Two days prior to the Hogwarts Express was an article in the Daily Prophet stating that the Ministry had enacted Educational Decree № 22.
"Oh, brilliant," he said dryly. "We're going to be saddled with a Ministry toad, I expect." He had no idea how true that statement was.
"Another person to keep an eye on," Mukuro said carelessly. "Hopefully most of the adult idiots are out of the picture, barring Binns, so it shouldn't be much of a burden."
The train ride itself was the usual bore leavened only by the increasingly ridiculous theories put forth as to why a particular character committed murder during games of Cluedo, and they filed into the Great Hall after a carriage ride to see—
"A toad?" he muttered.
She was more than pleasingly plump. The woman was squat, like a rounded off cube, with a face like a toad and a mouth designed for catching flies from a scarily-wide smile that would look more at home on a Cheshire cat. Her eyes bulged unpleasantly, she oozed condescension from all the way up at the head table, and her pink ensemble was fooling none of them.
"I have the sudden urge to play Whack-a-Mole," Chikusa commented quietly.
Announcements were left until after the feast and McGonagall only got partway through them (Flitwick was named Deputy, though they assumed that after seeing him be the one to handle the Sorting Hat) when the toad cleared her throat obnoxiously several times and stood up (which did not result in much added height).
"Thank you, Headmistress," Umbridge simpered, "for those kind words of welcome."
Tsuna rather thought she sounded like one of those foolish little girls who thought a pleasingly feminine demeanor would see boys from miles around racing to come to their assistance or defense. It was high-pitched and breathy and she was no Marilyn Monroe to pull off a voice like that without jarring everyone in the vicinity with the dichotomy between sound and sight.
Umbridge cleared her throat, again, and continued, "Well, it is lovely to be back at Hogwarts, I must say!" She smiled, revealing very pointed teeth. "And to see such happy little faces looking back at me! I am very much looking forward to getting to know you all, and I'm sure we'll be very good friends!"
"She sounds like a closet pedo," Ken growled lowly.
Umbridge cleared her throat again, but when she continued, some of the breathiness had vanished from her voice. She sounded much more businesslike and now her words had a dull learned-by-heart sound to them.
"The Ministry of Magic has always considered the education of young witches and wizards to be of vital importance. The rare gifts with which you were born may come to nothing if not nurtured and honed by careful instruction. The ancient skills unique to the wizarding community must be passed down through the generations lest we lose them forever. The treasure trove of magical knowledge amassed by our ancestors must be guarded, replenished, and polished by those who have been called to the noble profession of teaching."
Umbridge paused here and made a little bow to her fellow staff members, none of whom bowed back. McGonagall's dark eyebrows had contracted so that she looked positively hawklike, and Tsuna distinctly saw her exchange a significant glance with Professor Sprout as Umbridge cleared her throat yet again and went on with her speech.
"Every headmaster and headmistress of Hogwarts has brought something new to the weighty task of governing this historic school, and that is as it should be, for without progress there will be stagnation and decay. There again, progress for progress's sake must be discouraged, for our tried and tested traditions often require no tinkering. A balance, then, between old and new, between permanence and change, between tradition and innovation…"
Tsuna did his best not to zone out as he often did, but instead took note of the reactions of the students to the almost mechanically-delivered speech. There was a lot of huddling, giggling, and whispering going on, not to mention any number of Ravenclaws sporting books, magazines, or papers to read.
Umbridge did not seem to notice the restlessness of her audience. The teachers, however, were still listening with every indication of attentiveness. If their eyes were a bit glassy, well…
"…because some changes will be for the better, while others will come, in the fullness of time, to be recognized as errors of judgment. Meanwhile, some old habits will be retained, and rightly so, whereas others, outmoded and outworn, must be abandoned. Let us move forward, then, into a new era of openness, effectiveness, and accountability, intent on preserving what ought to be preserved, perfecting what needs to be perfected, and pruning wherever we find practices that ought to be prohibited."
She sat down.
McGonagall stood at that point, clapped her hands twice in a mockery of applause, then said, "Thank you very much, Professor Umbridge, that was most illuminating. Now—as I was saying, quidditch tryouts will be held…"
— — —
"So how long before we arrange an accident, you think?" Ken asked.
"Working on it," Mukuro said. "I've trailed her to her quarters and will make a visit shortly. Once she's settled in. I can tell you right now the Defense classroom and her suite are a travesty of pink and kittens. But thankfully, not pink kittens."
Tsuna shuddered. He had nothing against the colour pink—or most any colour, really, though some were less liked than others and some brought to mind awful things—but it was starting to sound like they were going to be surrounded by it. Judging by the colour of the toad's ensemble, it'd be like sitting inside an inverted bottle of Pepto Bismol.
An hour later Mukuro was back, scowling.
"Not good news, I take it," he said blandly, and got a fiercer scowl for his trouble. Tsuna opened a window to № 6 so Sin could join in on the discussion.
"The toad bitch is the one who sent those dementors," Mukuro snarled. "She's here for several reasons. One, to keep an eye on you and do what she can to squash any bit of popularity—if possible, make you out to be delusional or something because of that AK to the head your body took as a child—and to repress anything resembling the learning of Defense. You know, so those of impure blood don't get uppity and start a revolt or something."
"All right, then," he said. "Vote?"
"Motion carried," Daemon said, bypassing the vote as expected.
Tsuna knew his family would all vote to off the defect, but he preferred to leave it open so that any one of them could object, should they be so inclined. "Oh, just so Sin can see what we're talking about, will you open a window to Umbridge, Mukuro?"
Mukuro did so, and Tsuna got to see his … boyfriend? … shudder in disgust. No amount of mafia rules or a suave ladies man persona could protect against seeing that woman. At least Sin wasn't right there in person. (Leon, on the other hand, looked hungry.)
"So, suggestions as to how the toad dies a tragic death?"
"She slips on some lard at the top of a staircase and breaks her neck on the way down?" Ken offered.
