(warnings: violence, children, violent children)

Time passes.

The next three years of Tsunami's life are a little on the anti-climactic side. She's guilty of expecting everything to change after she discovered the truth of her situation, as if excitement and purpose were going to magically fall into her lap and give her some kind of direction.

It was a dumb thought, but a nice one all the same. If she wants to figure out her new path in life, then she is getting the impression that she is going to have to do it on her own. Disgusting. She was balls at the whole 'future planning' thing the first time around when the biggest thing she had to worry about was how she was supposed to afford wifi. Unsurprisingly, adding magic mafia nonsense into the mix is doing her no favors.

To give herself the illusion of productivity, Tsunami takes to poking around her Slipspace at night before she sleeps. She spends the time wandering around in the dark looking for… anything, really. Her north star had stopped appearing after the Ninth's visit, which confirmed her suspicions that it had belonged to Tsuna. It's still out there in the darkness somewhere— dimmed, but hardly extinguished. She knows this because every so often she slams face-first into its glass and has to stop exploring for a while to blink the stars out of her eyes.

Iemitsu's and Timoteo's star balls are still around, but they're little more than pinpricks in the darkness now. Wander as she might, she can't ever seem to get much closer to them. The best explanation she can figure is that the two of them are just too far away physically for her to be able to see them in any detail now.

Time passes.

Iemitsu visits a little more often nowadays, which, considering his previous average was about once every three years, isn't really saying much. He manages to swing by on major occasions like his anniversary and she and Tsuna's birthday and, to her eternal dismay, never fails to announce himself in the same way. Tsunami has serious concerns for how Nana is going to react if someone ever breaks in their house for real. She hardly even jumps when Iemitsu barrels in out of fuckshit nowhere with roses in hand. Tsuna, at least, screams like a tiny humanoid tea kettle and tries his damndest to scurry under the nearest piece of furniture.

''Flame sensitive' my ass,' she hisses internally the first time Iemitsu comes home after the Ninth's visit. He is loud and sudden like a bomb in the front hall and it scares the everloving fuck out of her once again. She can sense him coming, sure, but only if she's in her Slipspace when his star ball rockets into blinding view.

Whatever power this is, it's functionally useless. Unfortunately, short of spending the rest of her life in a vegetable coma on the off chance that she might see him coming for once, she isn't sure how to work around it.

Time passes.

Nana decides that Tsuna and Tsunami are now too big to wear onesies, which Tsunami not-so-privately thinks is fucking ridiculous. No one is ever too old for onesies, especially the nice ones with the soft fur on the inside that Nana buys them for the winter months. She mourns their loss with much weeping and gnashing of teeth.

In exchange, Nana begins to let them pick and choose their own clothes. She reserves final veto power and, having seen some of the shit Tsuna tries to go for, this is for the best. Tsunami's baby brother shows an alarming affinity for fur coats and hoodies in eye-searing orange, while she herself hoards hair clips like they're going out of style.

For the most part, Nana lets her have whatever she picks out. She puts her foot down when it comes to the tiny shorts which, okay, sure. Tsunami can concede that she's maybe still too little for them, but damn if she doesn't miss the breeze on her thighs. To compensate, she leans hard into her baby-faced cuteness and dresses almost exclusively in pastel overalls and sundresses.

The bra situation is much simpler. Little kids didn't need bras, and at first being in public without one on sent shivers up and down her spine. Nowadays, she dreads the age she has to return to them because holy shit, she can breathe like... all the time now. She can scratch her ribs and nothing can stop her! Laying facedown on the floor only hurts because there's usually a mildly concussed kid on her back! It is arguably more exciting to her than finding out she has knockoff superpowers, if only because she is able to enjoy the benefits immediately and without hassle.

Overall, she's feeling pretty...okay? Nothing is exploding, she doesn't have to breastfeed, and Tsuna isn't impersonating a molotov cocktail with hair anymore. There's a metric fuckton of future bullshit to sort out, but there are just under ten entire years to deal with it all.

"I am six," she reminds herself in her Slipspace, wandering around with her arms outstretched ('sneak up on me now, you glass motherfucker'). Tsunami spends an embarrassing amount of time in here just talking to herself while she walks. It's nice to not need to worry about who might be listening. "What the hell am I supposed to do, even? Walk up to the Italian mafia and tell them to fuck off? I'm six."

It sounds like an excuse. It is an excuse, but putting shit off is the only coping mechanism she has, so she lets worries about the future slip from her mind and puts more effort into mentally coordinating her next outfit.

Then, her monotony breaks.

Tsunami is not unused to the churning, anxious energy that comes with the first day of school. She's only experienced it a dozen-odd times over her lifetime-and-a-half, after all. To be honest, by the time Nana packs them into the car early in the morning Tsunami is downright zen.

(And, hell, that really should have been the first indicator that something was going to go wrong. She is a ball of lowkey paranoia on her best days.)

Tsuna, on the other hand, is about as far from zen as he's ever been.

