Chapter 8

Five Years Ago

Sumeragi Nana smiled as she closed up the small restaurant that she has been working on for the past three years.

"Do you need a ride going back to your home, Sumeragi-san?" her restaurant manager asked.

She shook her head in assurance, "Oh, no, I'll be fine. Besides, Tsu-kun must be expecting me," she said with a sad smile. Her baby boy had been distant to him for the past two years now, and she couldn't really fault him. She had become a busy working Mom with barely enough time for her remaining son.

Nana kept insisting to cut her time from the restaurant in order to take care of Tsuna more, but the boy simply frowned and lectured her.

"I don't want to burden you Mom. I understand why you are working all day. You don't need to worry about me." He said to her when she suggested cutting her working hours.

At once, Nana became worried that her little boy was mad at her for valuing work, and felt herself becoming like her ex-husband who was only home four or five times since their marriage. She didn't want her son to think of her that way.

As she locked the restaurant, she bid her manager goodbye and went on her way to the house that she had once lived in as a married woman. The house was a part of the divorce agreement, that she could keep everything inside the house besides her youngest son, Ienari, who was no whisked away to Italy. Thinking about it, Nana felt a surge of utter betrayal towards Iemitsu. The settlement requires her to see Ienari at least once a year, or talk to him on the phone once in a while, but none of that had happened for the past three years.

There was only one conclusion that Nana could draw out. Her youngest son hated him for her asking for a divorce.

She had always been alone raising two children, so what does getting a divorce any different?

A lot, it would seem. She has had enough of her husband leaving her to take care of the two children alone, not even a scheduled phone call or vacation to ease her mind that her husband was fine and not doing anything that would end up with him being unfaithful. And it would seem that her patience has worn thin towards the man that she once loved.

So when he brought up the topic of divorce, not a day later, Iemitsu came rushing to Japan, demanding for an explanation. Talking turned to screaming, until ultimately, Iemitsu got custody of Ienari, and Nana got custody of Tsuna.

Now here she is, her entire alimony now invested into her small restaurant—which was doing very well. Her neighbor and high school friend, Tsuyoshi, had helped her build it from the ground up, with unimaginable results. It had been a gamble, but she made it grow and has been having a steady income, enough to provide for her and Tsuna without touching his trust funds.

As she was thinking this, she felt some sort of foreboding as she went on her way back home.

She didn't know why, but her feet had turned from walking to fast walking. Then she remembered the neighborhood rumors running about regarding a mysterious man lurking around at night. Now she realized why she was feeling nervous. Someone was watching her.

Reaching into her bag, she felt the handle of her pistol, the gun she still has even after retiring from the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department when she married Iemitsu—a sacrifice that she now regrets. Her cop senses kicked in, and she slowed her walking, intent on drawing out whoever got it in their heads to assault a woman alone in the streets. She listened into her footsteps, and just as she had predicted, the one who was watching over her was synchronizing his or her steps to match hers.

A hitman.

'Where is the hitman? Left? Right? In front?' she took out her gun and aimed behind by the pole, right above the wall of another house. No resounding bang was heard, as she made it fit to put a silencer on it to avoid any uproar from the neighbors.

She looked sternly in the darkness, straining her eyes to see a form of a tall man in a fedora and suit coming down from where she aimed her gun at. Holding her gun still aimed at the form in front of her, she spoke, "Mighty fine of you to follow a woman walking alone in the streets,"

"A little strange for a civilian to carry firearms," the figure—the man, she concluded, said in a baritone voice with an accent. "Now I wonder if I am still following the same woman I was told to follow,"

Nana looked into the man, and saw that he was rather tall, and had Italian features. This man was a Mafiosi. "A Mafiosi in Japan, I see,"

"I came alone, if you want to know," he said calmly, despite having a gun aimed at his head.

"Then that means he's not your companion," Nana replied as she re-aimed her gun to a tree nearby. A split second later, a lanky body fell from where she aimed the gun, dead. Putting away her gun, she went near the body and checked his heartbeat. There was none. Beside him was a sniper gun attached to a branch. "This man has been waiting for me all day." She concluded.

"Not to worry. I'll have people get rid of it," Reborn assured.

Nana looked back, "You sure you can handle it? Because I don't want hearing any reports about someone falling from a tree at this hour."

A small smile graced the hitman's lips, "Of course."

"Why are you here?" she asked off the bat. Reborn knew she was taking no pleasantries at this moment.

"Civilian you may be, Sumeragi Nana, but you were still involved with one of our own, and the mother of one of our heirs." Her eyes sharpened at that, but he paid no heed to it. "I was tasked to watch over you to see if no one else knows that you were once married to the CEDEF leader. And I suppose judging from the sniper, I have some work to do,"

"To hide my existence and any traces of Vongola here in Namimori." She concluded. "You know, you're lucky I wasn't assigned in organized crime, or else I would have been on a shooting rampage against you,"

The man seemed amused. "Ah, yes, you were the chief of the Criminal Investigation Bureau, First Division. Chief Inspector Sumeragi Nana of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. You met your now ex-husband when you went undercover as a waitress. Retired early at the age of twenty-two in order to marry said ex-husband, Sawada Iemitsu and moved to Namimori afterwards,"

"Which is the greatest mistake of my life. Marrying the bastard who could be hunted by my former colleagues." Nana scoffed. "You know who I am, but I don't know you,"

The man simply bowed respectfully as he removed his fedora, showing his spiky black hair and sideburns. His steel black eyes looked at her with respect. "I'm the World's Greatest Hitman. You may call me Reborn."