"We send a massive, horny toad illusion after her and she runs screaming into the forest to be captured by centaurs and used as their bitch?"
A collective shudder ran through the room. (Leon continued to look hungry until Mukuro absently dismissed the window.)
"Smother her in honey and flies? Fill her lungs to overflowing with a syrupy pink liquid?"
"Lob her into Hagrid's pen of Blast-Ended Skrewts?"
"I'd say drop her into an active volcano, but we don't have an eye on any."
"Did I mention she has a set of blood quills she plans to use for detentions?" Mukuro said calmly.
"Burn her at the stake!" Ken cried. "Or, you know, dump her into the acromantula colony to be sucked dry."
"Oo," Tsuna said. "That would also mostly take care of any evidence. And since we're not going to be learning anything anyway, the time it takes for them to assign a new teacher…"
"It would upset Hagrid to no end if the Ministry figured out how the toad died, because presumably they'd order those spiders wiped out or moved elsewhere, but they are a danger to the school, and to the natural, non-human-eating denizens of the forest."
"So, shall I mosey on over there and get her to write a quasi-suicide note with one of her blood quills before dropping her off?" Mukuro asked. "I was thinking of having her write something like: I regret that I have but one life to give for my Ministry…"
"And then everyone might think she went off on an acromantula-killing mission like some hero and died gloriously, or some such rot."
"They're going to question what she was doing there no matter what if they track down the body."
Tsuna bit his lip and considered. "Leaving that note would make her look insanely stupid to anyone with half a brain left, so… Sure."
"Excellent!" Mukuro said happily. "I will need a twin to handle the compulsion part."
Xeul raised a hand.
— — —
Umbridge was conspicuously absent at the head table the next morning, which people were surprisingly blasé about. Clearly, they all possessed enough brain cells to dislike the toad-woman and were probably pleased to not have to deal with her.
Unfortunately, after one too many students appeared to bother McGonagall in her classroom, a search was made. The note was dutifully handed over to the DMLE and Bones had an auror squad sent over to conduct a more thorough search.
They never did find her body.
They did find the quills, however, and confiscated them, then sent over a recovering auror to take over the class.
The rest of the year went smoothly, and students eventually stopped trying to get close to Harry Potter, Triwizard Champion, as Tsuna's localized Bounding Box was still in effect pushing them away.
OWL exams were a thing to fear for many students—witness Granger's near breakdown and screaming fits when her fellow fifth years refused to adhere to her rigid revision schedule, or Weasley, Ronald's panicked attempts to actually read the material before throwing his hands up in frustration and settling for another game of chess, only to panic again at the thought of what his mother might have to say about his scores—but for Samsara it was business as usual.
"I will be happy when we can finally fake our deaths and go build a new Samsara," Tsuna said at № 6. "That's something I understand, can relax into. It was…"
"The happiest of your lives prior to the eleventh?" Sin said.
Tsuna looked at him, into those normally cold, dark eyes that were at times like an abyss to Hell, and nodded. "You made me happy." He swallowed and looked away.
Sin stepped closer. "I pray—not that I often pray—that the powers that be see fit to send me with you next time, seeing as how I was brought here."
"I do, too," he said softly.
Sin leaned in and kissed the corner of his mouth. "Too bad your body is still too young," he teased, then stepped back.
He blushed. Of course. After coughing he said, "Well, Samsara would be a way to draw in your counterpart and start to gain his trust. Though, again, him seeing you… Good for blackmail material, perhaps?"
Sin laughed. "Depends on how hardened he is, but perhaps. We'll just have to have cameras ready, concealed and waiting, for just that moment. I and the Reborn of λ10 adore those brownies and the cake, so perhaps we can start with those? I don't think you should offer that coffee, though. He might fall for you, too, and I refuse to share."
"Ki-san is flirting with me again," he said softly, a faint smile on his face.
"You will be using that serene smile on him, right? That ticked me off something fierce until I got used to it. You and Fon—damn but was annoying."
Tsuna grinned. "That was why I did it~!" he caroled. "The way your eye would twitch—!" He laughed merrily.
"Yeah, yeah, you finally got one over on Reborn."
"I got a Reborn—you—to admit you liked me~! Best day of my life!"
Sin smirked lazily. "Oh, I think you'll find soon enough that there's an even better one coming."
He felt his face heat up again. "Damn it! Stop trying to make me blush!"
Sin kept on smirking, in victory. "Say, how many antiques do you have left? Do we need to acquire more?"
"Uh… I suppose we could go through my inventory, but I have a habit of liberating goods from defects, so… And I still have all that depression glass Lal never got to buy. The quilts you brought in. But more is always good. I'm trying to think of what I picked up in the last few lives and what I could have but didn't. Speaking of that, though, do you have any suggestions as to where? Because I'm thinking Rome won't cut it this time."
Sin grabbed his hand and pulled him to a seat. "At this time…? Pavia, perhaps. Shamal got his medical degree there, and I would occasionally go visit, laugh at his female troubles, get caught up. Even if we didn't snag Reborn right away, there's a damn good chance we'd get Shamal, and through him… Well, he does like to brag."
"And we could conceivably lead him straight to the place," he said. "We haven't met a Mist yet who could tell when one of mine are rummaging in their heads, or doing a bit of mind-fuckery. Shamal shouldn't be a problem. Hell, I managed to fool a version of you one time, and you've always been practically immune to Mist illusions."
Sin scowled. "Maybe after a few rounds that won't be as much of a weakness. Because really? We don't know how strong Fashion-Challenged is, or how many rounds it would take to be able to overcome him."
"Ugh." Just the thought of it made Tsuna tired. Thankfully they had never had to try to pull one over on the … well, not human, not if what that one version of the man had said rang with truth rather than the almost inborn deception of a Mist. "Hopefully we will never need to know, but I admit it's crossed my mind once or twice, just how augmented our souls would need to be to equal or even surpass that man. If nothing else, while Mist was never a primary, I've been around the block enough times that it's hard to trick me with it, unless maybe when I'm super focused."
