TRIGGER WARNING: I've realized that there will be transphobia throughout this entire story (aka the misgendering, and people not believing and refusing to understand Tsuna's situation). Again, these are meant to be negative behaviors. Do NOT misgender a person, especially when they have specifically stated their preferred pronouns.

Sawada Tsunayoshi was a brave, fearless sorcerer who was trained by the ever elusive Sorceress Supreme herself. He was definitely not afraid of silly, harmless things such as moving through a graveyard.

Or at least, that was what he was telling himself.

"Hieee!" Tsuna jumped and let out a shriek when a bunch of bats had suddenly burst out of the shadows, startling the small brunet. Giotto gave him a sympathetic smile and extended his hand.

"You can hold on to my hand if you're scared," he offered. Tsuna eyed the hand hesitantly for a while but decided to shove all suspicion to the back of his mind – at least, for now – when an owl suddenly hooted. Tsuna shrieked once again and latched onto Giotto's entire arm and whined into his shoulder, shaking pathetically. Giotto used his free hand to thread though Tsuna's hair soothingly, and shot Gokudera a triumphant look. Gokudera bristled and bared his teeth hostilely, but otherwise couldn't do anything else, lest he got turned into a cat again for the umpteenth time.

Giotto returned his attention to the shaking brunet in his arms and chuckled. "You really are a pure-hearted maiden– URK!" Tsuna removed his hand from where he had ruthlessly jabbed into the spot under Giotto's ribs and took a step back, glaring at the prince.

"I-I may be slightly intimidated," he said shakily, but with undeniable rage. "But I will not tolerate you referring to me like that! How many times must I tell you that I am male?!" Without waiting for an answer, he whirled around and stalked off. Blinded by his anger, Tsuna didn't look carefully at the ground he was walking on.

Dear readers, since it was dark and this was a spooky graveyard, you probably know what's going to happen next.

"Tsuna-sama, look out!" Gokudera called out in a panic.

"Eh?" Tsuna blinked and turned around, unconsciously taking a step back to steady himself. "EEEHH?" he shrieked as his foot did not come into contact with solid ground and his entire body tilted backwards into the dark abyss behind him. Tsuna panicked for all of three seconds before he remembered that he was a sorcerer.

A little embarrassed, he flicked his wand and manipulated the air around him to slow down his descent. Upon feeling his feet touch, albeit unstable, ground, he created a small glowing orb of light, and immediately wished he hadn't. The pit he was in was, quite literally, filled with skeletons. In fact, he was standing on a rather nice collection of skulls. Tsuna pretended not to notice that as he silently apologized to anyone – or anything – that might be listening in.

The unique click-clack sound of bones jostling and sliding against each other alerted Tsuna to the fact that someone was approaching. Tsuna slowly turned to see green skin, tattered cloth, and a pair of bright, brown eyes.

"Yo!" Yamamoto Takeshi, the friendly zombie greeted.

"Hieee!" Tsuna, the coward sorcerer screamed, before promptly collapsing into a dead faint.

"I thought that zombies were made from dead people," Giotto commented as he warily eyed Yamamoto attaching his left arm back to his body. Tsuna refused to look at the sight.

"Well, you're not wrong… The process of turning a human into a zombie would technically kill them. The researchers have recently classified them as a sentient race, though. Kind of like vampires; a new type of somewhat immortal undead," Tsuna recited from his memory. His mother had made sure to drill at least a bit of knowledge about every type of race in the world into his head so that he could "have a fighting chance against them all!"

"Woah, Tsuna knows so much!" Yamamoto marveled and was immediately hit on the head by Gokudera.

"Don't address Tsuna-sama so informally!" Gokudera yelled, blatantly ignoring Tsuna's interjection of 'No, please do'.

"Oh, but Tsuna doesn't really mind me doing it!"

"Regardless, Tsuna-sama deserves respect!"

"I think Tsuna can be called whatever she wants to be called." Giotto had entered the argument.

