Swallowed the Moon
By: The DayDreaming
Warnings: AU Slight language. Minimal knowledge of how trains work? Crappy descriptions of radios? Confusion and perverts. Lots of foreshadowing.
Full summary: AU Tsuna, worst magic-user ever, never thought he'd graduate from Salence's Academy for the Genesic Empyrean. Hell, no one else thought he would either. Maybe once he starts experiencing life outside of SAGE school's halls, he'll want to return to that constant school daze for good. Conspiracies, fallen princes, and a quest to find his MIA father send Tsuna's once below-average life out of control. Pulled along for the ride, he can only hope that he's strong enough to stand against the odds alongside a carefree swordsman/bodyguard, an entirely too loyal bomber, and a curly-sideburned gunman. Scratch that; he's definitely going to die.
Disclaimer: Katekyo Hitman Reborn! and its characters belong to Amano Akira, not me. This is the only time I'm going to say it.
This chapter has not been edited for mistakes. If there are any, please notify me and I'll try to rectify the situation whenever I get off my lazy ass.
O.o-oO0Oo-o.O
Chapter 1: Footsies
O.o-oO0Oo-o.O
The train station was old and deserted; the once pristine exterior, reminiscent of a cathedral at one point, was now dilapidated and held a decidedly gothic feel. All train stations were like this nowadays, Tsuna knew. Trains were falling out of style, replaced by better alternatives like airships or the rare, extremely expensive, four-wheeled motor vehicle.
Tsuna never really liked waiting at the train station; it often brought up bad memories of him endlessly waiting for his father to show up on holidays or birthdays. Nevertheless, he sat resolutely while listening for the tell-tale thumping of large, grinding wheels on metal track. Bored to tears, he passed the time by shining a small, green spark in-between his open palms. It was a healing spell; though not much use for any injuries larger than a paper-cut, it came in handy when he was trying to hone his magic skills (the very little he owned, anyways), and wouldn't hurt him if he managed to make it back-fire.
He had started to try to juggle three of the tiny green sparks (this was exceptionally difficult because he could barely conjure more than two at a time, and he didn't really know how to juggle), when the train rattled into the station, an empty car coming to a heavy, sighing halt in front of him. An old, tired looking man opened the doors and motioned for Tsuna to hand him his ticket before punching a hole in the flimsy paper with a pair of rusted punchers.
Tsuna quietly thanked him and made a beeline for the interior of the cart; outside, the weather looked to be gearing up for a nasty storm, and was currently blowing a sharp, cool wind across the abandoned train station.
Tsuna seated himself in a worn booth, the glass on the windows lined with spider-cracks and the cushions on the benches a bit too patched up to be presentable. He rested his head against the window, almost regretting it when he felt the sticky surface against his temple, but resigned himself to the fact that everywhere he put his head on this train would be sticky and unpleasant.
It would be a long ride; that, he knew. His old house, the first destination on his decidedly minimal list, was at least a thousand miles away from SAGE's cloistered halls.
"Four years…," Tsuna muttered to himself, watching as thick steam pin-wheeled by the window. The train was preparing to move forward. Somehow, Tsuna felt the immense urge to run out of the cart and onto the dilapidated waiting-platform; a sort of numbing fear gripped at his chest, and a part of him felt like he was making a huge mistake. Earlier, walking away had felt almost too easy to him, like it should have been a lot harder. Now, he realized, the ease of walking was replaced by the suffocating finality of sitting still.
Four years felt like an eternity. The only thing that seemed to run through Tsuna's mind was, 'Oh gods, I'm sixteen. Four years, four years, four-fuckin'-years. I'm sixteen and I feel like a fucking four-year-old.'
Would anyone recognize him? Would anyone remember him? Would anyone know who he was? Did they miss him? Did his mother miss him? Was his father home? Would they want him home in the first place? Why hadn't his mother come to his graduation? Would anyone realize that No-Good Tsuna was alive and well and sitting on some wobbly train, spazzing out in one of the empty carts over absolutely nothing?
The train gave a lurch, and Tsuna released the tight grip he had on his hair. He dry-heaved at the sight of the small train station as it passed by in a quickening blur, the locomotive picking up speed, one more lost soul burdening its dingy interior.
