Chapter 6: Rewind

0700 hrs, Monday; January 4, Year 2100

"Here, Miss Miura. I'm sorry, so sorry!" Tsuna muttered the words quickly. She pulled out the carefully folded coat from within her bag, bowing as she passed it to Miss Miura.

"Eh? It's really no problem, don't worry about it! Did you remember to bring your own coat today, though?" Tsuna stared at her for awhile, before looking down at her own clothes. She was still wearing her coat, so why was Miss Miura asking such a silly question? She tilted her head quizzically. Miss Miura realized her silliness, chuckling foolishly and grabbing Tsuna's arm with her free hand.

"Come, come. We'll eat breakfast, and then you can change!"

"Ah – wait! I left my sweater here yesterday…do you still have it?"

"Probably, probably," Haru waved off the question, and Tsuna soon found herself being dragged to the dining area.

"So," Haru started, taking a bite into her toast as she did, "how was the first day at work? Confident that you'll last a month there?"

At hearing her question, Tsuna's eyes widened and even seemed to water a bit, before looking down. "Perhaps…" was her meek answer. It held no confidence at all, and Haru noticed this immediately.

"Don't be frightened," she offered a kind smile – but her words were muffled by the crunching of her toast, "Haru is sure Tsuna-kun can do it!" She reached over and gave Tsuna a pat on her head. "Now, hurry up, eat. You'll need a lot of energy today!"

Tsuna looked down at her abundant breakfast. It was certainly far more than she had ever had for breakfast in her life, it seemed impossible to stuff all of it into her small figure. She ended up finishing only the eggs and rice before getting up and going to change.

The journey to the mansion was barely eventful – but since life always was, Tsuna had not hoped to see much on the way. The only thing that caught her attention was a mother cat nursing her kittens in the bushes by the park.

The first thing Tsuna did when she arrived was to check in to work, referring to the map that I-pin had kindly given her the day before. After she had done so, she was at loss of what to do. She knew that she had to personally attend to the residents of the mansion, but it was early and they were possibly still asleep after a long day of work the day before. The next thing that came up in her mind was to look after the animals. Tsuna shuddered at the thought of that, but it was work.

What to do? She thought, shrugging lightly before whipping out her map again, heading towards the Pet Shelter.

It was much colder than the day before – Tsuna huddled up tightly, her feet moving faster, hoping to get to the shelter as fast as possible. The sooner she got there, the sooner she would be able to relish in warmth, but the sooner she would have to face the worst of her fears – animals. She could now see the wooden structure peeking out from within the trees, and quickly strode over.

"Aaah," she released a breath of relief as she shrugged off her coat, hanging it up by the door. She took a look around – the shelter was mostly silent, the only sound being the breaths of the animals –soft and rhythmical. Jirou and Kojirou were the nearest to her, cutely cuddled up together, snoozing away. Roll the hedgehog was also curled up in its own warm and comfortable cage, in a deep slumber.

Maybe I could just…put food in their bowls and go away. That would be good, very good. Heheh…

She scanned the entire room, before looking for the cupboard the contained the animal feed. Tsuna had not an inkling on how to complete the task – I-pin never told her, nor did Yamamoto, since she passed out anyway.

"Err," she mumbled under her breath, standing on her tiptoes and eying the containers of food cautiously. She felt something moist around her leg; a warm breath tickling her shin. Tsuna just flapped her palms, going on to look at the other containers. She soon found something nudging her ankles persistently, and after awhile, she conceded defeat and looked down.

"YEEEARGH!" she yelled loudly. She found Jirou cheerfully wagging its tail and pacing around her feet. The animals in the shelter were just beginning to stir – Tsuna dared not to move an inch.

"H-help," she whined softly, frozen in place by the happy and oblivious dog. She shut her eyes tight, clenched her fists on her skirt and looked up, shaking in fright as the moist feeling spread from her shin to her other leg. It felt as though eternity was passing, each second excruciatingly slow, yet salvation was not arriving any time soon.