Her little brother is trying valiantly to become one with his booster seat the entire ride over, tiny hands balled into fists and slouched so far down that Tsunami has serious concerns that he's going to up and melt right through the harness onto the floor. Every so often, his legs kick around with nervous energy that he can't keep bottled up and she has to dodge out of range a time or two. The mighty frown on his face broadcasts his displeasure with the situation, but honestly, he's about as intimidating as a grumpy kitten. He is cute when he pouts, but Tsunami gets the impression that telling him so is not going to help anything. She takes a different approach.

"Hey, Tsuna-fish," Tsunami prods both verbally and physically. Her arms are too short to reach far enough to wiggle her fingers all the way into his sides, so she settles for tapping staccato beats on his arm. The shit-face she receives when he looks up is magnificent.

"What."

"Whatcha makin' that face for?" She didn't think it possible, but Tsuna finds a way to slide even further down his seat. Half his face has vanished under his shirt collar and all she can see are a pair of big brown eyes glaring at her petulantly.

"...nna go…" He mumbles, words obscured partly by his pout and partly by the giant wad of shirt he is trying to turtle into. Fuck, but he's precious.

"Tsu-na," she whines, letting the syllables draw on an on until Tsuna pops his head out of his shirt and speaks clearly, if for no other reason than to make her shut up.

"I said, I don't wanna go!"

"Me neither," Tsunami shrugs, and Tsuna seems a little blindsided by her easy agreement. "Mama says we have to, though. Why're you scared?"

"'m not scared!" He huffs, offended. Tsunami is not fooled. His hands have yet to unclench and though he's sitting a little straighter now, his shoulders are almost up to his ears. Nana muffles a giggle behind her hand from the driver's seat but offers no other commentary.

Tsunami chooses not to say anything to her brother's blatant lying. She just sets her jaw and pins him with a hard stare. Tsuna makes a solid effort at holding her gaze, but the longer she goes without blinking the more uncomfortable he gets. When he begins to fidget, she goes in for the killing blow.

"Tsu-naaaaaa," she drones, poking at his arm. After less than three seconds of her tuneless whining, he is bright red and fully upright in his seat, slapping her hands away with extreme prejudice.

"Stop it!"

"Only if you tell me what's wrong, Tsu-naaaaaaaa!"

If his feet could reach the floor, Tsunami's pretty sure Tsuna'd be stomping them right now. It takes real effort on her part to keep her voice from showing how close she is from busting a gut laughing at her brother's tiny, ineffective stink-face.

Finally, Tsuna folds. His crumbling will is reflected in his body language as he sags lifelessly against his seatbelt, looking for all the world like he's been attacked by some kind of soul-sucking demon.

"'m not scared," he repeats mulishly. Tsunami sucks in another breath to restart her droning, but Tsuna quickly finishes his statement before she has the chance to let loose. "...What if ever'body's really mean?"

"Then I'll beat them up," she promises solemnly. It's not an empty oath. Tsunami is fully and totally willing to throw down with a bunch of little kids in defense of her brother, because if she knew anything at all it was that he was going to need it. Tsuna wasn't the fastest or bravest kid on the block. He screamed when he got nervous, cried when he was mad, and despite his endless chatter in the safety of their home, he stuttered something fierce in front of strangers. He was a prime target for bullying, and Tsunami is in the unique position to know for a fact that he is going to get the shit beat out of him unless something intervenes. Nominally, herself.

Nana takes this moment to interject, catching Tsunami's eye through the rearview mirror. What little she can see of her face is soft and amused, but there is a glint of something hard in her eyes.

"Now, now, Tsu-chan," she chastises gently. "You shouldn't hurt the other kids! If someone's mean to you, I want you go find a teacher or tell Mama, okay?"

Tsunami blinks slowly.

Like hell she will. She's been through the public school system and adults aren't good for shit when it comes to bullying. Still, for the sake of appeasing Nana and staying out of immediate trouble, Tsunami nods obediently. If she is pouting, well, she is six. Six year olds sulk, right?

Tsuna copies her, though his nod is more relieved than obstinate. Slowly, his hands begin to unclench. Tsunami takes the opportunity to snatch the one closest to her. His palms are sweaty and it's nasty as hell, but at this point she's pretty used to Tsuna's snot, sweat, and tears ending up all over her person so she doesn't mind so much. He makes a loud noise of embarrassment, still raw from all her ribbing, and tries to jerk his hand out of her grip. Tough shit for him, because she is clingy when she's nervous and the paranoia is starting to settle back in.

She was not lying when she said she'd beat up a six year old for Tsuna. Tsunami would deck that hypothetical motherfucker in a second, no questions asked. People paid lots of attention to violent kids, but that was fine. Totally fine. She was completely prepared for attention, she was a grown-ass woman. A grown-ass woman who was fully ready to sucker punch a child in the face.

Tsunami slides down low in her seat, trying her hardest to become one with her booster seat. Tsuna kicks his legs next to her, calm as a clam.

She's so, so incredibly fucked.

Namimori Elementary is a reasonably sized establishment with two, maybe three floors. It's been painted slightly off-white and there are clusters of floor-to-ceiling windows every six feet or so. There are a few cherry blossom trees spaced evenly along the sidewalks lining the perimeter. Not all of them have bloomed quite yet, but they are well on their way.

There is a small crowd of people by the door that swells slowly as each new student disengages from their parents to walk inside. As the Sawada unit draws nearer to the school doors, Nana imparts some final words of wisdom.