It was all worrying for nothing, he told himself. If nothing else, his mother would recognize and welcome him with open arms. The ditzy woman held not a care in the world, it seemed, and would allow anyone into her abode as long as they were hungry for a home-cooked meal and willing to share his or her tale with the rest of the varied tenants of the house.
Tsuna sighed. Somehow, just sitting here almost felt like too much for him. Going home? Though the thought had crossed his mind many times while he resided at the academy, his plans had never come to fruition. Going home had meant failure to him for so long. Now, it suddenly meant that he had succeeded in making something of himself, even if it only meant not being a total failure. It felt wrong, and Tsuna wished that he could make up his mind and stop regretting every waking moment of his life.
Resigning himself to the heavy silence that descended upon the cart as the train bolted along the railway tracks, Tsuna allowed his mind to wander further on his indecision for the next couple of hours. He fell into a heavy daze, head resting against the sticky glass of the window.
He did not feel himself sob.
O.o-oO0Oo-o.O
Tsuna jolted awake as the door to his cart slid open, admitting what had first appeared to be wrinkled, shrunken ghosts into the compartment. Upon further inspection by Tsuna's sleep addled brain, he realized that the strange pair were in fact an old couple, huddled together over a couple of bags and blankets stacked atop their thin arms, gold wedding bands glinting slightly on knobbled fingers.
The old gentleman, in a ragged, tweed suit, helped the old woman, his partner, down onto a bench a couple rows down from Tsuna's own lonely perch. As the man sat down with a defined creak and groan, he fiddled with something in one of the bags, pulling out a relatively new-looking radio set.
Radios were expensive, Tsuna knew, especially the ones small enough to be carried around. This one seemed to be second-hand, the parts apparently new, but slightly cracked and dented, a couple pieces of tape lining the display for the receiver dial.
The old woman looked towards him, smiling warmly with her soft lips, "I hope you don't mind."
Tsuna shook his head, mouth sealed shut by a dry crust he was too lazy to lick apart, watching with little interest as the old man banged the radio with his worn fist a couple of times before the thing sputtered to life, static streaking through the air. The man fiddled the dial, and a coherent voice erupted through the cart; rich velvety tones from a little-known songstress pooled over Tsuna's ears and he allowed himself to relax down into his sun-warmed bench once again.
Tsuna lulled himself into a daze, temporary excitement washed away by a bone-deep exhaustion that only came when riding for long distances on the rattling trains.
The radio continued its serenade and the old timers hummed along before, eventually, they too fell asleep.
It continued like this for a while; the occupants of the cart falling asleep and waking up every few hours; the strangers changing the station every time they pulled themselves into consciousness. Tsuna enjoyed the broken bits of music that mingled through his half-conscious daze; he hadn't gotten to listen to any actual music with lyrics and a beat for months, not since the only record player in the boys' wing of the school had been confiscated.
Tsuna was mumbling his way through a particularly unpleasant dream involving what seemed to be pineapples and birds having a fight to the death, a ruffled, brown-feathered bird whose wings had been broken, falling over the side of what appeared to be a balcony on a high castle while a shadowed pineapple watched from above, when he was rudely awoken by the radio squawking a static-y screech.
He bolted up, clutching his chest, as his brown cloak fell softly from his shoulders. The old couple a few rows down were also awake, tuning the discordant radio. The train was dark, the gleam of stars and a waxing moon illuminating the small cart. Tsuna glanced over as the pair muttered an 'aha' of triumph in unison when the radio became relatively clear, though still heavily interrupted by static.
"—mori…I repe--…hostile takeover o--…Residents are warned to rem--…State of the royal fam--…is unclear at thi--…signs of a brawl clear--…prince's room. Kokuyo, i--…mori's neighboring coun--…the attackers. Ple--… calm. I repeat…"
The message continued on like this, Tsuna's stomach feeling like it had migrated to his throat. Though the news didn't have a particular meaning to him, the tone it carried made a heavy weight appear on his shoulders. Something bad was happening, people were getting hurt; Tsuna felt sick knowing that he was glad that it wasn't him, but some other people he didn't know, miles away from his moving prison.