Tsuna could hear the slightly louder snort of the bull; the beginnings of its awakening, and the small ruffle of hay from where Roll was sleeping. Tsuna knew she was in trouble if she did not move soon, but Jirou did not seem to be relenting, circling the area in which she was standing, hopping up and down cheerfully.

"J-Jirou…Good boy…" she started in a placating tone, hoping with the deepest of her heart that the dog would move away and leave her alone. Kojirou swooped down to rest on her shoulder, which was not helping the situation any further. Tsuna yelped, falling to the ground, bum first.

"O-ow!" She would have attempted to move, but now Jirou was up to her face, tongue stuck out and paw rested on her thighs. He was about to give her a big slobbery lick across her face. Tsuna shut her eyes again, in desperation for such a horrible feeling to go away, but to no avail. Jirou would definitely…

"What are you doing here?" a cold voice rung out through the air. It sounded so very familiar, perhaps like the one she heard on New Year's and the one that she heard when she woke up. But Tsuna's mind was too clouded with fear – the voice only sounded like one thing to her – it sounded like rescue that she so direly needed. Tsuna looked up to the source of the voice, only to let her own be stuck in her throat.

The man was beautiful, blessed so much with good looks. He was tall and dark haired, possibly the heart-throb of many young girls. However, Tsuna could immediately see the one big flaw that marred all of his other features – it was the scowl on his face. The man looked as though he could never smile sincerely, only with cynicism and conviction.

"I am…"

"You are?"

His eyes narrowed further, the intensity of his glare weighed Tsuna down, and she dared to speak no more. All that she had wanted to say hung off the tip of her tongue as she was intimidated by this scary figure.

"I am – "

"Get to work."

Tsuna could only look at him in shock, but he ignored her horrified expression and went on his way, walking towards Roll.

Eh? Roll?

Tsuna could see Roll's head peeking out from the mass of hay now; the scary man bent down, supporting himself on his knees as he extended a finger to gently touch the tip of Roll's nose. She could not believe that the man would be able to carry out such an act of care, especially towards a small animal like Roll. He seemed to exude an aura of hate and anger wherever he went. Despite this thought, Tsuna found herself smiling at him.

Perhaps he has a soft side.

"Didn't you hear me? Get to work, herbivore."

"A-ah! Yes!"

Come to think of it, Yamamoto-san did mention Roll's owner was a person named Hibari. Maybe this man is Hibari-san? Tsuna pondered as she got to her feet. Jirou had long run off, being distracted by Hibari's entrance and losing interest in slobbering all over Tsuna's face. Deciding not to stare any further, for it would have been rude, Tsuna went about her task of finding the right kind of food for the pets.

The morning had flown past rather eventfully; Tsuna spilling the food numerous times as Jirou and the leopard cub nudged her continuously. Hibari ignored her with much success – he could act as though she never existed in the first place. The man's skill of indifference was quite astounding; Tsuna had been screaming, yelping and dropping things all around, trying to avoid contact with any of the animals there, but Hibari had not batted an eyelid at her antics.

Cleaning up the Pet Shelter was supposed to be an easy feat too, but with all the pets lying around and the bull giving fierce looks at her (or so she thought – Tsuna's imagination was rather vivid), she could not sweep the floor with a peace of mind. Tsuna stumbled out, knees shaking and half-dead by noon. The outside was no longer cold to her – the only thing that was on her mind was how terrifying it was to deal with animals. Would she be doing this for the rest of her life? She would probably pass away on the job.

Gratefully, Tsuna made her way back to the mansion in a harried manner, happy to have finished her job at the Pet Shelter. Since it was noon, perhaps the residents would be up and at work already, so she could clean their rooms. As soon as she walked up the doorstep, she wiped her boots carefully on the mat so that she would not tarnish the clean marble floors of the mansion.