"Don't be afraid to ask question if you don't understand something, alright? And play nice with the other kids! Oh, and don't get too dirty during play-time! Don't forget to be polite to your teachers and make a lot of friends and… and…." Nana presses a hand to her mouth and breathes in deeply, eyes suspiciously wet.

Shit— Fuck, is she crying?

Tsunami reels back an entire step, hands moving frantically in the air as Tsuna makes his tea kettle noise and tugs at his mother's skirt. Nana is for real going to cry, heck no, Tsunami isn't here for this shit.

"Mama, no—"

"Mama please stop it—"

"My little babies are growing up so fast!" Nana wails, wiping at her eyes delicately. Tsunami is supremely uncomfortable with all of this and, for the life of her, cannot think of a single thing to say. Forgoing words, she shuffles closer and stiffly pats Nana on the arm. There, there. Please stop.

"Mama," Tsuna starts, concern clear in his voice but Nana just shakes her head and takes in another deep breath, straightening her back.

"Tsu-chan, keep Tsu-kun out of trouble, won't you? And Tsu-kun, you'll protect your sister, right?"

The twins trade a look. Nana… probably has things a little backwards. If anything, it's going to be Tsuna pulling his sister out of whatever hot water she's landed herself in trying to look out for him and they both know it. Regardless, they reassure her in their own ways that they've understood her intent.

"Yes, Ma'am." Tsuna nods.

"Mmkay." Tsunami says, avoiding eye contact.

She gets a stern look for her flippancy, but Tsunami doesn't pay it any mind. She's starting to notice that Nana has some sort of expectation that she display shit like manners and poise. Tsunami is polite when it counts, and that's about all the fucks she can muster to give. Besides, if things keep going at the rate they are now, she and Tsuna are going to be late to the first day of their first year of school.

"Go on then," Nana sniffles. Tsunami grabs Tsuna by the hand and bolts before Nana really does start crying again. The neighborhood mom gang has already smelled fresh blood and are beginning to close ranks. Nana will be fine.

"Nami-nee!" Tsuna yelps, stumbling slightly over perfectly even ground in his rush to keep up with her. She slows, but refuses to stop until they are indoors and well out of Nana's sight. One can never be too careful with first-time mothers.

"Sorry, Tsuna-fish," she snickers, not all that sorry. "I gotta keep you out of trouble, remember?"

As one, they peek out one of the many windows at the scene they have fled and flinch back just as fast. Crying parents. Crying parents everywhere. Tsuna shivers.

"...Lets just go," he mumbles, tugging on their conjoined hands. Tsunami turns and glances over her shoulder at the sea of children milling about, some with adults and some, like them, without. Hardly anyone is taller than about four feet and...

Oh.

Oh gosh.

"Oh no." Her grip tightens for a moment and Tsuna jumps, looking at her with concern and a touch of panic.

"Nami-nee?"

Tsunami presses a hand to her chest and wills her heart to just fucking chill for like, two seconds, please.

'Oh shit,' she wheezes internally. 'Oh fuck, they're all adorable.'

'Children are monsters and I am in hell.'

Sawada Tsunami is a sucker for a squishy face and damn it all, it is ruining her. Doubled over her table with her head tucked in the crook of her elbow, she can almost pretend like the chaotic hell of foreign fluids and screechy gremlins is happening to someone who is not her. School has only been going for a week and she is already prepared to throw in the towel, fuck all of this. Spending half a decade only really interacting with two people has left her completely unready to deal with crowds, let alone crowds of obnoxious kids. Cute faces be damned, they're so loud.

After Tsuna had exited his screaming infant stage, she had taken his newfound volume control for granted. Now, surrounded by twenty-odd six-year-old kids all clamoring over one another to be heard and seen, she pines bitterly for the days when all she had to put up with was one moderately squeaky child.

The boy in question had given up on trying to make her crawl out of her self-imposed silence shell around day three and now sits in the chair next to her, coloring diligently. There is about an hour carved out of every day before recess where the whole class sits down for arts and crafts. It's about the only time time of the school day where everyone is allowed to socialize freely and, consequently, it is Tsunami's least favorite hour to be awake and alive. Tsuna uses it to draw pictures of whatever catches his fancy, either too nervous or too caught up in his art to join the rest of the kids. Tsunami can't tell; she's too busy blocking out the world. Headphones would be a fucking blessing right about now.

"Aino-sensei is looking," Tsuna warns, kicking lightly at her shins. Grumbling under her breath about life's injustices, Tsunami hauls herself upright and steals one of Tsuna's crayons to scribble mindlessly on her own sheet of colorful paper. The class's warden is a bright and chipper twenty-something with soft pink hair and a penchant for dragging quiet students into the thick of things to make them open up. Having been a victim of this, Tsunami had been only mildly annoyed with the woman up until she'd tried the same thing on Tsuna. Poor kid had almost cried. Tsunami still doesn't have the vocabulary to communicate her exact feelings towards her teacher, but they're far from pleasant.

"Hey, um, Suzume-chan," she calls loudly to the girl sitting at the table-desk behind her as Aino-sensei walked by. "D'you have any yellow crayons I can use?" See, sensei, look. She's a social creature, damn it.