"This ju--…in. The bod--…of the royal family--…hung on the gates--…entrance to the capital.—rince is--…where to be foun--.--…yal guard has disapp--…well."
The radio was switched to a different frequency with a soft creak of the dial. The old man sighed.
"Bad news," the old woman muttered, leaning her head against the man's shoulder, "Best not listen to such depressing affairs."
The lofty notes of a sugary pop singer filled the compartment.
The old man turned towards Tsuna, concern on his shadowed face, "You okay, young man? No one you knew over there, right?"
"Yeah," Tsuna mumbled, voice small and timid in the dark. His mind kept playing over the message, a broken record. The last part had been disturbing, to be sure. It seemed like the entire royal family had been killed and strung up somewhere around the capital city (wherever this country was; he hadn't managed to catch the name). Not only that, but the prince was missing, as well as the royal guard. Had they escaped the horrible fate of the royals?
Tsuna thought back to his dream, the words of the desperate-sounding radio message mingling with the phantom aroma of pineapples and cherry blossoms, while a hostile bird sung its death-warble.
O.o-oO0Oo-o.O
Things hadn't changed much.
The road leading into the town proper was still dusty and lined with weathered stones. The front walk still looked pristine, faded chalk drawings by the neighborhood kids lining the beaten path. The grass was still cut short, articles of clothing hanging limply on taut clotheslines in the front yard (odd pieces of leather, armor, and varying sizes of undergarments all too present). The brass doorknob at the front entrance still gleamed.
Tsuna felt like an idiot, just standing there and trying to see out the wrong end of the peephole. With a sigh, he dredged up all of his courage, and knocked on the door.
He almost bolted after the loud sounded resounded throughout the cool enclosure of the porch. He gulped; what if his mother had moved away? Maybe that's why she didn't respond to his graduation invitation. Maybe she didn't want anything to do with her no-good son once she was finally rid of him. Maybe this was the wrong address, and he was about to make himself open to some murderer-rapist that lived just across the street from his mother and was probably in need of some new, tender boy-flesh—
"Hello?"
Or maybe it just took a couple of seconds for his mother to reach the door.
Tsuna smiled nervously up to the sweet face of his mother, fingers twitching minutely. Nana's angelic face stared in confusion for a moment, taking in the sight of a spindly-limbed, haggard-looking teen, soft, spiky brown hair slightly drooping while weary eyes stared back at her, darting around to look anywhere but her own gaze.
"Tsuna…?" she muttered lowly, stepping away from the doorway, reaching her hand out to cup the boy's cheek, "Is it really…?"
"Mom…" he whispered back, eyes finally looking at her fully. Four years hadn't changed Nana, but in that span of time, Tsuna had been altered significantly.
He smiled a bit more openly as realization dawned on the sweet woman's face, before finding the air knocked out of him as he was engulfed in a bone-crushing hug.
"It really is you!" she said, almost lifting him off the ground in her elation. Tsuna gurgled in his throat at the lack of air, and she immediately let him down, hands still firmly clamped on his meager biceps through the soft brown material of his cloak. All too quickly, the air around Nana seemed to grow thick and dark; the gleam in her eye spoke of fathomless anger.
"Where have you been?! No letters, no phone calls; you never came to visit! You disappeared off the face of the earth after going to that school!" Nana gritted out, hold on his arms tightening.
Tsuna stared, mouth agape, at the angry woman. She looked absolutely demonic. Gathering his wits, Tsuna stuttered out, "W-What do you mean? I w-wrote to you every other week!"
And he had. The distance between home and the Academy had been bothersome. Instead of taking the long, five-day ride on the train every time a special holiday or event came around, Tsuna would write letters to his mother, send her trinkets and pictures in the mail, or attempt to call her (though this occurred rarely since phones were expensive to use, and the call never seemed to go through, anyways).
He had to have at least written three hundred letters to her over his four-year absence. Was she implying that she had not received a single one of those letters? That none of his birthday gifts to her had been obtained and opened? That didn't make sense. He knew for sure that someone sent him money to use as allowance every month, that someone mailed him small gifts on his birthday and other gift-receiving holidays, that someone wrote him replies to his letters (though these replies were far and in-between); everything had been signed to be from Nana Sawada.