"Which one first?" she asked herself, looking around. Some of the maids were carrying piles of laundry, scurrying about to finish their jobs quickly, only to move on to other endless number of jobs that they had. The doors were all closed, cold and unwelcoming. Tsuna walked up to a door, knocking on it slowly.

"H-Hello? Anyone there?" she started in a small, shy voice. There was no reply.

"Hello?" she knocked twice again. Again, there was no reply.

"Alright then…" Tsuna pushed the door open slowly.

The room was definitely one of those regularly occupied – the bed was unmade, but that was the only mess in the room. Everything else was well placed – a large, wall-sized bookshelf at the side, a clean and neat table with a few pens and a photo frame on it, and drawn blinds over a large wall-sized window at the side. Tsuna smiled, wondering whose room it was. It would be easy to clean up; perhaps it would take twenty minutes at most in spite of its size.

Tsuna shut the door slowly, careful not to make any noise, and began her work. After she had made the bed, she took a broom and a dustpan, sweeping the floor. She sneezed loudly, for it was quite dusty; it was very windy and chilly out, so she decided against opening a small gap in the window.

Done! This is simple, Tsuna thought to herself cheerfully. It was so much less of a task than having to handle the Pet Shelter, and she actually enjoyed doing the job. She put the broom to the side and picked up a duster, dusting off the shelves. When she was done, she took a table cloth out and proceeded to the neat desk, wiping it diligently. Her hand swiped across the smooth surface , and by fault of accident, knocked over the photo frame. It clattered face-down onto the floor.

"Oops," she said to herself, bending over to pick the photo frame up. Tsuna flipped it around, and was about to return it to its original position when she noticed something about it. The photo stored inside the frame was old and fading away. It was a picture of a young girl, who smiled so brightly, sitting on a swing next to a familiar looking boy. She had shining violet eyes and bunned up hair, tied up to resemble the pineapple shaped hairstyle that Mukuro-san wore on his head.

"Wait a minute…Mukuro-san?" Tsuna looked closer at the photo, and she found the young boy next to her, the young boy who was smiling as brilliantly as she was, to resemble the now grown-up man.

"Crap!"

Tsuna dropped the photo frame and immediately turned to the door. She found Mukuro standing there, rage flashing across his eyes. It was not the first time Tsuna had seen true anger, but it was the first where she had seen fury on such a great scale. She was frozen in fear, but not in the same sort of fear that she felt at the Pet Shelter. Her hands shook, and tears formed on the edges of her eyes, threatening to trickle down the side of her pale cheek.

I'm going to be fired again. I can't do anything right. I can't do anything right. I can't do anything right. I can't do anything right. You're so useless, Tsuna. You should have known this was coming. You should have known you'd be fired on the second day of work – you should have known you were lucky to even survive the first. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

"I won't fire you," Mukuro stood directly in front of her now, but in place of the anger that had been on his face just a moment ago, was a cunning smile. He towered over Tsuna – his figure was tall and imposing.

"I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry," Tsuna's mouth quivered.

"Did you not hear me? I won't fire you," he repeated. Tsuna was still repeatedly muttering apologies to Mukuro.

"Two conditions, however," Mukuro continued, "one, you will speak not a word of this to anyone. You won't just be fired by then." He smiled cryptically. Tsuna snapped to attention at these words, listening with intent. Tears were streaming down the sides of her face, but her lips stopped trembling.

"Second – You will tell me of your relation to Reborn."

A/N: Sorry for the late update, but I really hadn't much time to write before, but now I that I do - I write. So here's chapter 6. In the future I'll probably upload in longer intervals because it's term 2, so everything is going to get busier. I also probably won't reply to reviews anymore unless it's a burning question I feel I can/need to answer. So sorry for that too :S. (I'm still very grateful though!)

Anyway, sorry for the mean "She's dead" cliffhanger. Things are more complicated than Tsuna would ever wish it to be - so very complex...

This chapter is dedicated to Usako-kun, whom I was supposed to draw Cagalli for, but the promise flew in the wind. Happy belated, hun.

Thank you for reading!