Suzume— and was that her first name or her last name? Fuck, she has no idea —turns slightly at the sound of her name and jumps something fierce when she catches Tsunami's eyes. The dark-haired girl fumbles for a moment before jerkily shoving the coveted yellow crayon into Tsunami's hands.

"H-here you g-o!" Suzume's voice cracks on the last word and she whips back around, ears reddening. Tsunami stares at her new acquisition in bewilderment. That was... weird. Eyebrows raised, she glances at Tsuna, who only shrugs before returning to his drawing. Well. Alright then.

"Kay, she's with somebody else now," Tsuna greenlights a few minutes later, craning his neck to get a good view.

Thump.

Tsunami's head hits her desk with a dull noise and she sighs out slowly through her nose. Twenty more minutes to go.

"Nami!" her brother hisses abruptly, kicking at her legs with renewed vigor.

"Wh— ow! What?!" she yelps, shooting ramrod straight and drawing her legs up closer to her body to bring them out of range. If she has shoe prints on her white socks, there is going to be a murder. Tsuna is focused on something just over her shoulder and when she registers the cornered expression on his face, she turns as well.

Shit. Shit fucking damn it all.

Aino-sensei is guiding a little girl to their table with a hand on her back and a wide, pearly smile on her lips. In contrast, the little girl looks nothing short of mutinous. Her arms cross in front of her and her tiny face is set into a truly majestic bitchface, the likes of which Tsunami has only ever seen on grown women.

"Sawada-kun, Sawada-chan," Aino-sensei begins, eyes closing under the force of her smile. "I'm going to have Kurokawa-chan sit with you two for a while, alright? Play nice!" Then she is gone, returning to her patrol looking significantly more satisfied than before.

There's an awkward stretch of silence between the three of them as they look at each other, unsure of how to proceed.

Behind them, someone bursts into wet, shrieky tears. All three of them flinch at the same time.

"...So... what'd you do?" Tsunami asks finally, kicking out the chair next to her. As far as she's concerned, anyone as disgusted as she is by the noise level is probably pretty okay. The girl sits down with a flounce, face still screwed up.

"What makes you think I did something?" she bites, turning her head sharply. Tsunami eyes her for a few seconds before giving her biggest sigh of the day and melting back into her prone position. Mutual distaste for the screaming aside, she has to remember that she is still talking to a moody six-year-old. Eleven in the morning is way too early to be dealing with this. She props her chin on her arms and levels the girl with the most unimpressed stare she can muster until the girl glances over at her.

"People who don't talk go with people who do talk," Tsunami nods towards the front of the room where the majority of the noise is originating from. "People who get in trouble come over here." Their own half of the room is sparsely populated, but the few not tangled in the crayon party up front are coloring away diligently nonetheless. Tsunami knows the names of maybe three of them, but they're well behaved and focused. The rowdiest troublemakers usually get sentenced to time-out over here specifically because it's nigh-impossible to rope these kids into noisy shenanigans. There's a sense of wordless kinship between all of them that she has grown to appreciate.

"Aino-sensei thinks the loud kids'll make the quiet ones talk more," Tsuna explains hesitantly, crayon stilling. Tsunami looks up at him in surprise. This is the first stranger he's willingly initiated conversation with all week.

Hell, this is the first stranger she's willingly initiated conversation with all week. There is... probably a connection there. Dammit.

Guilt twinges in her chest. For once, her little brother has been following her lead instead of the other way around. Navigating school has put him way out of his comfort zone, and he's been letting her call the shots while he figures out where he fits in. And what has she been doing? She's been hiding in the back of the room and refusing to talk to anyone, that's what. Hell, but she's a bad role model.

The new girl glares at the wall darkly for a more seconds. Slowly, she lowers her eyes to stare at the floor.

"...Tatsuzo Ryoma said my socks were ugly, so I called him a stupid monkey," she mumbles defensively, embarrassed but completely unapologetic. Tsunami can't help the snort that escapes her before she can muffle it into her arm and receives a direct eye-contact glare for her slip. The girl's scowl deepens.

Fuckin' adorbs. Tsunami can appreciate a kid who doesn't take any shit.

"What'd you say your name was again?" Tsunami asks, lifting her head a little higher. She takes stock of the girl in front of her, paying a little more attention to things that aren't her (legendary, iconic, awe-inspiring) bitch-face. Her hair is dark, wavy, and chopped rather severely around her chin. Tsunami can't quite decide if her eyes are grey or maybe just a really washed-out purple, narrowed into unfriendly slits as they are. Her cheeks are nowhere near as puffy as Tsuna's or even Tsunami's, but the pouty snarl she's pulling is pushing them out enough to be heart-meltingly precious anyways.

The girl raises her chin and looks Tsunami up and down assessingly. If her intention is to make Tsunami feel like she's being judged at the stand, then she is doing an excellent job. Something about the look on her face and way she talks is making a part of Tsunami's brain perk up and pay attention, but she can't quite put her finger on why.

"I didn't. I'm Kurokawa Hana. Who're you?"

Ah.

Tsunami kicks at Tsuna's legs under the table to answer for her because if she tries to talk right now, she's probably going to say something embarrassing and weird like 'you have a nice glare' or 'I loved you in that anime I watched before I, yknow, died and jumped dimensions'.