Then why aren't you respecting my wish to be referred to with male pronouns? Tsuna bitterly thought to himself. He was getting real tired of the way people demonstrated selective hearing when it came to his personal pronouns. They were all hypocrites, Tsuna decided, listening to him if it benefited them and discarded the parts of his speech that they did not want to hear. He couldn't wait for the day they finally, truly, respected him.

"Hey, hey, that's dangerous!" Yamamoto laughed, totally not scared by the bombs Gokudera had brought out. Tsuna took this as a cue to turn them all into cats before a fight could break out.

It was actually pretty cool that his mother was able to develop a spell that could, literally, turn any race in the world into cats.

Tsuna set his bag onto the ground, cast an enlargement charm in one of the pockets, and proceeded to squeeze in three cats into the pocket. One of the cats happened to have black fur with a strange green tint to it. Tsuna reckoned that it represented the zombie part of Yamamoto. How interesting.

Large brown eyes stared up at him, confusion clearly shining in them. Tsuna couldn't repress a smile. He really did like cats; if he was going to get a familiar, he was pretty sure that it would be a feline type. Maybe a lion.

Yamamoto-cat purred as he rubbed against Tsuna's hands, and Tsuna hesitated. On one hand, it was only fair for all the cats to go into the bag. On the other hand, Yamamoto didn't really do anything wrong…

Yamamoto-cat let out a pitiful mewl, tipping the scales in his favor. Tsuna sighed and gave in. It won't be a common occurrence, he told himself as he picked up the purring Yamamoto-cat. Yamamoto-cat rubbed his head against Tsuna's neck, scent marking the oblivious brunet, while he continued to purr.

In the back of his mind, Tsuna was thinking about buying a new bag just for containing cats.

"Yamamoto, how did you get turned into a zombie?" Tsuna asked, curious about the new member of the group. Yamamoto gave a large, light-hearted smile.

"I was treasure hunting with some friends when they started arguing about who should keep the treasure. And then, they killed me!" he answered cheerfully. Everyone stared at him, dumbfounded.

"So… you turned into a zombie because you refused to fully die… Is it alright if I ask for the reason to that?" Tsuna ventured hesitantly. Yamamoto's smile turned melancholic.

"Yeah, it's fine. I just wanted to see my dad again, make sure he's fine you know? I promised that I'll go back to him… Ah, but it's already been three years. It's probably too late by now." Brown eyes were downcast and Tsuna fidgeted.

"Well, we can always try. Why not we go to where your father is? We don't exactly have a destination in mind, anyway!" Tsuna suggested. Yamamoto's gaze snapped up to meet Tsuna's, brown eyes shining with hope.

"Really?" he whispered. Tsuna smiled.

"While we're there, we can start to get information about the wizard you're pursuing, Tsuna. Maybe if we're lucky, we might get a lead!" Giotto added in. Tsuna nodded in agreement. Yamamoto's eyes widened.

"You're going after a wizard?" he asked in a hushed tone. "Are you sure? That's really dangerous, you know…"

"Tsuna-sama can handle herself! Tsuna-sama is really powerful, you know!" Gokudera was the one to reply Yamamoto. Tsuna winced.

"Himself," he corrected. Yamamoto's eyes flickered to him and the zombie nodded in acknowledgment. Well, at least there was one person who was willing to respect Tsuna's choice. Now, if only the other two could do the same.

"I'll bite you to death." There was a flash of steel and multiple bodies fell to the floor. Another village had been taken over by the ferocious blood-sucking Hibari Kyoya.

A long time ago, the famous Hunter, Yamamoto Tsuyoshi, could have fought off the vampire. However, Yamamoto Tsuyoshi had fallen into a depression shortly after his only son disappeared three years ago, and was no longer capable of taking up his sword.

And so, the reign of the ferocious blood-sucking Hibari Kyoya expanded.

TBC

Author's note

So Yamamoto got chosen by random name picker. Since there were two votes for Hibarin (like for Yamamoto), I decided to put a little prelude to the Hibarin chapter below. Enjoy.