In His Memory

by kashaminami

Yuni gets a vision of the world engulfed in flames and destruction… with the Vongola Decimo standing right in the middle of the chaos. In another world, a 13-year-old Sawada Tsunayoshi wakes up from a year-long coma.

2. Introduction Arc - Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1 – Introduction Arc

Sawada Tsunayoshi, Meet Sawada Tsunayoshi

A/N:

FINALLY! March Exams are OVER and I can finally get back to my favorite pass time…. WRITING!

I hope you guys didn't have to wait too long for this update. I tried to hurry up, I really did. But it took a while for this chapter to come out just the way I wanted it. :(

But after a thousand deletes and an extra thousand redoes, I am finally satisfied with this chapter.

After drafting out an overall summary of the fic, I decided to separate it into short Arcs to make it easier for me to keep track of the chapters. Hope you guys don't mind.

Your revriwes and the support you have given has been nothing short of awesome! Keep 'em coming, people!

Warnings: Major spoilers, OOC, OCs, grammatical errors, typos, un-beta'd, very light shonen-ai (just hints and implications, nothing more than a small kiss), late updates, cursing (mostly by the usual suspects: Gokudera, Squalo, etc.), confusing and loooong sentences.

Summary: Yuni gets a vision of the world engulfed in flames and destruction… with the Vongola Decimo standing right in the middle of the chaos. In another world, a 13-year-old Sawada Tsunayoshi wakes up from a year-long coma.

Disclaimer: If I owned KHR, Gokudera and Yamamoto would get more screen time… together… *wiggling eyebrows* in private scenes… *nudge-nudge* If you know what I mean. ;)

The usual rules apply: DON'T LIKE, DON'T READ!

And now, the first official chapter for the first arc of the story…

Nami

XxX

He remembered this place. It was the orphanage he had lived in before Tim-ji-san had given him that apartment near the Academy.

The young boy with gravity defying hair watched from under a large tree as the other children of the orphanage ran around the courtyard. Some were chasing a ball, others were drawing crude pictures in the sandy area and the younger children crowded the slide and swings at the far corner. The boy was sitting alone under the tree just as he remembered doing during most of his stay at the orphanage.

The boy didn't mind being there, for though this place wasn't where his most fond memories lay, it certainly wasn't his least favorite place to be. The caretakers were nice, although they had never paid him any special attention because of the many other children to take care of and they had always counted on him to be capable of taking care of himself. The other children weren't mean to him and a few do talk to him from time to time, but there were none he could really call a friend.

He began to wonder why it was he was here in the first place. He hadn't been here in a long time. Not since he was four. And he knew he wasn't four years old anymore. He was… the boy looked down at his body. Well, he didn't look four but that couldn't be right… could it?

Could it? The last thing he remembered was… um… How old was he again? (1)

While the boy was contemplating the serious question he suddenly found himself with, he didn't notice his surroundings change. How the leaves of the tree and the children began slowing down before one by one, they vanished in a white blur.

"Uwah," the boy suddenly heard from behind. He jumped slightly and turned around to face the speaker. "It's been so long since I was your age. It's so nostalgic."

The man was wearing a fancy suit and on his right hand, he could see two rings attached to one another by a small chain. It looked cool. The man had a young face, although the way he held himself suggested that he was much older than he looked. He also had soft brown eyes and equally brown spiky hair much like his own. In fact, the boy might even say that the man he was facing could very well be an older version of himself.

And what did he say? Even he didn't know how old he was. How old did the man think he was?

That was when his memories slowly came back to him. Oh, that was right. He was currently 11 years old. He was a Special Course student of Vongola Academy. He had been since he was four years old, which was two years younger than the required age to enter the Academy. His grades were average but because he had entered the Academy earlier than the rest of the peers his age group, he could still be considered smart. It was because he was two years younger than everyone in his class he had been nicknamed Baby-Tsuna.

It was also during the start of this school year that an accident occurred during Potions class. Mochida-san had added the wrong ingredient and had caused an explosion just when he was walking by the older boy's lab table. The shock of the unexpected explosion had knocked him over and he had passed out. If his hunch was correct and he was still unconscious, then that would mean…

"You're not real," he said with a slight crease of his brow to the older version of himself. Of course, he wasn't real. The man was just a coma induced hallucination.

The man only smiled. "I wonder about that," he simply said. The man then knelt in front of the boy until their eyes were at the same level. Even though he was much taller now than he was when he was four years old, the man in front of him had to be at least ten years older and twice his height. "Nice to meet you," the man said with a soothing smile and his hand held out to shake the younger boy's hand. "My name is Sawada Tsunayoshi. My friends call me Tsuna."