"U-um! I'm Sawada Tsunay… uh, just Tsuna," her brother tries with a slight stammer. He is looking at her for reassurance or guidance or something, she doesn't know, she's having trouble paying attention to him. Her world is being rocked.

How is she supposed to feel? Kurokawa Hana. This is the first canon character she has ever met. Tsuna doesn't count, mostly because by the time she realized who he has she had already seen him puke, be naked, and puke while naked so the magic was already gone.

It's what she imagines meeting a celebrity would be like, only the celebrity is only famous in an alternate reality and also they are six years old and have knobby little knees and… no, this simile has completely escaped her. It doesn't even matter. Kurokawa Hana is adorable and Tsunami is going to be her friend if it kills her.

"This is my sister, Nami. Um. Tsunami?" Tsuna's voice is reaching that specific pitch that, like a child screaming in fear, activates her big sister mode like she's some kind of sleeper agent. Tsunami shakes herself back into reality and takes a second to replay what he said.

"Yeah, uh, Nami's fine," she shrugs. Nearly two decades speaking English in a western society had pretty much ruined her. All the cultural stuff about honorifics and polite name usage has flown right over her head. What does she care if a six-year-old wants to call her by her first name?

(Kurokawa Hana bites her lip. She isn't exactly sure what she's supposed to do in this situation and, well… there are two Sawadas. It's not like they mind. And it'd be weird if she was using nicknames for them and they just called her 'Kurokawa', right? People might get the wrong idea.)

She tells them this imperiously, back straight and ankles crossed. Kurokawa Hana has an awful lot of airs and graces for a six-year-old, Tsunami notes. Nana would probably love her, troublemaking sass notwithstanding. She isn't sure if she's genuinely impressed because Hana just does a great job of seeming better than everyone else or if it's just the starstruck wonder talking.

"So… Hana-chan then?" Tsunami's feet are kicking something fierce under the table. There's an energy in her bones she can't quite seem to get out and she's more awake and engaged then she's been all week.

(Behind her, Tsuna sounds out the syllables of Hana's name carefully, trying to practice so he won't trip over them in the future. She's the first real girl he's ever talked to and he doesn't want to make a fool of himself.)

Tsunami is going to hold on to this child and never let go, so help her God.

Six months later, she begins to rethink this plan.

Tsunami swings her legs in wide, lazy circles. Her head is propped up on her folded arms and the only thing between her and a nap is the steady arguing of her two favorite people over her head. There is a fly on her paper and she doesn't have the requisite number of fucks left in her body to do anything about it.

"...ave to write them like this so that people know they're TV show titles," Hana's authoritative voice barks commands somewhere on her left. The fly crawls jerky circles around Tsunami's essay, stopping every few millimeters to rub its little feelers together.

"But I just said it was a show right there!" Tsuna argues back. Papers rustle. "See! 'Gundam, the TV show that I watch.'"

Can flies plot? Tsunami thinks this one looks like it's plotting. Something about the way it rubs its little hands together and twitches at every sudden noise.

"I know, but you still have to do it. Those're the rules, my mom said so," Hana insists, clearly frustrated with the resistance she is encountering.

Tsunami's fly crawls a few more inches to her right. She wonders about the logistics of keeping a fly as a pet. Tsuna will never consent to having a dog and it hurts her inside. Flies and other gross bug-things are all she has left.

"Thats dumb, though. Why do they hafta to see it all slanty if I tell them what it is right there," Tsuna taps a line on his paper for emphasis.

The fly buzzes away.

"Don't leave meeee," Tsunami whines, drawing out her words several beats longer than they have any business being. She can't handle listening to a six year old lecture another about proper MLA citation without some kind of distraction, she'll die. Again. Permanently, even.

Tsuna kicks her sharply under the table at the same time that Hana whacks her over the head with a thin ream of notebook paper. Tsunami appreciates that they are bonding over the various ways they can cause her physical and emotional pain, but she also lowkey wants to go back to six months ago when they all barely spoke.

"Stop sleeping! Aino-sensei wants us to read these to the whole class tomorrow and you aren't even working on it!" Hana chastises. She makes a move for the paper partially pinned under Tsunami's arm.

"'m not sleeping," Tsunami corrects. It hasn't been for lack of trying, though. "And I've written plenty."

"You only wrote three sentences!" Tsuna contradicts immediately. Indignant, he digs his little fingers into her ribs and Tsunami folds like wet paper, muffling a squeal. He is a dirty, filthy traitor to the cause and once again it is only his cute face that saves him from annihilation. It is not, however, enough to save him from sweet, sweet revenge.

Hana is used to the cycle of poke-and-be-poked by now and doesn't even bat an eyelash when Tsunami lunges for Tsuna's armpits. She takes the opportunity for what it is and plucks Tsunami's unguarded essay off the desk.

"'When I grow up, I want to be a—" Hana squints and brings the paper closer to her face. Tsuna slaps Tsunami's hands away from his body with the speed and ease of a practiced professional. "...Hang on, what's a ...mortician?"

"Funeral director," Tsunami says cheerfully. Tsuna recoils in disgust and Hana sighs through her nose, looking for all the world like a woman thrice her age.

