Title: The Anomaly
Genre: Romance, Angst
Pairing: Xanxus X OMC
Summary: When two angry souls find each other and one is a girl from another world who is murdered and finds herself being reborn in a world where it is normal for people to catch fire. Literally. Did I mention that said girl is now a boy?
Warning: OC (not self-insert), Slash, Yaoi, BoyXboy, Reincarnation, Language

Chapter Five

After the last incident Naoki was wary of going to sleep. He had been lucky the last few times when he had woken up just when he was sure things would go down. Who was to say the next time would be the same? For all he knew the man in his dreams could end up killing him. He had found out what he wanted to know though; 'Vongola' did exist and the man in his dreams was most likely an enemy of whatever it was, thus, an enemy of Tsunayoshi.

He thought wryly about how he had been trying to tell himself for years that he did not care for Tsunayoshi but now he was defending said brother, knowing he was putting himself in danger.

'Well, I did die once. It's no longer an unknown so I'm not afraid,' he thought to himself as he found himself again in a familiar setting. With a sign, he decided to go and face the music; if he was going to die then he was going to die but no way was he going to deliver his defenseless brother to the terrifying man. Knowing Tsunayoshi, the mentally younger boy would piss himself in fear the moment he would catch sight of the stranger.

When he rounded the corner, his body tense and wary, he expected to find the man from before ready to murder him. Instead the man was slouching lazily in his throne-like chair, arms crossed and eyes closed. Naoki stopped and stared. It had become familiar to see the man like this but he had never before taken the time to really observe him. To his slight mortification, he found himself admiring the very interesting muscles showing even through the man's clothes. Well, though terrifying, the man was definitely a very fine specimen of the male gender. Ahem.

Suddenly red eyes snapped open and Naoki took an involuntarily step back as he found himself on the receiving end of a heated, calculating glare. Slowly, a smirk made its way on the scarred face and Naoki could not help but think that he was most likely going to face hell very, very soon.

"Oi, trash, defend yourself," was the only thing that left the man's lips before he was no longer in his throne but in front of the blond, fist coming down towards him. He most likely had a particularly amusing deer-caught-in-the-headlights look in his eyes as he found himself on the receiving end of powerful assaults.

When he woke up in the morning, Naoki found himself unable to move from his bed, body sore and bruising. A couple of hours later, he could not be more thankful for having been a typical girly girl in his previous life or else he would not have known how to hide his quite visible wounds with the help of Nana's concealer.

Great. He had graduated from murder victim to punching bag.

It would seem like getting himself beat up in his sleep became a regular thing. Almost every time he went to sleep Naoki found himself in that dreamscape where the man would tell him to defend himself before attacking him with delight. Since he was always so bruised when he woke up in the morning, he made sure to leave the house early and return late as he really did not want anyone living in the house to know what was going on (though, they would most likely not know the full truth as it was not exactly normal to get wounded in one's sleep).

Since he had realized after his third pummeling that the man from his dreams was not trying to kill him for some reason, Naoki decided that he was so not going to let himself get beaten up like some kind of weak-willed, wimp. As he found himself more and more out of the house, Naoki decided to hone his body to be able to actually defend himself against the crazy man.

He did not know how to fight but he carefully analyzed the attacks from the man at night before, during the day, he created some way to defend against them. Then he would try them at night when the man attacked him; some worked but some were not so lucky.

Each time he was able to deflect an attack from the man the other would smirk before kicking his attacks up a notch. Before long Naoki realized that his dream attacker was actually trying to teach him to fight for some reason. The man was so ambiguous it was frustrating. First he tried to kill him and now he was trying to teach him of all things. Next thing he knew he was going to declare his undying love for Naoki.

Said boy snorted. Preposterous.

The rest of the summer vacation went in this way. Before long school started again and he asked himself how he was going to juggle school and his night 'adventures'. He got a headache just thinking about it.

He had woken up later than usual because of another dream beating, and if he did not hurry he was most likely going to be late. He really did not want to have to face the Disciplinary Committee. Really, that Hibari went too far sometimes. If it had been his previous life, the Chairman would have long been arrested and sent to a Juvenile Institution. 'Kids these days… I am strangely happy I won't be able to have children, except if I suddenly decide to have a relationship with a woman.' He shuddered. 'That would be way too weird. What with my… new anatomy.' Naoki had long resigned himself to a life of celibacy. He really could not picture himself sleeping with a woman and a relationship with a man would be highly frowned upon. Well, in some places at least. Even that would feel strange, though not as strange.

"Ara, Nao-kun! You are late today," his mother greeted him as he entered the kitchen.

A nod was his only reply made as he quickly grabbed an apple and the bento Nana had already prepared for him.

"Dame-Tsuna, if you don't hurry you'll be late for school," he heard as he shot a glance at the clock.

"Hiiiie!" followed him as he quickly exited the kitchen after a quiet 'goodbye' to his mother. As he put on his shoes, stumbling footsteps rushed towards him. Tsunayoshi appeared, appearing particularly flustered and panicked and even Naoki hurried. They were definitely going to be late. He really could not believe that he had woken up so late; he was usually so punctual, leaving long before Tsunayoshi.

As he opened the front door, he was surprised to find Tsunayoshi's two friends waiting near the gate. Huh. He had never known they walked to school together with his brother. Even they seemed surprised by seeing him. He was slightly startled by the sudden snarl coming from the half-Italian one, Gakudera Hayato.

"Who the hell are you to trespass in Juudaime's house!?" the boy growled at him, pulling out a couple of dynamites. Oh, dear.

"Maa, maa, Gokudera, that's – " Yamamoto Takeshi started before he was interrupted by a shrill scream from behind Naoki.