"Call me Tsunayoshi," the boy said shyly as he shook the man's hand, openly staring at the supposed older version of himself in awe. He didn't need to tell the man his full name – the man probably already knew. Tsunayoshi didn't tell Tsuna what his friends call him – mostly because he didn't have any friends. There were a few people he could call acquaintances or allies, but no friends.

"So, Tsunayoshi," Tsuna said. "Why don't you tell me a little about yourself?"

Tsunayoshi did. He couldn't really see why he shouldn't tell his hallucination his life's story. He was practically talking to himself after all.

"Well…" he began. Tsunayoshi told Tsuna of how he had spent his earlier years at one of the three orphanages in Namimori City and that just a week after his fourth birthday, an old man in a flowery shirt had come to the orphanage to meet him. The kind old man said that his name was Tim and just as Tsuna(2) had recently done, Tim-ji-san had asked Tsunayoshi to tell him about himself. It was after a month of weekly visits that Tim had officially adopted Tsunayoshi and had brought him to a small apartment. Tsunayoshi had been very excited then. It would be the first time he set foot outside the orphanage alone – only eight-year-olds and older kids had been allowed outside on their own while the younger kids could only go out with their class and two adult escorts once a month.(3)

Tim had left Tsunayoshi in the small apartment by himself with lots of food and money. Tsunayoshi didn't mind. He was used to taking care of himself and Tim-ji-san always made sure to visit him at least once a week. He wasn't upset that he hadn't been brought back to Tim-ji-san's real house. Tim-ji-san assured him that it was for a good reason and something in Tsunayoshi's gut had assured him he could believe and trust the old man with kind brown eyes.

It was barely four months since living in the apartment that Tim-ji-san had announced that he had enrolled Tsunayoshi in the Japanese branch of the Vongola Academy – the most elite educational facility of Magic in Asia and one of the top ten in the world – two years earlier than the required age. Tsunayoshi had been very nervous when he first entered – he had stayed as close as possible to the older student of the Academy who had been in charge of helping Tsunayoshi through his first week of school – but he had felt surprisingly calmer after his Assessment and found out that his Magic Core was very weak, therefore he was unable to use Flames. Maybe it was the fact that as a Special Course student, the pressure of expecting him to do well in school had been lessened than if he were placed in the Elite Course.(4)

When Tsunayoshi began to tell of his classes, his teachers, the classmates he had acquired in the past nine years and – of course – the name he had been burdened with since his first week of school – 'Baby-Tsuna' – for his small stature and young age, Tsunayoshi took notice of how Tsuna was staying silent and paying rapt attention to every word. Well, it was to be expected. After all, Tsuna was supposed to be a hallucination of his older self, they were both practically the same person. And Tsunayoshi had always been polite and very shy. He had always stayed quiet and paid attention when people were talking. Except when he was in class – that was the only time when a person was talking that Tsunayoshi struggled to pay attention to for over five minutes.

When he had finished telling Tsuna of the accident in Potions Lab 3 – the incident that brought them to where they were now – Tsuna had looked at him closely and said, "Tsunayoshi, do you trust me?"

"Yes," Tsunayoshi said earnestly and without hesitation. He couldn't really explain why, but just as it had been with Tim-ji-san, somehow he just couldn't help but instinctively trust the older man in front of him. "I do."

"Then you have to listen closely and never forget the things that I'm about to tell you," Tsuna said solemnly as he looked into Tsunayoshi's identical eyes. "When you wake up, almost a year has already passed since the lab accident." Tsunayoshi's eyes widened slightly at the news. He had been unconscious for that long? He hoped Tim-ji-san hadn't worried too much over him. "A lot has happened and the most of the candidates for the title of Vongola Decimo had been killed."

Tsunayoshi looked at Tsuna in confusion. Well, something like would be big news – it had to do with one of the most well-known Guild in the world – but he failed to see what relation he had to something like the Vongola other than being a student of one of the many schools under its name.

Oblivious to Tsunayoshi's train of thought, Tsuna continued, "Soon, Sawada Yoshimune and Sawada Ietsuna will be the remaining candidates with Yoshimune being the next-in-line for Vongola Decimo."

Ah, the Sawada Twins(5). He knew who they were. Everyone in Namimori knew them – the famed sons of the late Vongola's CEDEF second-in-command, Sawada Ieshige who died at the end of the last Great Guild War eleven years ago – or has it been twelve years now? He heard a rumor that only people who were related to the First Vongola Boss, Vongola Primo could inherit the title of Vongola Boss. Did this mean that the twins were related to Vongola Primo in some way? Or was there a rule of the Vongola that said exceptions could be made for the ones related to the CEDEF leaders…?