"You're such a freak," she complains. "Anyways. 'Morticians only have to deal with people who are already dead. I feel this is a good match for me.' And that's it. Sawada Tsunami—"

"—Hana, no, you sound like my mom—"

"—you could at least try!"

Tsunami whines and flops back on the table because yes, okay, Hana is totally right. She isn't even taking this remotely seriously. But honestly, what is she supposed to say?

'When I grow up, I want to be still alive and not a criminal. In the event that this last thing is impossible, I want to at least be a really cool criminal that the other criminals don't mess with because they're too scared of my little brother, who will probably be the coolest criminal of them all. Don't arrest me, please.'

Not happening. Besides, for all that it's a profession that she chose completely at random, Tsunami finds the idea of being a mortician kind of charming in an ironic way. She'd be a zombie directing funerals. The circle of stupidity would be complete.

"I'm sorry," she pulls the word out and out and out and doesn't stop until Tsuna claps a hand over her mouth. She licks it. He makes a face but refuses to budge. Tsunami can feel her power as an older sibling draining away a little more every day as Tsuna gets more and more savvy to her ways. She'll have to up the ante and get creative soon.

"Stop doing that," he commands, glaring with all the force he can muster. Tsunami makes a grand show of rolling her eyes, but nods. Tsuna removes his palm and wipes it off on her skirt because he's a nasty little shit.

"You're gonna get a bad grade," Hana warns, waving the paper for emphasis. Tsunami shrugs and plucks her assignment out of the other girl's grip, settling it back safely under her arms. She has literally forty thousand other things in her life to worry about. A bad grade on a 'what I wanna be' assignment in her first year of school doesn't even make the list.

"What about you?" she challenges, voice muffled by her arms. "What're you writing about?"

Hana spins her paper around and slides it to the middle of the table so all three of them can see. Her writing is large but impeccably neat, and she has taken the time to add an illustration of what Tsunami assumes is her in a business suit surrounded by piles of cash.

"Oh, good idea," Tsunami congratulates and grabs a fistful of crayons so she can add some tasteful additions to her own paper. She's thinking a full-color spread of her embalming a corpse, or maybe the open casket funeral of a burn victim.

"C-E-O," Tsuna says carefully.

"It means I'm going to run my own company," Hana boasts, crossing her legs and straightening her back.

"...Huh." Her little brother is clearly unimpressed. Judging from the scowl Hana's face twists into, she has noticed and is equally as unamused. "That's cool, too, I think."

"She's gonna be super rich and famous and stuff," Tsunami adds, recognizing how utterly fucking boring running a business sounds to a six year old who still makes an effort to watch cartoons on saturday mornings.

(She says 'makes an effort' because for all his enthusiasm about shonen anime, Tsuna is terrible at getting up in the mornings. As someone who shares a room with him and routinely tries her best to sleep till noon, Tsunami appreciates this.)

"Oh!" Looking significantly more engaged, Tsuna reassess Hana's paper. "That fits you, yeah! 'nd then I can beat up all the mean people who talk about you on TV!"

Hana opens her mouth, looking smug, but then closes it again as she turns Tsuna's words over in her head. Her mouth twists like she's torn between flattery and exasperation.

"Yeah. You. You'll beat them up." Hana doesn't bother trying to sound convinced.

"Haha, what," Tsunami chimes in, flat and bland. She doesn't even elect to look up from her coloring. "You can't even beat me up."

"Not yet. See, see, look,"

Tsunami's crayon stills in her hands and she has to lean back to properly appreciate the image her brother has shoved not two inches from her nose. It's a full-color spread of him as a giant robot, shooting multi-colored lasers from both fists. The city is on fire and there are weird purple things flying around in the air. Tsunami thinks they may be rhinos? Some kind of quadruped for sure.

"Dude, nice. Hana can use her money to make you a cyborg!"

"Yes," Tsuna crows, looking up at Hana with big hopeful eyes. Tsunami is once again forced to admire how incredibly powerful Hana's aversion to precious babyfaces is when she doesn't even bat an eyelid.

"Absolutely not."

As Tsuna tries his best to wheedle a hypothetical loan of several million yen out of the other girl, Tsunami returns to her coloring. By the time Hana remembers Tsunami's bullshitted essay, it'll probably be too late.

Spoiler alert: Tsuna isn't the one to get in the first fight.

When she is seven years old, Sawada Tsunami loses her damn mind.

Or, well. She wishes she does. Pleading temporary insanity would be a nice and convenient way to justify her actions to herself, but she's self-aware enough to know that it would just be self-delusion.

It goes like this:

Kurokawa Hana is a brilliant, wonderful girl with a sharp mind and a sharper tongue. Kurokawa Hana is also, on occasion, a huge fucking moron who should maybe not walk around poking hornet's nests but—

No. No, that's not fair at all. Hana was just standing up to a bully and Tsunami is projecting her frustration with herself onto targets that don't deserve it.

She's off topic.

Tatsuzo Ryoma has always been someone that Tsunami is, at the very least, peripherally aware of. This is largely because he is a whole head larger than her, aggressive, and not afraid to speak whatever is on his mind no matter how cruel or uncalled for it may be. Tsunami isn't exactly his biggest fan, but Hana seemed to have something out for him on a personal level after that first week of school when he'd called her socks ugly. Tsuna is scared of him, but Tsuna is scared of a whole laundry list of of stupid shit so she hadn't paid it much mind.