"I still can't believe I never once caught on to you being a Sky—well, until I met the local you," Sin said, chagrined and shaking his head.
Tsuna laughed. "And Daemon thought I was being too obvious with the colours I wore."
Sin leered at him. "I look forward to seeing you dressed in yukata again, Heul. You have the right body for them, lean and not so tall that they mess with the proportions."
"You and your maths~!"
The sound of the front door opening broke apart their shared gaze.
"We have pizza!" Daemon called out.
— — —
Xeul smiled brightly, his teeth glinting in a vaguely menacing way. "Enrico has finally learned that he's not going to get any action whatsoever until he gets married, so he's started looking for a wife. Teo-jiji thinks he's too young, of course, but Enrico has had such a case of blue balls for months and he's just dying to take care of that."
"Teo-jiji can still make time to disapprove even with his own haunting?" Tsuna asked.
"He's proven rather resistant," Xeul replied. "He's quite thick-headed. I might have to add in some special effects to amp things up. It's rather like watching a Weasley twin blithely ignoring one of their mother's howlers. All selective deafness and trying not to make his guardians think he's gone mental. We can have a huddle later to discuss possible additions to the current haunting."
Tsuna nodded and gestured at Sin.
"After giving it some thought I've come to the conclusion that the best place to draw the local Reborn in is if we set up Samsara in Pavia. Trident Shamal is there getting his medical degree, and he should be an in, assuming the two are friendly in this dimension."
Daemon raised a hand briefly, his way of saying he'd look into it.
"Once there, we either get lucky and one of them comes in coincidentally or by hearing gossip around town, or we lead Shamal there without him knowing, and encourage him to gush about the food and wares to Reborn."
"I'll check on Shamal as soon as possible," Daemon said. "We're going to need time to get a new Samsara kitted out, so if they don't follow the usual pattern, we'll have to pick some place closer to wherever Reborn is and set up there. Or…" He paused to purse his lips. "Come up with a hit he would want to take on and lure him in with that long enough to get a spy on him."
Sin looked distant, his focus turned inward. "I was freelance for a long time before Vongola put out feelers. Teo-jiji dangled a very attractive offer in front of me, still with a clear out in case I or they found it to be unworkable. There was enough leeway that I never felt collared. But now, after everything I've learned? I would spare my other self that particular deal with the devil. I could see having stayed with Cavallone. Dino was fun to torture, but in the end he's a good kid—a good man. Decimo was, too, but if that could have been avoided…"
Tsuna suddenly laughed. "Can you imagine setting up the local Tsuna with an in-depth working knowledge of Ancient Runes? Putting together constructs that no other famiglia could match? He could start something outside Vongola, and even if he did end up as Decimo, he would have something, a different direction, more than just glittering smiles and charm and velvet over steel hands. Of course, that also depends on getting the local Daemon to agree not to be an utter dick."
Daemon and Xeul shook their heads. "He'll listen to reason or we'll absorb him."
Endless hours of research, revision, tinkering, revision, and yet more tinkering had come up with a way to power a laptop. Finally. The initial charge came from magic or flames, either was fine. The very heat generated by the laptop was captured by a rune-set, converted, and plowed back in to help keep the charge. Energy was energy. Anything excess was captured and converted, shoved into runic batteries.
Micro-engraving made it possible to sneak runes into the unlikeliest of places, rendering the chances of someone reverse engineering the work far lower. If they could teach the local Tsuna it could turn into something wonderful. The only downside was that there were always spies, always people looking to steal, and without something like true loyalty… And even then, anyone could be broken, it just took longer for some.
If they could make the runes small enough to hide them in otherwise decorative markings, the likelihood of someone figuring it out would drop even further.
"I don't suppose you know how to fly a plane, Sin?"
Sin looked startled for a moment, then shook his head. "For the tragic accident, I assume."
"Yeah. Hm."
"I think … convince the pilot that something has gone horribly wrong, such as an explosion in the main cabin, and he uses one of the emergency parachutes…?"
"We could swing that," Mukuro said, exchanging a look with the twins. "Or, well… We make the airport think one of us is the pilot, but we do have a real one, just we indulge in a bit of mind-fuckery and step him out to a safe place after pointing the plane at the ocean. That way there's no mayday and they'd have a much larger area to search if they were so inclined. The pilot would only lose a few hours, and that could be accounted for by him falling asleep while reading…? Something."
"We have a month before our letters are due to arrive," said Ken. "Why don't we step out to Italy and do some poking around? At least get some questions answered and scope out any likely properties, there or elsewhere, depending."
"Sounds good. Let's pack up for a stay."
— — —
Shamal was tracked down, mostly by Sin (who was wearing a disguise, just as Tsuna and the twins were), and his brain rummaged through. He was a sort-of friend to Reborn in this dimension, which was good, and they kept in semi-regular contact, with Reborn occasionally wandering into town to share a meal and the odd story before the hitman wandered back out.
Shamal was as much a sucker for good food as he was a pretty girl, so the odds were in their favor. And even if they weren't, they were three strong at meddling with people's brains so delicately that a target would never suspect they'd been altered.
With that established they started looking for a property, preferably a place that Shamal would pass by on a regular basis, and could manage to hold both the bakery section, the "old things" section, plus housing for them all. Or, rather, a one bedroom apartment with a decent kitchen (not always the easiest thing to find in Europe). Tents were just expanded spaces, so there was nothing stopping them from obtaining or creating a trunk of the same nature, with enough bedrooms for all of them.
It was, after all, far more difficult to find decent housing for a family of eight than it was for two.
The found a corner location that looked like it would work and visited briefly, mostly to be able to drop spies and have a place to start from with windows that night, then left and continued meandering down the street. The older section of town was, well, older, and the buildings were far too cramped to be of much use for Samsara. It was all very picturesque, though.