Once more, Tsunayoshi didn't really understand what all of that had to do with him. Other than his last name – which had been chosen by random like most other orphans(6) – he had absolutely no relation and nothing to do with the twins or their family. So why was Tsuna telling him all this? His hallucination was such a strange person.

"No matter what happens, you can't bring their attention to yourself. Not the Vongola Decimo candidates or anyone else from the Vongola can know about you for as long as possible," Tsuna said as he gripped Tsunayoshi's shoulders to show him just how serious his words were. "And you have to learn to defend yourself and train yourself on using your Flames."

"W-Why?" Tsunayoshi croaked out when Tsuna's grip on his shoulders got a little too tight. "What do I have to defend myself from? And I don't have any Flames."

Suddenly, Tsuna flickered from Tsunayoshi's eyes. It was brief. One second he was there, then he wasn't and the very next moment he reappeared seeming blurrier. As if he had lost the outline to his features.

Tsuna seemed surprised. He brought his hands from Tsunayoshi's shoulders and observed them up close. He was getting blurrier by the second. "I don't have as much time as I thought," Tsuna said with regret. (7)

He then looked at Tsunayoshi directly in the eyes and solemnly said, "Listen, Tsunayoshi. A lot of things are going to happen soon. From here on, you're going to face a lot of pain and hardship. But you won't have to face it all alone. You're going to meet some new and strange people and they will turn out to be the most amazing friends you are ever going to have." Here, Tsuna gave his younger counterpart a reassuring smile. And just from how confident Tsuna sounded that all of these were really going to happen to him, Tsunayoshi couldn't help but find himself believing in his words. He was going to have friends? Him?

Before Tsunayoshi could let the news sink in, Tsuna continued, "There will be times when you feel like giving up, times when your courage will be put to the test and times when a lot of things will depend on the very next decision you make. Sometimes, you will wonder if all of this is really worth the trouble and why no one else could do all of this, why it hasto be you.

"But you have to be brave, Tsunayoshi. You can't just be Baby-Tsuna anymore. Don't get too depressed if something goes wrong or if anything bad happens. Do what you think is right, no matter what anyone else says. Trust and believe in your friends and the people around you. Have faith in your dreams and more importantly, yourself. Don't think arrogant thoughts like you're the only one who can keep everyone safe or the only way you can protect anyone is by pushing them away and keeping them in the dark. Talk to your friends, share your burdens with them and, once you're done talking, listen to them in return."

By the time he had reached the end of his speech, Tsuna's brown eyes were barely visible behind the haze of white that had engulfed him. Just before he completely disappeared, Tsunayoshi saw Tsuna raise a finger enveloped in Sky Flames and touch his forehead with the parting words, "You're stronger than you think…" echoing in his head before Tsunayoshi's mind was flooded with various images and memories of his older self.

XxX

Being called No Good for most of his life…

"Ha-hah! Look, Dame-Tsuna only got 15 marks for Maths! Again!"

"He's so stupid! He can't get anything right!"

Meeting a baby in suit…

His tutor…?

"I am Reborn. I'm a hitman."

"I will be your home tutor. I am going to train you to become the Vongola Decimo."

Gaining friends…

People who actually care about him…

"Ohayo, Juudaime!" Gokudera-kun.

"Yo, Tsuna!" Yamamoto.

"Herbivore, get to class or I will bite you to death." Hibari-san.

"SAWADA! Please, join my EXTREME boxing club!" Onii-san.

"Gya-ha-hah! Dame-Tsuna, Lambo-san wants candy!" Lambo.

"Kufufufu. You are so naïve, Sawada Tsunayoshi." Mukuro.

"Boss, are you alright?" Chrome.

"Tsuna-kun, you look like you're having so much fun!" Kyoko-chan.

"Tsuna-san! Look at this new outfit I made!" Haru.

"Sawada Tsunayoshi." Bianchi.

"Tsuna-nii!" Fuuta.

"Little brother!" Dino-san.

"Tsuna!" I-Pin.

"Sawada-dono!" Basil-kun.

"Vongola kid." Doctor Shamal.

"Trash!"

"Don't forget to raise my pay when you become boss."

"VOOI!"

"Ushishishi!"

"Ah, Master's cowardly boss." The Varia.

"Sawada!" Lal.

"Kora!" Colonello.

"Sawada-san!" Yuni.

"Tsunayoshi-kun~!" Byakuran.

"Tsuna-kun!" Enma-kun.

"Tsunayoshi-kun." Irie-kun.