It starts with a boy in the class across the hall, a tiny little dark-haired thing who pings off enough of Tsunami's cuteness radars that she can't help but feel her heart ache a little when she starts noticing Tatsuzo going after him. To be fair, Tatsuzo has gone after nearly everyone at some point (he's called her cheeto face once or twice and she's ashamed of how long it took her to stop blushing) so she doesn't pay it much mind.

That day, Tsunami and Hana are sitting on the hard plastic lip of the sandpit, arguing the merits of shoujo manga while Tsuna tries and fails to drown them out by constructing a shoddy sandcastle just behind them.

(And, sidenote, Hana can shove it where the sun don't shine. Shoujo manga is objectively garbage and should not under any circumstances be considered fine literature. Highkey misogyny and weird messages about personal agency aside, it's the early 2000s and just about everything is still sporting that bug-eyed Clannad art style. It gives her hives.)

The kid is making sandcastles, too, nearby but far enough away that he's clearly respecting their space.

Then, in incredibly cliche schoolyard bully fashion, Tatsuzo strolls up and puts his foot straight through the kid's watchtower.

The move is sudden and violent enough that it startles all of them. Tatsuzo's a jackass, for sure, but he usually just sticks to making fun of people. This is the first time he's decided to actually get destructive.

Tsunami is suddenly very, very aware of just how much bigger than all of them he is. She should find an adult, she thinks, palms going clammy. Having someone tall around would do wonders for her anxiety.

"Let's go," Hana urges, standing swiftly and brushing off her skirt, more on less on the same wavelength. "We shouldn't get involved with this idiot."

"He'll hear you," Tsuna hisses, already scrambling to his feet, sandcastle forgotten.

Tatsuzo Ryoma is a lot of things, but hard of hearing is not one of them.

"What'd you just call me?" he snarls, whipping around and stalking towards them.

Tsunami swallows a hysterical giggle. She not— she's never been called out like this. She's used to passive-aggressive cold wars and smacktalk in the bathroom, not actual physical threats coming too close too close. She lunges forward to snag Tsuna by the back of his shirt and drags him back out of the sandpit where the ground is firm and easy to run on. She'll talk a big game but Tatsuzo is way bigger up close than she thought he was and wow, no, fuck that shit right on outta here. Sometimes the best strategy is to run the fuck away to live another day—

He walks right past them without so much as a glance. Tsunami's brain stalls out. Sputters. Restarts.

He is toe to toe with Hana and for the first time, Tsunami sees her friend begin to look a little unsure, a little off-balance.

The sweet-looking dark-haired kid is already long gone, having seen his opportunity for what it was and she envies him something fierce because while she could probably outrun this guy on her own, Tsuna was about as coordinated as a white girl in a horror movie. Dragging his ass would slow her down too much and that wasn't even accounting for Hana, who had probably never bothered to run anywhere in her life and shit, shit, balls, there's no good way out of this. Her heart rate begins to pick up speed and she can hear her breathing too loud inside her own head and her hands are sweaty and and and—

—no, no, no, Slipping is bad, not the time, wake up—

And then she's wasted too much time floundering because Tatsuzo is planting both his meaty hands on Hana's shoulders and shoving. She goes down hard in a spray of sand and lays there for a moment, eyes wide.

Everything seems to pause. Tatsuzo looks surprised at himself, like he'd expected Hana to be harder to knock down. Hana, gaping and searching for something to say, doesn't look like she expected it either. For a moment, no one breathes.

Tsuna breaks the spell.

The shirt in Tsunami's grip wrenches once, twice, and disappears and she almost shrieks because her brother is suddenly right there, what the fuck, knees shivering and with tears already bubbling up but planted right in between Hana and the danger.

"D-don't...y-you sho… shouldn't-!" Tsuna's voice is so, so small. With every word he tries and fails to choke out Tatsuzo's gobsmacked expression twists a little more in annoyance until he's outright sneering and then—

"Buzz off, brat."

And then Tsuna is in the dirt too.

Tsunami doesn't even feel real. Her head has drifted off somewhere outside of her body and she's having a hard time focusing on standing and breathing at the same time, but she is keenly aware of one thing.

There are two choices in front of her.

She can start talking real fast and try to diffuse the situation before it escalates into something worse than what it is, or she can cut her losses, run, and find a teacher.

The second is ruled out immediately for obvious reasons. Hana and Tsuna are still on the ground and running means leaving them there. She'd literally rather swallow a big old fistful of sand.

...Also, she can't move her legs.

"H-hey," she begins, but her tongue lies thick and dry in her mouth and her voice is already shaking. Tatsuzo is embracing his new weapon, his new advantage over everyone around him and he is rounding on her, shit fuck he's big, this isn't going to end well, what the hell was she even thinking—?

Tsuna is looking at her. There is sand in his hair and his eyes are wide, wide, wide and god, she never wants to see that look on his face ever again, hurt and confused and afraid.