What the hell, Tsuna thought, eyeing his mother as she sunk down and gathered him in her arms and held his head to the crook of her neck. What's going on?
"You didn't even get the invitation to my graduation?" Tsuna mumbled into her clavicle, the thumping of her heart loud in his ears.
"Nothing! You don't know how much trouble you're in, mister," Nana said, rubbing circles on his back and rocking herself into a stupor.
O.o-oO0Oo-o.O
Nana hadn't been serious about him being in trouble. Far from trouble, in fact. After calming herself down over her 'long-lost' son, she had invited him in and demanded he tell her of everything that had happened, how school was going, and why he was home.
As he had walked inside, Tsuna took note of the many boots and shoes lining the foyer; there must have been a lot of company. Nana had set about preparing a grand feast in her tiny, spotless kitchen while Tsuna helped her out, expounding upon his 'adventures' at the academy while cutting carrots up for a stew (nicking himself more often than not). He didn't even realize that he had yet to put away any of his bags or take off his cloak; he trailed dust across the gleaming linoleum floor.
Nana had stopped kneading the dough for a fresh batch of bread in order to hug her son energetically when he told her of his graduation, getting flour all over his mouse-earred cloak. He also had to explain the embarrassing gift Kyoko had given him.
Realizing that Tsuna was only ruining her kitchen and bloodying the carrots, his mother ordered him to go clean up, shooing him away with a dough-encrusted hand, and smiling euphorically.
Tsuna sighed as he escaped the death-trap of a kitchen, fingering the bloody cuts on his fingers while licking his dry lips, throat parched, thinking about whether it would be too much trouble to try and attempt to heal his minor wounds with a spell that might just blow up in his face.
It was strange to realize how tiring it was to talk to his mother, to tell about everything that he had thought he already told her through ink and paper. He felt like a misbegotten twelve-year-old again, trying to tell a long and complicated story to his mother about why he had a scraped knee while trying to help and only making everything worse for her. How had none of his letters gotten through? How had he seemingly not made contact with her for over four years?
Tsuna shook his head, feeling the tight pinch of a headache form at the back of his mind. He needed to lie down and sleep. Despite dozing for long periods of time on the train, he still felt exhausted and weary after five days of sitting still and doing nothing.
He passed the sitting room and saw the backs of several heads lining the various couches and chairs. He didn't bother to greet them, plowing ahead to his old room.
The stairs creaked under his feet, a familiar yet forgotten sound in his ears. He remembered being able to avoid every single creaky spot on the stairs, once upon a time. Now, he could barely remember which steps creaked at all. It was weird, he decided, as he reached the door to his room. The paint on the door had been maintained, the brass knobs glinting in the dark of the second-story hallway.
He felt nervous to step into his room again, but as he swung the familiar door open, nostalgia hit him full force.
Everything was where he had left it. Shining and gleaming in the early-afternoon sun falling through the large window across from the door, the furniture held an old glow that he recalled faintly as being caused by a specific brand of cleaner used by his mother to wax all of the wood in the house. He stepped fully into the room, breathing in the scent of oranges and pine.
It was just how he knew it shouldn't have been. Everything should have been old and dusty, caked in a layer of grime and broken from disuse. It should have smelt of age and moth balls. He almost choked at the thought that his mother kept cleaning the room in the hopes that her son would come back someday, that she hadn't let anyone have the room because it belonged to someone else, permanently.
He let his traveler's bag fall to the clean wood flooring while he undid his cloak, the skystone brooch glinting in his hand as he dropped it onto a cluttered dresser. The stand was covered in jars and glasses of all sizes, containers filled with marbles and buttons he had collected as a child and left behind as he moved on in the world. He picked up a corked jar wistfully, watching the colorful buttons as they rattled in the glass prison. Glancing further across the desk, he spotted a few new bottles that he didn't remember ever having, filled with more tiny baubles. Had his mother continued to collect things for him?
He smiled, removing the rest of his clothing and changing into his last clean pair of clothes, a thin shirt and cotton shorts. Coming home, he decided, wasn't such a bad idea, even if it felt like he had taken a step back in time.