"Gokudera-kun! Stop!" came from Tsunayoshi as he stumbled his way to his silver-haired friend, hands up in a placating gesture. "That's my brother!"

The other boy seemed to freeze in shock and Naoki watched in fascination as his pale face changed colour from an angry red to white, then blue before going back to red. And only in a few seconds. Wow, the powers of nature. Suddenly, the boy turned to him and if Naoki did not have as much self-control he would have jumped back in surprise from the mortified and pained look on the other's face.

"My apologies, Juudaime's Honorable brother!" he cried as he bowed furiously to Naoki who blinked in stunned silence. Wow. Just, wow. That was even stranger than seeing this at a distance. Really, nothing could compare to the real thing, and Naoki wondered if he should feel particularly disturbed by the submissive behavior or horrified fascination in the fact that Tsunayoshi kept surrounding himself with such… wierdoes. "My apologies, Juudaime! It would happen again!" Naoki heard distantly as a thought came to his mind, his eyes turning to his brother and his friends as he observed them shrewdly.

'He… He is not amassing a - a harem, is he?' he thought, thinking back on the fact that a few days before Sasagawa Ryohei had also joined Tsunayoshi's group of friends and even Hibari was sometimes heard to be seen with them. And all of them revolved around Tsunayoshi.

"Dame-Tsuna, Baka-Nao," the high pitched call broke him from his thoughts and stopped Gokudera's panicked and hurried litany of apologies. Turning, he found Reborn standing on the doorstep, a peculiar glint in his dark charcoal eyes.

'First Nao, now Baka-Nao,' came the disgruntled thought from the blonde.

"You have only five minutes to reach school before the bell rings," Reborn explained, a disturbingly pleased look taking over his childish features as Tsunayoshi released another shrill scream. Ah, they were definitely not going to make it. For the first time in his school career Naoki was going to be late.

As one the four students rushed out of the Sawada property, running to school like their lives depended on it.

As Reborn observed the four teenagers with a pair of binoculars, he chuckled amusedly. He had been surprised when he had realized that Naoki had actually overslept for once; the boy tended to wake up really early before leaving for school. But it had worked in his plans to push the two brothers together. Summer vacation had gone by without Reborn really being able to do anything, so busy was he with tutoring Tsuna and Naoki had seemed even more flighty than usual. Reborn had decided to just wait and concentrate on teaching his student; there was a lot of work to be done with his dame student.

As he observed the four teenagers running to school together (and what a good bonding that was going to be, to get beaten up together), Reborn could not help comparing them. Yamamoto Takeshi ran like a seasoned athlete and potential hitman, his every light and well-calculated. Gokudera Hayato ran like he had had to teach himself in his years in the mafia, body in a defensive crouch and feet ready to move if he needed to dodge at any given time though his body was too stiff. Tsuna ran like a panicked child, clumsy in his steps and bumping into people on his way. However, he had speed, most likely from having to run away from his bullies for so many years. Then there was Naoki. While the other three pummeled their way through the morning crowd, the blond skillfully side-stepped any obstacle on his way, body loose and ready to move in any direction at any moment.

All four of them had talent and Reborn knew that they would go far with the right training, even Tsuna who did not seem like much at the first glance.

His interest perked as he noticed that they were nearing the school where a certain prefect was waiting. Oh, this was going to be really interesting. Popping a popcorn that suddenly appeared out of nowhere in his mouth, Reborn watched as Tsuna and his two friends ran in the school yard before being attacked by Hibari and his tonfas. Naoki on the other hand tried to sneak behind the prefect while he was busy with disciplining the other three. Like Reborn had expected Hibari was not fooled and before long his swung around and went for the blond.

Reborn found himself particularly interested when Naoki suddenly dropped his bag and crouched defensively, eyes narrowing. As a tonfa came flying towards his head, the blond boy ducked and rolled, feet nimbly flitting across the ground while he dodged the attacks from the Head prefect. The interested glint in Hibari's eyes was not encouraging at all and before long Naoki had to defend against more powerful and rapid attacks.

It was just starting to come really interesting when Naoki suddenly tripped and fell. He became the unfortunate victim of two tonfas and a blood-thirsty prefect.

When he got back home from school, Naoki was ready to collapse. He had never thought that arriving late to school entailed that. Hibari Kyoya was something else alright. As he thought back on the fight of the morning he felt a shiver wrack down his spine. To someone else it would have been of fear but Naoki strangely enough felt excitement.

He had never felt like this before. When Hibari had attacked him, Naoki had only acted. He had not had time to think about what he would do; instead, he had found his vision zeroing on Hibari, his eyes flitting around and catching each and every movement of the prefect. He had acted only on instincts and for the first time ever, Naoki had felt alive. Adrenaline had pumped through his body and it was pushed to its limits but he had never felt this excited since his first life.

Then he had tripped on his fallen bag and the subsequent pain delivered by the prefect was something he would have gladly done without. He was sure he would be sore and bruised for days to come.

It did not compare to defending against the man from his dreams. In his dreams it was more one-sided than anything else but a few hours before he had found himself almost on equal footing with the prefect. More than once he felt the urge to attack back but he only knew how to defend. He did not know how to really fight. Yet.

Without even removing his uniform, Naoki collapsed on his bed and fell immediately in deep slumber.

When he opened his eyes, he found himself in a familiar setting. For the first time ever Naoki felt eager to meet the man, and later as the man attacked him, Naoki found himself attacking back with vigor, even if he did not know what he was doing. When he woke up in the morning, even more bruised and sore than the first time, Naoki felt eagerness and excitement fill him.

Before the sun even broke across the horizon, he left the house, ready to try and make up some new moves to use against the man of his dreams.

Thank you for reading. Do leave behind a review and tell me your thoughts.