"Ah, Vongola." Spanner.

"Vongola Juudaime." Gianini.

Facing enemies together…

Growing stronger…

Protecting one another…

Fighting against and for each other…

…

"Someone's targeting students from Namimori Middle."

"You're not the real Rokudo Mukuro."

…

"This battle shall be called The Ring Conflict."

"We're going to have a snowball fight and watch the fireworks together!"

…

"This is the future nine years and ten months from now."

"I was so concerned about myself that I didn't even notice… Everyone else is worried too."

…

"I'm here as judge for the Arcobaleno Trials."

"Reborn… I can't do it."

…

"An official contest between the Vongola Family, led by Sawada Tsunayoshi and my Millefiore Family."

"Come with us!"

…

"If the first generation Family accepts you as the true boss and true Guardians, you will be able to inherit the power of the Vongola."

"The will of Primo who founded the Vongola for the sake of protecting others."

…

"The pain, the suffering, the fun… I am here right now because everyone was there for me."

"Now, go give that Mare kid a scare."

…

"Why don't you just run away?"

"My pride is… you. My comrades…! My friends!"

…

"You look happy."

"Yeah… I am happy. Thank you, Tsuna. Thanks to you, I can keep living."

…

"I won't become the Vongola Decimo!"

"From now on, it won't be the Vongola Decimo… but rather, the Neo Vongola Primo that you're aiming for, Tsuna!"

"…I said that you've barely changed since the day I first came here, right? And that… is an amazing thing, Tsuna."

…

That's right.

I… I'm still no good at studying or sports… With my Dying Will, I can fight a bit better but, I have no intention of using that as a weapon as I go on with the life ahead of me. Thinking that way… Really, I've barely changed since then, perhaps…

But things clearly are different!

Now, I have everyone! I have my friends here to laugh with me! I have friends who will lend me their strength!

…Friends? Comrades? Family? If only Tsunayoshi had all those things too… what a dream come true that would be…

XxX

His eye lids slowly fluttered open and close, his breathing became uneven, his brows furrowed and his fingers twitched. He was waking up.

A young Assistant Healer who had just entered his room for a daily checkup of his vitals was given the shock of the week as the young boy who had been in a coma showed signs of waking up after a whole year of no response.

"Sensei!" she shrieked, momentarily forgetting her professionalism at the excitement of seeing a patient waking up. It was so rare these days to see anyone who had been Magically knocked unconscious wake up on their own when most are left in a coma until their deaths (8). In fact, this was her first time seeing it happen in her five short years of being an Assistant Healer.

"Miyamoto-sensei!" she yelled for the first doctor she saw in the hallway. "A patient is waking up! A patient is waking up!"

"What?" a middle-aged dark haired doctor responded in disbelief.

From then on, that corridor was filled with excited and slightly panicked chaos as news of the patient's recovery reached the entire hospital staff.

In the midst of commotion, a small circle of orange flames disappeared from the window of the previously unconscious patient's room.

XxX

"Did it work?" Enma asked with concern as Tsuna stepped out of the portal of Sky Flames with a much paler Byakuran not a step behind. It had been many days since the meeting with Tsuna about the trouble in the Shimon Family's territory. Enma had come by every day since then to help his fellow bosses plan a way to prevent the events in Yuni's vision from happening.

Tsuna's eyes scanned the room, taking note of the worry in the eyes of his friends. "It worked," he reassured them, his statement only managing to avert most of their concern from himself to Byakuran's pale features.

Tsuna thought back to the words he had spoken to his younger counterpart. At first, he hadn't been sure of what words were appropriate and how much he could risk telling Tsunayoshi to warn him of what was to come. In the end, he only had time to warn the boy to keep the Vongola's attention away from himself for as long as possible. Then, he had told Tsunayoshi all the words he had wanted to hear during his years before officially taking the mantle of Vongola Decimo. He hoped his words had been enough.

"Thank you for your help, Byakuran," he said to his former enemy as the taller man found a chair to rest in.

"Anything to help," Byakuran replied with a slight pant. Honestly, dimension travelling would have been much easier if he still had the Mare Ring (9), but alas they were sealed off in some obscure part of the world where only the former Arcobaleno could access only if they still had their curse and Arcobaleno Pacifiers – not the cheap imitations half of them had taken to wear as a nostalgic reminder of the small forms they had spent decades in.

