Chapter Two – Not A Fluke Then
Tsuna shrieked as he tumbled out of bed, feeling his hip throb in time with his heartbeat. He landed on his side and scrambled to get to his feet, hair wild and clothes askew, just to see a smug Reborn on his bed, one foot still outstretched.
At least, that was how the baby at the door the night before had introduced himself, before he'd promptly sat at the dinner table and eaten everything that was set before him.
"What was that for?" Tsuna moaned, scraping his hands through his hair before he caught sight of the clock and made a high pitched noise of despair, throwing himself at his dresser in desperation to pull out his school uniform.
"What are you doing in my bedroom!" Tsuna asked a moment later, jumping on one foot to get his trousers on, shirt haphazardly buttoned.
"I'm your tutor," Reborn said imperiously. "That means getting you up in the morning for school."
And then, from somewhere, he produced a giant green mallet and Tsuna was chased down the stairs, desperation fuelling his movements. His less than graceful slip on the final step ended in a cascade of a fall as he tipped forward, hit the hallway table and promptly smacked into the floor face first.
"Good morning Tsu-kun!" His mother called through cheerfully, undeterred by the noise. "Breakfast is on the table. Your friend Yamamoto-kun is already here!"
"You should have woken me up, mama," Tsuna wailed as he clambered to his feet, hitting his head on the table in his move to stand and whining at the pain as he staggered into the kitchen.
"Good morning Tsuna!" Yamamoto greeted him brightly, a plate of toast in front of him. No matter how many times he protested when arriving to pick up Tsuna every morning, Nana still forced breakfast on him.
Tsuna secretly reckoned he didn't mind, since he ate whatever he was given anyway.
"I hope you haven't been waiting long, Yamamoto-kun," Tsuna said in lieu of greeting, throwing himself into his own seat and looking around suspiciously for Reborn. "I'm sorry I wasn't awake!"
"It's okay," Yamamoto replied offhandedly and then laughed. "It was funny to watch you get woken up by your tutor!"
Tsuna gave him a wounded look that only made his friend laugh harder, and couldn't help but smile as he moved to eat his own breakfast as he quick as he could without looking like he was surreptitiously glancing around.
"About that," Tsuna suddenly said, once he'd swallowed his mouthful of toast. "Did you want to come by after school today, see if this tutor can't help the both of us?"
Yamamoto paused in his motions, glancing up and squinting at Tsuna. Tsuna would call the look suspicious if he didn't recognise the guarded expression.
"Honest," Tsuna added on as an after-thought. "I can try to convince him. He's after something anyway."
"No-Good Tsuna, what would give you that idea?" came from behind his left ear, surprisingly close and Tsuna shrieked for the second time that morning, knee banging painfully into the table as he flinched away.
"N-Nothing at all, Reborn!" Tsuna replied, and quickly took another bite of his toast, ignoring as Reborn less than subtly stole the second, untouched slice.
Complaining about food equated to injuries. It hadn't even been twenty four hours, but Tsuna already knew that.
"You wouldn't be wrong, though," Reborn said slyly after a moment. "After all, I am here to turn you into a mafia boss."
Tsuna choked on a mouthful of toast and probably would have asphyxiated had Yamamoto not slapped him on the back with a hearty laugh.
"Sounds like fun, huh Tsuna?"
The lizard Reborn had produced from somewhere inside of his jacket had turned into a gun.
Let Tsuna reiterate that.
Lizard. Jacket. Gun.
Why did his lizard turn into a gun, Tsuna thought, bewildered. Where did the lizard come from? Was it in his jacket all night? How can Reborn sleep with a lizard in his clothes?
It took a few moments for him to gather his thoughts to then realise that Reborn did in fact have a gun – garishly green, mind you – and was pointing it at him.
All because he had chosen to talk to Kyoko that morning and Reborn had garnered the – wrong – assumption that Tsuna wanted to talk to her more.
She was talking to her friend, who Tsuna hadn't seen before and seemed suspiciously in awe of Reborn being a baby – now that he thought about it, she was wearing a different uniform – and Tsuna was with Yamamoto.
"Let's do something about that, shall we?" Reborn asked, smiled deviously, and shot him, straight in the head.
Tsuna just despaired a little that it was in front of Yamamoto. He'd since learned that if the person who witnessed him die, or saw the aftermath of the death were close to him in a friendly relationship, they tended to remember.
But then he hit the floor on his back, felt something crackle to life on his forehead and let himself stare at the sky, waiting for the world to black out.
It was Reborn leaning over him not two seconds later that led him to realise that he hadn't actually died.
The look on Reborn's face made him rethink that notion. He wasn't dead yet.