This is Tsunami's fault somehow, it has to be. There's a thousand and one things she could have done different, done better. She should've gotten an adult the minute Tatsuzo showed up or she should've stood up for Hana or she should've, at the very fucking least, stopped her baby brother from getting hurt like she'd promised.

Instead, she'd let her fear stop her cold.

Tatsuzo's hands are coming up towards her and she makes a split-second decision.

Tsunami is scared. Tsunami is really, disproportionately terrified of this child, but she is infinitely more afraid of looking her brother in the eye after she gets her ass kicked by a grade-schooler and so she focuses on that instead. Recalling self-defense tips from a life long abandoned, she ducks under his arms and steps into his space. She pulls her leg back and squeezes her eyes shut, praying to whoever is willing to listen that she will get out of this alive and with my face intact, please lord, seven years old is way too young to die and I am too cute for stitches.

Tsunami nails him in the balls with everything she has and he drops like a rock. She yelps and skitters backwards a half-step as he doubles over with a choked wail. She takes a deep breath— no, it's sticking in her throat, abort, fuck, she is shaking with too much adrenaline and her head is spinning around faster than she can keep up with. Lord, but she is bad under pressure.

Tsunami has never… never hurt someone on purpose like that before. There should be some kind of rush, yeah? A satisfied feeling in her gut for avenging something, for proving that she's the badder bitch on the playground? For winning?

...Tsunami just feels hollow and ill.

"Bitch," Tatsuzo wheezes. The slur sounds jarring in his squeaky child-voice, but Tsunami doesn't have time to care because as suddenly as he went down, he is trying to get back up again. There's a look in his eyes, dark and prideful and humiliated and it occurs to Tsunami that this time he is going to go for her. As in, swinging fists and actual rage and it is probably going to hurt really, really bad.

She doubts that anyone has ever really stood up to him before, and now she's gone and punted him in the balls. Speaking of, she could've sworn that groin hits were supposed to incapacitate for longer than that, how fucking weak even are her little noodle legs and holy shit he's faster than she thought he was—

Tsunami has never experienced this first-hand, but she went to public school. She knows how this cycle works. If she doesn't end this right now, it is going to happen again. She has taken the hornet's nest in both hands and thrown it against the fucking wall, and this kid is going to have it out for her until she's been hurt or humiliated enough to soothe his ego. Getting shoved on a playground is only going to be the beginning.

Tsunami sees Hana and Tsuna pulling themselves up from the dust and thinks of how much worse it could have been. How much worse it might be in the future. Tsunami thinks of a different Tsuna in a world where she isn't around, bullied for years and years over things he can't help. She thinks of her Tsuna, small and easily startled and brave enough to stand up for his friends.

Under no circumstances can she be the reason that someone hurts him like that.

Tatsuzo's shoulders are level with her chest so Tsunami grabs the left in both hands (they're sweating so goddamn much, don't lose your grip, gotta hold tight) and drives her knee up once, twice, three times straight into his gut. He makes a horrible airless noise (what is she doing what is she doing) and his legs wobble and then buckle under him. She wrenches his shoulder to the side and he moves with the momentum in a rough tumble to the ground, curled up tight and wheezing deep, terrible breathes in and out and in and out.

Tsunami swallows. She forces her hands to still for just a moment. She has to be in control or this isn't going to work.

"You are not going to hurt me or my brother or my friends ever again," she begins, and if her voice is soft it is to mask the shaking. "You are not going to come after us, or that kid, or anyone, because if you do—"

Tsunami takes a slow breath in through her mouth. Just a little bit more, she's almost there. Tatsuzo is looking up at her with wide, wide eyes and she steels herself for one last push.

"If you do," she repeats, slow and measured. "I will hurt you worse."

It will be enough. It has to be enough because she isn't sure what else she can do.

Then the dark-haired kid comes back with a teacher and things start to blur together into a whirlwind of stress as she is shuffled from one lecturing adult to another and another. Tsunami knows when she's fucked up (oh boy has she fucked up), but she's done what needs to be done and regardless of the empty feeling in her stomach and the way she can't quite focus right she will not let regret it.

Sawada Tsunami is a girl of many talents, including but not limited to inopportune bouts of anxiety, self-delusion, and blatant denial. She is good at convincing herself of things. Avoiding difficult subjects is one of her greatest life skills.

Ears ringing, she keeps her eyes firmly on her feet through the scoldings and the lectures and the punishments. If she looks up, she can't guarantee she won't start crying. She hasn't cried once since her second life began she's isn't going to start now of all times. She's not.

Hana has been shuffled off to another teacher to give her side of the story. Tsuna keeps touching her arm but it's different, more hesitant than it used to be. Even when Nana is called in to pick her up, furious and disapproving, Tsunami doesn't do much more than shrug and nod when prompted.

It's… this is too much. This is too much for her handle and if she looks anyone in the eye, if she sees the disappointment-anger-fear reflected back at her then everything is going to become way too real.

She feels like shit.

AN: ayy lmao

Special thanks to HeirofChairs, who once physically mailed me a four inch tall figurine of Harry Styles wearing a hand-knit beanie with neither prompting nor discernible reason. He watches me from the bookshelf, quiet and proud.

Review at your own leisure and thank you for reading!

5/31/18 edit