"What happened over there?" Hayato asked as he looked over Tsuna a few times to ensure that he was truly unharmed. Lambo, Takeshi and Ryohei were the only Guardians who were not present as they had their own missions to complete somewhere else, but they had promised to wrap things up and return to the headquarters as soon as possible. Dino-san had an important and very delicate meeting with a potential future-ally and former-enemy that needed his full attention, so they had unanimously decided not to tell him of Yuni's vision just yet, although Tsuna had asked Gianini to pass on a message to Romario to have Dino-san come to the Vongola's Headquarters as soon as he was free. Gamma had arrived with Yuni earlier that morning just after Enma arrived with Adelheid and Rauji. Nozaru, Bluebell and Kikyo came a few hours ago with Byakuran as the final plans were made.

"I talked to him for a while," Tsuna said as everyone's attention returned to him. "After that I gave him my memories. Although I'm not sure if he managed to receive all of them, but any memories he might not have received immediately should come to him sooner or later."

"Was that enough to wake him up?" Yuni asked. In her vision, she had seen the other Tsuna murdered while he was still in a coma and she did not want that to happen.

"Yes, we stayed behind long enough to make sure," Tsuna reassured her. He didn't tell her that he also felt something break – no, shatter was a more accurate description – within Tsunayoshi's mind when the young boy had been shocked with the flood of Tsuna's memories as a junior high student. He was sure it was nothing too important. If it was, his Hyper Intuition would have warned him otherwise. (10)

"Well, the first phase of the plan was a success," Gamma said from his usual perch by his princess's side. "Now what?" he asked with slight impatience and unease.

"Now," Tsuna said, "we wait, see what happens and hope for the best. We'll prepare ourselves for the worst, in case the destruction from their world floods into ours like it did in Yuni's vision," he said in what Skull had once jokingly called his 'Badass Vongola Boss Voice'.

Because, for now, waiting was all they could do. The rest was up to his other self and possibly his friends' counterparts as well…

XxX

(1) Personally, I've never been in a very coma, but for this fic, I kinda imagine it's like what you feel when you're walking that line between being asleep and being awake. You know your brain is still working, but at the same time, it's working very slowly and everything's kinda fuzzy and it's hard to concentrate. I've based this theory from the statements of some coma patients that say that they had dreamed of living another life while they were unconscious. I see this as a sign that for some people, their brains are still working even though they're 'asleep'. Once, again, this is just speculation on my part. I'm just using my imagination here because, like I've said, I've never really had the chance to experience what it's like to be in a coma – thank, God.

(2) As I've mentioned before, I'm going to call my AU!Sawada Tsunayoshi 'Tsunayoshi' and the Cannon!Sawada Tsunayoshi will be known as 'Tsuna'

(3) I'm not really sure if this is the common procedure for Japanese orphanages, but I kinda imagine it's something like this. I tried looking it up on the net, but it's kinda hard to get useful results for something this specific.

(4) More about the Academy's System (it's classes, how it works, etc.) will be explained in the future chapters.

(5) Told ya this was a Twin!fic! :)

(6) Again, I'm not really sure if this is how orphans surnames are decided. The results that I got on the net aren't very specific, but I know that this is how they do it for some orphans in China, so… I'm just gonna go with it.

(7) The reason why Tsuna let Tsunayoshi talk for as long as he did before actually getting to the more urgent stuff was because he wanted to know as much as he can about his counterpart and also because he thought that he would have more time to talk to little Tsunayoshi.

(8) I imagine that in a world where magic exists and is used in daily life, those who fall unconscious through natural or organic means (exhaustion, long exposure to the hot sun, ate a weird inedible mushroom, etc.) can be easily revived through healing magic. But for those who get knocked out by magic (like a spell, potion or enchanted poison, etc.) it would be harder to wake them up without a cure or a counter spell. I'm kinda mostly relying on my imagination for this one.

(9) From the way I see it, although he wasn't born with the power, from using the Mare Ring for a short while (even if it had been in a future-that-technically-never-happened), Byakuran was smart enough to figure out how to travel to different dimensions even without it. Because Byakuran is an effing genius and effing geniuses are good at figuring out stuff like that (just like how he had figured out how to bring Ghost from another world to his own, even if it didn't really work out like he thought it would).

(10) Even if Tsuna thinks that this isn't very important, it actually is VERY IMPORTANT! Please take note of it for the chapters that are to come!

My network of information isn't very wide and the information that I have gathered is pretty much useless, so to those of you who do know about all the actual and formal procedures on how orphans are handled/treated in Japan, please, please, PLEASE let me know as soon as you can!

Recommended fic of the chapter: The Rightful Sky, a Katekyo Hitman Reborn! Fic, by Heir to the Sky. (I highly recommend reading this because it's a semi-inspiration that gave birth to my fic and I want to do my best to contribute to the author as thanks.)