That night, close to midnight, a window was opened to the property in question and maneuvered around, up the back staircase, and into the sitting room of the attached apartment. The kitchen was doable, though a bit of spiffing up wouldn't hurt (they would be there for close to five years) and the sitting room could fit them all (though it looked to be a bit cramped with eight people relaxing in it), though it was more likely that his family would be lounging down in the shop area just to have more space.
(The bedroom trunk would need bathrooms, too. Shuffling eight people through one bathroom was just asking for fights to break out on a daily basis.)
Downstairs, the shop would need quite a lot of work. Another trunk could be used for inventory storage, which would save on a lot of space. Rough in a somewhat bigger kitchen, have a little care when displaying "old things" for sale, and plenty of room would be left over for bakery cases and seating.
"I think it'll work," he said.
"It won't have quite the same charm as the original Samsara," Sin said.
"No, but… I was thinking of mismatched furniture. An eclectic harmony of sorts. So many places are obsessed with everything matching just so and…" He shrugged.
"I would say to use space expansion charms, but people might get suspicious and we'd have to undo it all in the end," Hayato said. "A couple of trunks should do it, one for inventory and one for the bedrooms and such we'll need."
Tsuna nodded. "Basically what I was thinking. The only other option is to buy a house in the city and walk or step back and forth. We could just keep the apartment upstairs as a shift station or whatever."
Chikusa frowned. "I don't much care for the idea of separating our work place and home space. It would mean two bounding boxes. Anchored, true, but still. It's not like we'd all always be right there in the shop at all times."
"We've been living in a dorm room for years now," Ken pointed out. "A bit cramped, sure… It would be different, somehow, once we're in Namimori. The houses might not be huge, but if we could get two houses side by side, something like that."
Tsuna tried to think back to his birth place and if there were any large homes there aside from the Hibari mansion. There were a couple, if he was remembering right, though they were not exactly close to where the Sawada family lived. "Maybe… Maybe if we were there at the right time, we could influence which house the Tsow buys for his adorable wife, something a hell of a lot closer to one of the few large homes I can remember in Namimori. I'm fairly certain that I was born not more than a year after they got married, so we could meddle there. It'd mean purchasing one of those houses early, and quite probably the house we want them to have, so we can conveniently sell it to the Tsow."
"Incidentally making some money off him," Daemon said, smirking.
"That would be something of a bonus," he said. "All right. Next summer we'll go to Japan and figure out what we're going to buy, how much we'll need. Then once we've faked our deaths we can get the new Samsara started. In 1999 we can purchase the properties in Namimori to be ready for when the Tsow is looking for a place. We can always take a holiday at around the right time, or some of us, so long as one Mist stays with me as backup."
His twins immediately smiled angelically and said, "We'll take care of it."
"So we're agreed on this place? Or do you guys want to poke around a few more places?"
Everyone shrugged.
"Okay. We can get started on convincing them to sell tomorrow. Then we can look into trunks or make our own this year."
— — —
Their sixth year was, if possible, even more boring than usual. The Slytherins were mostly behaving, the Ravenclaws had their noses buried in their books, the Hufflepuffs were still part of the cult, and Gryffindor vacillated between taking stupid bets, ditching homework for leisure activities, and being lectured by Granger for not taking their education seriously. The NEWTs were less than two years away!
Somewhere in there Massimo was given his own deep-seated haunting compulsion, just in case. Enrico was getting serious with a rather meek and mild blonde girl his age from a minor famiglia and expected to ask her to marry him soon, despite Timoteo stating he thought his boy was too young for such things.
"Considering Timoteo didn't get married until he was nearly thirty…" Xeul said. "Like anyone believes he kept it in his pants for over a decade like a good Catholic. Especially not after bringing in his alleged bastard son."
"Should we do anything about that?" Ken asked. "He won't be brought in until… He was eight, I think? So 1999."
Daemon got a weird look on his face. "I believe our dear Sky would object on the grounds that Xanxus would be missing out on a lot of 'valuable personal growth time'."
Tsuna shot his best friend a sarcastic smile. "Bite me, darling Yeul. But yes, I would object. One of the things that helped shape Xanxus was coming back from being iced and seeing that his people kept the Varia together in his absence. If we try to interfere early, what would we do? His mother practically flung the kid at Teo-jiji, and for all that he wasn't treated right—you know, being expected to instinctively know how to act like a pampered prince—he did end up in a good home, relatively speaking, with warm clothes, his own room, food, and training, and it led him to his own little family."
"Creepy as fuck as some of them are," Chikusa muttered.
"If we interfere, maybe it'd be better to get Teo-jiji and his snotty guardians to not give the kid such a hard time. I can't place this on the same level as rescuing Mukuro, Ken, and Chikusa, because I'm usually five years old when I arrive and they've already been tortured. Getting them away is the only sane thing to do at that point."
"No, they've yet to move beyond experimentation on adults," Mukuro said, answering an unasked question. "Any and all thoughts toward Possession Bullets has been ruthlessly squashed by an embedded compulsion. The second I hear a hint that they're looking at the children, I will warn you and we will act, but considering they did so after the Possession Bullets were outlawed and people started trying to exterminate the famiglia…"
"It may not happen," Ken said. "I'd still feel better about getting our local selves out of there regardless."
"And we will, if that's what you want," Tsuna reassured him. "For now, let's go buy us a shop and track down some contractors for closer to our NEWT exams. And, you know, make sure they don't do something inconvenient like book that time for someone else's job."
A ton of stored gold was exchanged for the local currency and used to pay for the place, and the contractors were booked to start the job during their Easter holiday of seventh year. It would not be a problem for one of the twins to keep a window open to quietly supervise and, if necessary, pop over in person and use a time turner to appear not to have gone in the first place.
It's not like they were learning anything new, after all.
They weren't children to fret and obsess and worry about nitpicky things (like Granger), and all that free time (not spent revising an essay for the tenth time and still fretting that it wasn't good enough) was spent on learning ahead, or at least learning things they really wanted to know.
But from a professor? Fuck, no.
They had to go at a pace that inbred pure-bloods could handle. The years were only as fast as the slowest of them, and with people like Crabbe and Goyle?
