke!—jabs the weapon down, right through his couch cushion. Holy shit.
He's definitely hyperventilating, and the man with the trident and weird eyes actually smirks at him, yanking the weapon from where it's embedded in his couch and pointing it at him once again.
The man jabs at him again, laughing, a low, hollow kind of laugh, haunting in its oddity. Tsuna, of course, yelps, rolling to the side before he can even register even doing it. One of the blades on the thing nicks his arm, smearing blood on the glittering metal, but it's better than having been stabbed.
Flinching, his heart hammering in his chest, Tsuna scrambles backward as he tries to collect his words over the tightness in his throat. "Why-" he whimpers pathetically, "I—I don't have any money! Please!"
"I could care less about your money," the man sneers, almost in disgust.
"Then, what?! Why are you doing this?!" he cries, terrified, as his back hits a wall and—oh, oh fuck—he's trapped—
The trident sinks into the wall beside his head with a solid thunk, sharpened points impaled in the drywall rather than his flesh. That same hollow, chilling laugh rings out, ratcheting his anxiety up another notch."Why am I doing this?" he mocks, a wane smile carved into his face, long, dark hair falling over his shoulders in a haphazard, almost unkempt way.
Tsuna swallows, nodding.
"I suppose it wouldn't hurt to inform you of your crime. If you really don't know," he murmurs, looming over Tsuna who's currently hunched in on himself, "you'll be dead soon, anyway... it wouldn't hurt to answer."
And, oh, what an answer it is.
"You, Sawada Tsunayoshi, were born to scum," he enunciates with relish like he's enjoying this, "that father of yours is a man soaked in blood. A mobster, one part of the largest Familigia in the Underworld. An organization so entrenched in sin that just the name of it can scare even the hardest of mafia men, the worst of men."
"Huh-?! Listen, I haven't even seen the guy since I was in single digits! Even if that were true, I have nothing to do with the fucking Mafia! I swear it!" Tsuna exclaims, frantically trying to get this guy to understand that there must have been some sort of mistake here, that he has absolutely nothing to do with all of this, with whatever this guy thinks he and his family is involved with.
The man doesn't seem to be swayed by this, as if he's not about to senselessly murder Tsuna for something he didn't even do. "I hate this world, but I hate the Underworld the most… for the sake of my goal, I'll kill everyone whose blood is tainted by it."
"Wha-"
He wraps his gloved hands around the handle of the Trident, smug. "You should hope you have better luck in your next life, Sawada." Then, the weapon is pulled from the wall slowly, with purpose, the intruder making a show of it. The trident, twinkling like the bright, glowing pair of eyes staring down at him in glee, is brought up to strike one final time. "You may… rest now."
Oh god, he's going to die, he's really going to die.
He's gonna die.
Tsuna brings his hands up over his head, shielding himself, shutting his eyes, and crying out one final, desperate thing.
Shield, just that one word, tears itself from his throat as his would-be murderer swings the blades down in an arch, laughing all the while. Where it would have sunk through his skin, plunging into his chest and snuffing Tsuna out right then and there, it bounces off harmlessly, a pulse of faint orange rippling over his skin.
It worked.
Because this version is on ff, if you're looking to see any illustrations, they will be on ao3. I will notify ff users of an artwork in the chapter notes if/when that occurs. This fic updates every Saturday.
Thanks for reading! If you want to see more of my content, as well as writing updates, I'm also on Tumblr at ekourege.