He fell into his old, almost too-small bed with a satisfied grunt, reveling in the scent of more oranges emitted from his comforters.
Being home was good.
O.o-oO0Oo-o.O
Sitting at a table with seven other strangers was just as awkward as Tsuna remembered it being. Perhaps because he had grown unused to sitting with other people during his time at the academy (no one wanted to sit at the same table as No-Good Tsuna, and Kyoko sat with her friends), or because there was a man sitting across from him, in his late twenties, that kept leering at Tsuna over a bowl of mashed potatoes and trying to touch Tsuna's bare legs with his feet.
Nana smiled jovially at her son while talking with a blonde-haired woman sitting beside her, remarking absently on the current topic of which kind of salve was better for puncture wounds that went down to the bone (though she had no knowledge of the topic at all). Tsuna had grown up, if only just a little. He was a sight for sore-eyes, and seemed to take more after her than his father. Many of the guests at the table were staring openly at him.
"So, Tsu, what do you plan on doing now that you're finally home?" Nana asked, after the blonde began to dig into her bowl of soup.
"Ah, um," Tsuna blushed, neck reddening as all eyes turned on him. He took a nervous bite from his bread roll, "Well. The next thing I should do is find an apprenticeship, o-or go on a quest. I need to hone my skills in order to get into a secondary school."
"So, then you won't be staying?" Nana asked, smile fading slightly. Tsuna nodded, looking guilty.
"I'm not sure where to start, though. I didn't think this far ahead," Tsuna muttered, scratching the back of his neck. Truth be told, he didn't think that far ahead because he never thought that he would get to this point in the first place. It almost felt like a dream. "An apprenticeship sounds good, but I'm not…well, really good at anything. I wouldn't know where to start looking, anyways. So, I was thinking about a quest…"
The man sitting across from Tsuna smiled, foot feeling the smooth curve of Tsuna's calf as his toes glided by, "You could come with me. I know a few people who might need some help…" The man winked at Tsuna.
The teen gave a nervous smile and quickly moved his legs away from the stranger's probing toes, "T-that's okay! I-I, um, I think I, uh, need to do things on m-my own." Tsuna moved his legs again when the stranger got too close.
This was weird. Tsuna quickly bit down into his bread roll again as Nana watched his nervousness with a critical eye and then glanced at the man sitting across from him.
"Searching for a quest?" a voice piped up from the far end of the table. Tsuna leaned over his plate to try to catch a glimpse of the stranger. The man wore a black fedora with a yellow band, eyes shadowed under the brim while strange, curled sideburns peeked out from beneath the hat. He wore a sleek black suit, and a dangerous aura swirled around his dark form.
Tsuna hesitantly nodded, and dodged another foot-swipe from the man across from him.
The suited man smirked, "Have a go at Perambulāre. They say it's the place where destinies cross."
Tsuna gulped, unnerved at the man's tone, but nodded nonetheless. Somehow, the man's words seemed to have a touch of fate around them.
Thinking back on it, maybe Tsuna should have just gone with the man trying to play one-sided footsies with him. His fate would have been the same, but with a lot less of the trouble and suffering that happened first.
O.o-oO0Oo-o.O
Ahaha, hello? Anyone out there? No? Understandable.
This has been a long time in coming. Please forgive me! Things have been busy as of late.
I'm sorry for the quality of this chapter. I don't really like it, since it's just filler and my dad had me rushing towards the end because he wants me to go to bed, but…Well, it introduces a couple of important points. You'd all do well to remember the things that happen in this chapter, even if they seem insignificant. There's a lot of foreshadowing.
***Something has come to my attention, as well. I don't think it's a secret that Yamamoto and Gokudera are going to be in this. The thing is: I said that in the first chapter, I'm not going to be doing honorifics or last names first. But, Tsuna usually calls Gokudera and Yamamoto by their last names. What do I do? Should I keep using Gokudera and Yamamoto as the guys' names throughout the story, or switch to using Hayato and Takeshi? Please tell me what you think! And soon, since Takeshi is going to be coming up relatively soon!
Thank you for reading, and I hope this chapter wasn't too much of a disappointment! Please review, also. It makes me feel better about me failing at life so much. The DayDreaming out!