When Easter hols rolled around they went home to № 6 and Mukuro went off for another in-depth look at Estraneo while Daemon went to Pavia to keep an eye on the start of the renovations. The plans would not make the place into a duplicate of the original Samsara (due to the shape of the property) but it would do well enough. While there, Daemon would also take care of any permits required for the business.
They had purchased several extended trunks, including multi-compartment, with acquired gold and gone over them with the equivalent of a fine-toothed comb during the year, plus required information from Roary's, and were able to create two trunks for their upcoming use.
One, a house trunk, contained all the amenities of a normal house, suitable for eight people. Assuming it functioned properly in alternate dimensions, it would be an invaluable investment of time and money. The other, a multi-compartment storage trunk, with most of the compartments intended to hold shop stock. One would hold dry goods, because it was always a good idea to have supplies with a beyond world-class chef in the family.
Their time at Hogwarts came to an end with the NEWT exams, and then they were nearly free.
Once they had their results—straight Outstandings across the board—a trip to Gringotts finally saw Tsuna getting access to all his vaults, though he would wait until after his "death" to loot them bare.
Then they arranged for their holiday. The pilot was appropriately mind-fucked, flight plans were filed, and they flew off to their deaths. The pilot was stepped to a safe location, given a good knock on the head, and left unconscious right around the corner from a hospital. Police later suspected that someone had taken his place as pilot on the doomed flight, which led to the deaths of the eight passengers.
A tragedy all around.
Samsara stepped Between to their new home.
— — —
Personal mail wards had been set prior to their fatal plane ride, so there shouldn't be any issue with lovelorn people sending off post to Harry Potter in some sort of bizarre good-bye. Considering that owls which could not find their target tended to fly around in circles for some time before giving up and returning the letter to the sender (and the same was true against those with mail wards) it should be fine.
With that out of the way they settled into life as Samara proper, which was amusing in that only three of them had any experience with the original Samsara and the remainder were at a loss as to what to do with themselves.
Daemon went off to Sicily to find the local Daemon and start the process of wooing the man to their side, while Xeul went to just outside Milan to do another check on Vongola. That left Mukuro as the resident Mist. Hayato, Chikusa, and Ken either helped get everything set up in the shop—from displays to stock to getting the kitchen kitted out—or went exploring so they had a much better idea of their present neighborhood.
An anchored Bounding Box went up, one intended to keep out anyone of dubious intent—those looking to steal from Samsara, kill anyone inside, suborn, or generally, up to no good that went against them—and Hayato declared his intent to be Samsara's accountant.
Tsuna, now wearing his Heul disguise, spent the first full day planning out exactly what he was going to fill all those bakery displays with (most of which, at the outset, would be eaten by themselves or donated to orphanages and hospitals—at least until business picked up).
That night he was drawn away from the house trunk by Sin and into the only proper bedroom they had. Tsuna immediately cottoned on to what this was about and steeled himself. He was nervous and excited and generally a mess, but a serene smile slid into place to cover that up.
Sin just smirked. "I know that smile, and I know that this time it's not because you're teasing or trolling me. Nervous, tesoro?" He moved in closer and bent his head enough to capture Tsuna's lips in a firm kiss that quickly morphed to a teasing one.
Tsuna's heart rate began to rise and he started to feel a bit breathless. He pulled back and looked into the abyss. "You do remember I've never done this before. I trust you'll—"
"Oh, tesoro," Sin cut in, "I'll treat you like the treasure you are, the gift I never once expected to be given. Why don't we start with a massage. That doubles as relaxation and exploration. From there… Well, we'll see, won't we. I realize that you could suffer a ridiculously stupid death at any moment, but I don't take that as reason to rush things. Now that your body is finally adult, though, I've every reason to start staking my claim."
He took that as a reason to feel reassured and nodded. It wasn't every day someone of his collective age finally stuck a toe over the line into losing his virginity. On the down side… The down side meant it was even more obvious that he would never willingly produce a legitimate heir for the Vongola Famiglia.
Sin leaning in to capture his mouth again saw those thoughts scatter and his attention pulled back to where it belonged, now, in the moment.
— — —
The next day Tsuna was feeling pleasantly relaxed. The massage had shown him a version of Heaven he'd not known existed, and left him wanting more, frequently. Sin's hands were adept at far more than just killing, and Tsuna was one lucky bastard (never mind that Sin insisted he was the lucky bastard).
He hummed all morning, happily baking away, and a series of yummy treats started to fill the bakery displays. By the time the shop actually opened they were half full and they had their first curious customer, lured in by the Kokuyo trio, noisily on their way to have a treat at that new place.
Sin was helping in the kitchen, with no intention of being seen in public without a disguise until the appropriate time, so Tsuna meandered out as Heul to take care of things. The real customer, who looked to be a middle-class businessman stopping in while running an errand outside work, purchased a croissant to take with him (and was noticeably annoyed that there was no such thing as coffee to be had) and wandered back out, though not before casting more than one curious look at the "old things" on display for sale.
It took a good two weeks before Shamal wandered in (subtle prompting on the part of his Mists, and which made Tsuna wonder just what Daemon was up to that he wasn't back yet) and ordered a sampler of goodies. He wrinkled his nose at only having the options of water, juice, and oolong tea to drink, but carted his tray over to a table and settled in to eat and read what looked like a graphic porn novel.
Delighted humming sounded from over that way once Shamal started eating, though for all Tsuna knew it had more to do with the porn than the food. The Kokuyo trio were pretending to be customers again, playing Skip-Bo at a table and noshing on mitarashi dango.
Before he left Shamal, too, had eyed up the "old things" displays with a discerning eye, paying especial attention to the antique guns.
With any luck they wouldn't have to do more meddling; Shamal would do the work for them.
"The food tastes different," Sin commented the next day.
"Huh?"
"Since I've been helping you in the kitchen," Sin clarified. "When I eat something from the display now… I almost feel healthier, weirdly enough."