"Strange," Reborn said slowly and Tsuna let himself sit up when Reborn stepped back, his black eyes shaded and unreadable.
"I hope you don't set my hair on fire," Yamamoto laughed then, and Tsuna lifted his hands abruptly to smack himself in the face, feeling something curiously soft and warm trickle over his fingers, something that glittered orange in the corner of his vision.
"What is this?" Tsuna asked, voice squeaking embarrassingly high. "Why am I on fire, Reborn, why did you shoot me?!"
Reborn stayed curiously silent, staring at Tsuna closely and face still blank before the gun in his hand transitioned back to lizard.
What. On. Earth.
But before Tsuna could ask again, Reborn simply let the lizard clamber back onto the brim of his hat, smirked widely and replied, "You're going to be late for school, Dame-Tsuna."
And, horror stricken, Tsuna whispered, "Hibari-san." And then clambered to his feet, scooped Reborn up in one arm without even thinking of his actions, grabbed Yamamoto's elbow with his free hand and made to run down the street.
Apparently one had to take in their hair being on fire when running.
Tsuna was pretty sure he'd broken the sound barrier when they'd reached the gates of the school fifteen minutes sooner than he expected.
Yamamoto was speechless, fingers gripping onto his bag with a white knuckled grip and Reborn chose that exact moment to kick Tsuna in the chin and gracefully twist free just so he could settle on Tsuna's head instead.
"S-Sawada-san?"
Tsuna twisted as he heard someone whisper his voice, the fire on his forehead sizzling out and making a sound like water hitting hot metal.
Kyoko Sasegawa looked extremely befuddled as to how the person she had been speaking to not ten minutes before had reached the school building before her.
Tsuna didn't blame her but, before he could try to stammer out an excuse, letting go of Yamamoto's elbow, Mochida Kensuke butted in and he was free of any obligation.
"She looks uncomfortable," Reborn said, sly as ever, and Tsuna couldn't stop the shudder of inexplicable fear that slithered down his spine. But then the weight on his head was gone and, before he could twist to see where Reborn had gone, he was stumbling forward and throwing arms out all askew with a warning squawk as he crashed into Mochida and Kyoko.
"Watch where you're going!" Mochida said, viciously shoving Tsuna back, who had to catch himself against the wall of the building.
"K-Kyoko-chan, can I t-talk to you about the homework?!" Tsuna squeaked out, louder than necessarily, and was almost confused to see relief briefly cross her face.
Mochida made a noise that Tsuna could only describe as snide as he interrupted with, "Are you trying to make a move on my girl?"
Affronted in a way he couldn't explain, Tsuna spluttered and pointed out, "Kyoko-chan i-isn't anyone's girl, s-she's her own person!"
"Huh?!" Mochida sneered, looming into Tsuna's space even as the brunet frantically scrambled against the brick to try and get away.
"Fine. Me, you and the gym. After school. We're going to settle this like men and Kyoko'll see who the better of the both of us is."
Tsuna tried to disagree, actually taking a half step forward, but then tiny fingers were digging into the muscle of his calf and instead he fell down into a crouch with a noise of pain, garnering strange looks even as Mochida strode triumphantly away.
"It sounds like fun, Tsuna! I'll be there to watch!" Yamamoto said to him, sounding as cheery as ever as he reached down to help Tsuna up, Kyoko by his side, who looked both thankful and exasperated.
Tsuna looked across to Reborn as he accepted the help to get to his feet and, deep down inside, he was sure he felt the first stirrings of murder. It was either that or indigestion.
Mochida wanted them to beat their differences apart with kendo sticks.
Tsuna didn't know the first rule of kendo, just staring dumbly from his side of the gym as Mochida was packed into some strange, padded armour looking stuff.
He didn't get padded armour looking stuff.
This is rigged, he thought slowly. This is gonna hurt.
"Tsuna!" Yamamoto called from somewhere to his right, and Tsuna turned just in time to fumble wildly to catch the kendo stick that had been thrown at him. He wondered where Yamamoto had gotten the thing from.
Then the referee – one of Mochida's club members – was yelling, "Start!" and Tsuna yelped embarrassingly loud as Mochida came flying towards him and smacked him with the kendo stick he held.
It was more a game of chicken, Tsuna reflected, as he tried not to cry and dodged hits here and there. He was pretty sure kendo required three points, but Mochida was still gleefully beating on him with his shinai.
He was going to bruise so vividly he'd put art to shame.
At the same time that Mochida had tripped him up and he landed on his backside he spotted Reborn in the rafters, another gun – lizard?! – held in his hand, a sniper rifle ridiculously large compared to his tiny frame. The gun wasn't even wavering as he pointed it at Tsuna, unrepentant he'd been seen and Tsuna was sure he saw a smirk.