Tsuna blinked a few times and went off to fetch a croissant to munch on. "Huh, you're right. I think … maybe … you're picking up my unintentional use of flames in cooking? If so, you definitely have to be helping whenever I make flu-fighters."
"Are you two canoodling over food?"
Tsuna beamed happily on seeing that Daemon was back; he had a friend in tow, presumably the local Daemon. "Yeul! You're back. I assume this is…?"
Daemon's head dipped in a nod. "Yes. And after a fun-filled rampage against the Nasso Famiglia, we came to an agreement."
"I would be pleased to assist your efforts with regard to Vongola in exchange for learning some of your more interesting tricks."
Tsuna nodded. "We need a new name for you, though. It can get very confusing at times with more than one Daemon Spade, and to me, Yeul is the original Daemon because he's the first one I connected with."
"Bael will do," the newly-named Bael said.
Tsuna turned inward for a moment, then said, "One of the seven princes of hell and has the power to make those who invoke him invisible. Mm, works for me. Welcome aboard! We made a discovery today. Sin has apparently picked up on my thing with cooking."
Daemon's brow went up in mild confusion. "How does that even translate?"
"Better health," Sin said. "I seem to be imbuing the food I help Heul cook with Sun Flames, the same way he does with Sky Flames."
Daemon shook his head. "You were so wasted as a mafia boss, Heul. You could probably bring about world peace if enough people just ate your cooking."
Bael looked highly skeptical of that claim—or he did, until a croissant was shoved into his hand and he took a Tsuna got up to bag a half dozen cannolie. "Huh. This is extraordinary. I feel almost peaceful. And yes, a sense of … wellbeing. Interesting. I amend my earlier statement. I also require food."
Tsuna snickered and nodded. "Sure. If you're willing, you can help with keeping Teo-jiji from being such an asshole. It's slightly unnerving with Xeul or Daemon away for long periods of time, and if you're anything like them, I already know you'd be fantastically effective."
Bael did a shrug-nod combo and had another bite of his croissant.
"Shamal stopped by yesterday," he informed Daemon. "He eyed the guns on his way out, so with any luck…"
Daemon smiled creepily. "If Reborn isn't here within the month, we'll just meddle."
Conversation broke off due to a customer wandering in, so Tsuna got up to bag a half dozen cannoli for her and ring up the sale before returning to the table. "It's a little weird. We've barely opened and already we've had more customers than we ever did at the original Samsara."
"We also didn't have people subtly luring others in," Daemon replied, nodding at the Kokuyo trio. "I was occasionally glancing this way in case I was needed."
"Hm, true. Anyway," he said, glancing toward the door briefly. "Will you get started on teaching Bael those tricks, Yeul, or would you prefer I do it?"
"You are the creator, Heul."
"All right. Someone please watch the store, then. Bael, let's head upstairs so no customers see something they shouldn't." He grabbed two more croissants and headed up, Bael at his heels, and grabbed two butterbeers from the refrigerator before taking a seat at the kitchen table. After handing over one of each to their new friend, he said, "Right, so, the first trick is probably—actually, how did you two come here?"
Bael's brow crinkled. "I'm not entirely sure."
"Ah, okay." Heul pulled the cork out of his butterbeer and had a sip before saying, "He brought you through what I call Between. A ways back—my sixth life, I believe it was—I really wanted a way to store things easily. At first I thought, since I was, at the time, a Cloud with a Mist secondary, that I could propagate the space inside a pouch or something.
"But then I got to thinking, there is no such thing as a solid. No matter how small the space is, there is always space between the molecules that everything's made up of. And I wanted to use that space. It's there, it exists." He reached into his storage and pulled out a book, and waved it around before putting it back.
"The fun thing is that you can also move around in it, use it to spy from a position where no one can see or normally sense you. You can hold panes of glass on the edge of Between to view places, and you can step via Between to get places, like, uh, teleporting, sort of? That's how Yeul got you here. How he figured out how to use it after I showed him an example—like that book I just showed you—I'm not sure. I'm not even sure exactly how I do it, just that I wanted it and it happened."
Bael said, "I will ask him, because everyone's mind works differently."
Tsuna nodded. "Next up are what I'd call an upgrade to Mist barriers…" An hour later he moved on to what they were hoping for. "I don't know how much Yeul told you about what we're hoping for, so I'll just go over it myself."
Bael nodded agreeably.
"One, to not go after the Simon Famiglia. I don't know anything about anyone but Enma, but he was a lot like me in many ways—well, before I got shuffled a few times and wised the fuck up. I still don't know what caused any Daemon Spade to go bugnuts over Cozarto Simon aside from that one thing that happened around that time period and I don't really care to dig at this point, but Enma doesn't deserve what happens to him all too often."
Bael's expression twisted, but he nodded. "I can accept that. After Yeul walking me through a few things from your various lives, I can see where that whole enmity is pointless."
Tsuna smiled in relief. "Two, to help us—or rather, the local me—with keeping the vultures off his back. We will be there in time, housed pretty much right next door, to prevent Iemitsu—not so affectionately referred to as the Tsow, for Tainted Sack of Wind—from getting Teo-jiji to put a seal on his flames all of five seconds after he goes active.
"That seal fucked me up," he said with a bitter scowl. "It depressed my intelligence, messed up my motor control, and basically made me into the sweetest bait you can imagine for bullies. I was constantly getting beat up or made fun of. Once I realized what had happened, that second life, and what it was doing to me, I tried to break it on my own the next life and, well, exploded myself."
Bael's brow went up in confusion.
"I was an Earth that life, and…"
"Ah."
"After that I figured out ways to avoid them even knowing I had flames, active or otherwise. We can prevent it for this local Tsuna, which is good, and be there to help him learn how to safely and responsibly use his flames. If Teo-jiji and the Tsow think he's been sealed, that's cool. Less immediate mess on that end.