Tsuna also noticed the fluorescent light above them swaying suspiciously on its metal wires.
It was instinctive, as he scrambled to his feet, eyes on the ceiling. His thoughts were a jumble as he moved forward, not even thinking of what might happen, but then he was shoving Mochida out of the way with surprising strength, kendo stick abandoned as he threw his shoulder into Mochida's gut hard enough for the older teen to stumble backwards and fall a few feet away, dragged down by the weight of his armour.
Tsuna briefly despaired the fact that they'd used the old gym as a battling ground, creaky and worn out, and then the large light was snapping free with a twang noise and it had smashed into his back before he could get far enough away.
There wasn't really anything else to say about that.
Someone was heaving, and the noise echoed. Tsuna's eyes were gritty as he blinked them open, and, for once, he felt sore after a life threatening incident. There was someone next to him, a hand on his shoulder, fingers digging in.
Yamamoto was curled over him, holding on tight as he shook with silent sobs and made muffled noises into his fist. The noise he did make was hoarse, broken, like his throat was sore, and occasionally he'd heave; the noise that had woken Tsuna up.
"Y-Yamamoto," Tsuna croaked, coughing wetly and feeling something stain his lips briefly, the coppery tang of blood filling his mouth.
No one had ever stayed after he'd died. That meant Yamamoto had leveraged himself, somehow, into the same boat as his mother.
Yamamoto sat up so suddenly it was if he had been electrocuted, and Tsuna offered a weak smile.
"T-Tsuna," Yamamoto whispered, voice rife with disbelief, his entire body trembling as he lifted his hands to nervously hover.
"H-Help me out?" Tsuna asked, feeling his eyelids flutter as everything around him blurred. A quick glance of the gym showed it empty.
Yamamoto seemed in shock, but jerkily moved to help lift the edge of the metal casing so Tsuna could slowly and painfully move to drag himself out of the mess of glass and filament.
As soon as Tsuna was free, he rolled over agonisingly slowly and sat up, before staring at the mess that was his legs, swaying briefly. His entire torso throbbed in pain and his side was burning with every breath.
Yamamoto immediately dropped in beside him on his knees and helped, with shaking hands, to keep him upright.
"W-We need to call a-an ambulance, o-or something or – " Yamamoto looked broken and helpless and it made Tsuna want to comfort him.
"N-No," he whispered in reply. "T-Trust me, p-please Yamamoto."
"Tsuna - !"
"Takeshi," Tsuna pleaded, his voice a wet wheeze and rattle, and the use of his first name made Yamamoto pause, made him look closer, face still stricken and, whatever he saw in Tsuna's expression made him curse suddenly and vehemently before he sat back and stayed stubbornly close.
"I-It's going to happen a-again," Tsuna warned as the edge of his vision flickered black. "D-Don't panic. Y-You can leave i-if you need to b-but it's going t-to happen again."
"What's going to happen again?" Yamamoto asked, voice pitched slightly in worry as looked into Tsuna's face.
"I'm b-bleeding out," Tsuna said instead of trying to explain, teeth chattering briefly. He'd gotten cold very, very quickly, and the red of his blood was vivid against the polished wood of the floor.
Yamamoto's eyes flickered to his legs, countenance faltering at what he saw, shards of glass and bloody, messy pulp and Tsuna saw something fall into place into Yamamoto's head. Tsuna didn't try to explain that the internal bleeding he undoubtedly had was still an issue as well.
"Y-You're going to die," Yamamoto said, voice cracking. "That's what you mean. T-The ambulance wouldn't get here in time, w-would it?"
"I-I'm sorry, Y-Yamamoto," Tsuna whispered, swaying in place again until Yamamoto sat by close and dragged him into his side. The taller teen was trembling violent, his arm tight and firm around Tsuna's shoulders.
"Call me Takeshi," was his reply, Yamamoto's voice quiet and wrecked and so, so hurt that Tsuna wished this hadn't happened.
"If you're going to d-die, I want you to at least say my n-name Tsuna."
"T-Takeshi," Tsuna couldn't help but laugh, painful, watery, bloody, letting his eyes fall shut. There was the odd sensation of something shifting around inside of him, like there was a creature curled under his ribcage and it was stretching out. Tsuna briefly entertained the thought that his organs were rearranging themselves, back into place.
"Thanks," he heard Yamamoto whisper to him.
But it was cold, so cold, and he wanted to shut his eyes just for a moment, to catch his bearings…
He felt a little bad for not replying to Yamamoto's panicked shout, couldn't reassure him but everything was fading out and then…then there was peace.
Chapter Two! Probably a little darker than I expected but...it was never gonna be pretty, dying.
Hope you liked it!