"Sealed or not, it didn't stop assassins from showing up on a regular basis in some lives, so we'll be protecting him from that, too. Where you come in is where I inevitably die a hilariously stupid death, because I always do. The oldest I've made it to so far is twenty-four, and getting that far is rare. Hopefully we'll have had a positive enough influence in his life that he'd be all right after we were gone, but without knowing when we'll be going…"
Bael nodded. "And if he's anything like you, he would be worth protecting until he can stand on his own two feet."
"Well, presumably not as psychotic as me, and quite likely far more normal, but yeah, I expect he'd be a decent kid and a strong adult with the right support. And, preferably, proper guardians, not those bullshit political peons Teo-jiji thinks are proper."
"One does tend to lose certain so-called acceptable morals when one has Mist Flames," Bael said.
He hummed. "Third, any help you can spare, while not otherwise occupied, in keeping the ninth generation in line and trying to at least get the brothers three married off and producing babies to carry on the line. No idea if the local Tsuna is straight, gay, or somewhere in between, but the idea of putting the entire burden of Vongola's sins on his shoulders plus the responsibility of continuing the bloodline is just a bit much. The way it usually goes is that Ricardo's line ends, and since I'm too often the local Tsuna, Giotto's dies out, too."
Bael frowned. "That would mean…"
"Yeah. Sucks all around, because then two lines are dead, Vongola is lost completely, and the Tri-ni-sette is hosed due to Giotto and/or Ricardo putting that blood-lock in place, which means the world would end much sooner than expected—at least according to Iron Hat Guy. This is a major impetus behind trying to get more babies born. In most worlds they never do get married or have children. They took their father's failure to get married until he was thirty-ish like gospel, and then of course they were all killed off." Tsuna shrugged.
Xeul was clearly listening in because indigo words flamed up a moment later: Enrico is scheduled to get married in September.
"Excellent! Are you coming home soon?"
Xeul: Yes, not much longer.
"Drop a note with what you want for when you get back and time enough for me to shop."
Xeul: Will do, darling~!
"I wonder if we should be feeding Enrico and his incipient wife fertility potions?" he muttered. "Although, I don't know if those work properly on normal people. Or people with active flames."
"…Fertility … potions?"
"Oh, right, I guess you're not aware of the magical world."
Bael got as close to gawking as any Daemon Spade would ever allow himself being seen with.
"Yeah," he said slowly. "This falls under something very similar to Omertà, called the Statute of Secrecy, put in place by the International Confederation of Wizards. Kind of like an analogue to the UN, except much stupider and far more silly."
It took a bit for Bael's sense of which way was up to fix itself, but he adjusted and laughed creepily and took out a half dozen civilian defects. Then he was better, for a given definition of better.
— — —
Shamal wandered back in a week later and sampled the cheesecake, eyed the weapons, and left with a half cheesecake to go. He was boring in that he asked for a strawberry compote to go with it.
A week after that … Reborn strutted in, his baby form too cute for words. A serene smile slid into place as Tsuna watched Reborn strut on over to the weaponry on display and begin to examine them. He knew Sin was watching through a one-way window, there mainly so that Tsuna could see from the kitchen who had come in when the bell on the door tinkled.
While he waited he busied himself with his oolong and a crossword puzzle. Reborn sent him the occasional covert look, possibly because he expected this adult to question him and shoo him away from the deadly weapons. Tsuna just worked on his crossword and had sips of his tea until Reborn wandered his way and tilted his hat back.
He turned his serene smile on the chibified man. "Hm?"
"The Smith & Wesson 2nd Model American Revolver. Your price is way too high. You can't honestly expect people to pay that much for a gun that's missing at least half the original finish." His eyes were the usual dark abyss and he radiated a sense of bright, scorching flames destined to incinerate you next.
His serene smile firmly in place, Tsuna said, "Ah, but, Ki-san, you speak as if guns like that grow on all the trees and beg to be plucked like ripe fruit. Surely someone of your learning would know this."
Reborn's eye started twitching right on schedule.
(It was like music to Tsuna's ears.)
Reborn named a figure that was way too low. Tsuna's serene smile widened just a touch as he named a figure not much lower than the asking price of ₤2,500,000. Reborn countered with a figure not much higher than his first bid.
Tsuna was thrilled to play the game again and entered into a spirited haggling session, smiling his serene smile and experiencing a peculiar kind of joy on seeing that twitch get stronger. They finally settled on a price of ₤2,115,000, which was the value Tsuna had long since calculated as the actual price.
"It is a deal, then, Ki-san," Tsuna said happily. He got up and went to fetch down the gun, then brought it to the counter so he could place it in a white box lined with acid-free tissue paper, which then went into a crisp white bag with the violet and indigo logo of Samsara.
He ran the sale, not bothering to look at the name on the card, and, as a bonus, threw in a single brownie of the sort he knew Sin adored. "A gift with your first purchase," he said serenely. "I had fun haggling with you, Ki-san~! Do come again."
Reborn huffed off with his bag, the jingle of the bell a bit strident in his passing, and disappeared around the corner.
Tsuna burst out laughing and welcomed it when Sin came up behind him and enfolded him in a hug.
"The question is whether or not he'll test that brownie and eat it, or just throw it away as suspicious," Sin said, placing a kiss on Tsuna's cheek.
"I would have told him to wave his magic wand over it first to be sure it wasn't poisoned, but I just could not do it, not to a Reborn who was…"
Sin kissed him again. "I know. It hurts, to see that, to see … me … cursed and bitter…"
"Like badly roasted coffee beans?" he teased.
Sin pinched his side in retaliation. "My dream stands that I will one day get you to see the beauty of coffee, tesoro."
"Not gonna happen, Schatz. The closest you will ever get me to coffee is tiramisu and a White Russian. But I will happily argue with you about it until the end of time if only for the amusement factor."
Sin scoffed, but held him close again. "I wonder how long before he comes back. If he does eat that brownie, I imagine it'll be soon. If he gets to hankering for another antique, maybe a month. I think it was about that long before I came back after that first time."
He nodded. "About that, yeah."
"Just means I need to keep wearing the disguise for now. Lord knows I don't want anyone figuring me out aside from my counterpart, and then only after we can trust he'll stay quiet about it."
— — —
It took two weeks before Reborn came back. Shamal had come again, twice, and carted off a full cheesecake, a dozen cannoli, and a sampler of Japanese sweets. Tsuna reckoned he was becoming fond of the food, so it was just as well there had never been any women present during the times he dropped by.
'Though, it would be amusing to drop-kick his ass out the door and deny him entrance ever again for harassing my customers,' he thought.
Reborn strutted in and went straight for the guns, which made Tsuna bite the inside of his mouth to prevent a bout of hysterical giggling. He shared an amused look with Sin and took his turn at (multilingual) Scrabble. (He almost always lost, but he attributed that to Sin being better at calculating word scores in his head.)
He had just lost another game when Reborn strutted over with a familiar look of, 'Are you mental?' and immediately complained about the price of the gun he was drooling over.
A serene smile slid into place and Tsuna took a few agonizing moments to have a dango sphere and eat it before saying, "Ah, Ki-san, how lovely to see you again. I assume you have finished the sacred ritual with the gun you recently purchased and are now in need of a new one?"
For a split second there was a dumbfounded look on Reborn's face, swiftly replaced with a scowl. "You," he said, pausing for a moment, "are weird."
Tsuna blinked slowly, like a cat. "Ki-san is flirting with me~!"
The eye twitch thing started back up.
"I am sorry, Ki-san, but I am afraid you are too late. I am spoken for," he said, shooting a heated look at Sin before reverting to a serene smile. "Which gun was it you were interested in?"
They haggled spiritedly, Tsuna packed up the gun the usual way, and stopped when he heard, "Do you have more of those brownies?"
"No," he (technically) lied (because they were in the kitchen and not the display case), "but I do have a similar cake, with buttercream frosting. I have been experimenting, you see. Would you like to try that, Ki-san? I can give you a small sample to try first."
Without waiting for an answer he grabbed a piece of cake and nipped the corner off with a fork, then offered it to Reborn.
The Sun stared hard at him, his face blank, but his eyes expressing volumes in a way that only those with long exposure could interpret. Then he accepted the fork and nibbled the cake off it. For some reason Tsuna was reminded of a rabbit, which would surely get him killed should he ever voice the thought.
Reborn handed the fork back and said, "I'll take—" He paused to check the display case. "—six pieces."
Tsuna upped the intensity of his smile and nodded, then got out another box. "Do you prefer corners or does it not matter?"
"…Corners."
"I like corners, too, Ki-san." He used a cake knife to carefully slide the pieces into the box, closed it, and added it to the bag. He ran the credit card Reborn handed him and passed it back, got the usual illegible signature, and lowered the bag down, receipt tucked inside. On seeing Reborn's nostrils flare he added, "You are correct. We do not serve coffee here to drink."
Reborn's eye twitched again, he nodded, and off he huffed.
"Okay, now that was just plain mean," Sin complained.
"Reading his mind?" he asked, retaking his seat for another game.
Sin frowned at him and shook the bag of tiles before laying them out off to the side of the board. "That is my thing, damn it. No stealing it."
Tsuna laughed at him. "But I am an exceptional thief."
Sin stared, then pulled tiles for the start of the game. "I'm going to just assume I'll come with you next go around. With that said, I call dibs on a Mist body. I really want to be able to do those things."
He nodded. "You would think we'd have had an easier time of getting everyone Mist Flames, but they're surprisingly rare when we show up." He shook his head unhappily. "My twins no longer need a Mist body. Neither does Mukuro, but he prefers one if he can get it. And no one is willing to take a female body, not that I blame them. I still remember that time Ryohei was a female named Rei."
He shuddered. The very idea of being the opposite gender was enough to make him want to off himself if it happened. Maybe that was why it had never happened. Maybe the powers that be knew his feelings on the matter and made damn sure he was never dropped into a universe where his counterpart was female. There would be little point to it if Tsuna just offed him—herself the first chance they got.
'Well, unless the whole point of that universe was to take my counterpart out of the running entirely.'
Xeul jingling the bell as he strolled in saw Tsuna standing up so he could give his Lightning a hug. Xeul shooed him back to his seat, declining an offer to fetch him refreshments. "I'll be there in a moment."
Xeul returned several minutes later with a cup of tea and a half dozen chocolate chip cookies. "So," he said, taking a seat, "we're set for the fifth of September. I already have a visual for the location, so we can watch."
"And the girl?"
Xeul rolled his eyes. "Blonde, big blue eyes, busty, child-bearing hips, and no brains to speak of. The perfect wife if what you're after is a Barbie doll who looks good on your arm and won't question you."
Tsuna shuddered again. "Not going to complain, so long as this union produces babies. Though, the no brains part is worrisome. We already have enough of an issue with Teo-jiji's lack of intelligence. Still, babies. The faster they start…"
"The worst thing is that—in my universe, anyway—we never did find out who took out the brothers. If it was one person or group, or multiple," Sin said.
"Whoever took out Massimo was either a fan of those damn movies, or used that method to make the whole thing a sick joke. A back-handed slap at how lax Vongola had become?" He shrugged.
"How goes the hunt?" Xeul asked. "I've only been checking in for a few minutes each day, so…"
Tsuna brightened. "He took the bait. Bought two guns already."
"And appears to love Heul's cooking," Sin added. "You just missed him, actually. He was here a short while ago. Heul is just as good at getting under his skin as he was mine."
Tsuna smirked. All that experience had to count for something. "Oh, I think I blew Bael's mind when I let slip our most recent additions."
Xeul's brow flirted up briefly. "Clearly I left that conversation too early. How so?"
"I may have mentioned fertility potions."
"Not a bad idea, except for the part where we don't know how they affects actives or normals. Massimo has his eye on a few candidates for the honor of becoming his wife, so there's progress on that front, as well. We'll just have to pray that of the children born of these unions at least one is a Sky."