…

"Wait a second! That's not romantic at all!" Ienari protested, interrupting Tsuna's story.

The brunette laughed. "Well, there was a sniper about, and it was in the middle of the night. There's no romantic setting there from the start," he explained. "And don't complain to me. Mom told me that herself."

"I didn't know Mom was a former cop," Ienari stated, laying the 'unromantic first meeting' to rest, knowing he won't be able to decipher how their mother even thought of it as a sort of fated meeting.

"Neither did I. It wasn't until I saw her medals back at our grandparents' house in Tokyo that she told me. The best in her batch, and has a crime solving rate of eighty-five percent. She retired after being engaged with Iemitsu," he explained.

"Why didn't she come back after the divorce?" Ienari wondered. If she had such an impressive record, then the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department should have at least tried to persuade her into returning to the force after her divorce, since her marriage was the very reason why she retired early.

Tsuna shrugged, "Might have something to do with me. She was worried I would have some sort of culture shock and would fall behind if I transferred, not to mention someone in organized crime could do a background check on her and find out that her ex-husband was a Mafiosi, and would ruin her credibility as a cop."

"Point," Ienari said.

"Now can I continue?" Tsuna asked.

"Yes please," Ienari said as he lied down on his stomach on the bed, while Tsuna leaned on the wall with a pillow in hand.

"So, after that, Mom demanded answers why Papa had to check up on her, so he told her that he needed to take care of matters regarding her previous marriage…"

…

"In other words, you are here to tie up loose ends." Nana stated as they stopped by the playground that was dimly lit. It was near her house, so there was no pressure in getting home immediately. Nana still kept her gun in her bag, safety off, just in case this hitman tries anything. "But why now after three years?"

Reborn sighed, clearly irritated about something. "Three months ago, there has been a leak in the system. Someone squealed that Iemitsu was once married and divorced, and still has a kid under his ex-wife's custody." He informed.

"So they are after Tsuna." Nana said with a growl. She was no tempted to go back to being a cop and transferring to organized crime.

"They should have been waiting by your house, but I already took care of it." Reborn informed her. "But something bothers me,"

Nana seemed to stiffen. "What's that?"

"I got rid of those lurkers at three in the afternoon, the time where your son, Sawada—"

"Sumeragi." Nana stressed. "We took the liberty to change his last name."

"—Sumeragi Tsunayoshi should have been walking back home." He continued. "But three hours passed, and there was no sign of your son anywhere near the house, or Namimori Elementary, for that matter."

Reborn expected Nana to be worried about her son. His first thought was that Tsuna might have been kidnapped before he got to school. But when Nana made a solemn look, he got another thing coming.

"I'd be worried if he did come home and went to school," she started. "Since Tsuna has been in a rehabilitation center for the past six months…"

If the hitman in front of her was surprised, he didn't show it. "What do you mean?"

"It means that my son's school life is nothing close to pleasant."

…

Ienari simply stared at his brother who looked at anything but his younger brother. "Tsuna…you were…"

A small sad smile graced his lips. "Well, now you know,"

"But…why?"

"Bullying." He said simply. "It's something that cannot be removed in schools, no matter how strict it is. Physical bullying, psychological bullying, cyber bullying, the list goes on. I, on the other hand, got two of those sorts. Physical because of my uselessness and my moniker as Dame-Tsuna, and psychological because of the divorce." He stared at Ienari in the eyes, "You can tell what kind of taunts they used on a kid whose parents recently divorced to get a rise out of you, can you?"

As much as Ienari wanted to deny it, he couldn't not imagine what the bullies would say to a defenseless child whose parents just split up. He was already bullied enough before that, but after those events, psychological and physical bullying can destroy a kid's head. And the results are always not so pretty.

"You get a child with a lot of issues regarding himself…"

With a nod, Tsuna pushed back his right sleeve, allowing Ienari to see what was under it. There, on Tsuna's right wrist, were scars, traces of a blade penetrating into the skin enough to make it bleed. The scars were overlapping each other, almost reaching his elbow. But they were fading scars, which indicate that no more cuts were being added into the mix. "Back then I thought that if I did this, then I would at least get a break from all the pain and suffering that I had to go through on a daily basis. I wanted to escape. So one day, I just took a blade and watched as I made myself bleed. At least this miniscule amount of pain made me forget all the bullshit I had to face every single day…"

"You tried to hide it, but Mom found out eventually," Ienari guessed.

Tsuna nodded. "I think she's noticed that I've been beaten up like a sandbag on a daily basis since she's the one who always does the laundry. It's pretty obvious that she must have seen the blood and dirt on some of my clothes that indicates bullying…" he stated. "But Mom, ever the supporter, always took the time to clean them to take away any reminder that I was wearing it while I was beaten to a pulp. She was always there for me, but I didn't reach out to her for help, thinking that I can handle it on my own." He laughed mirthlessly. "In the end, I ended up enduring it on my own. Until I was caught harming myself."

"So Mom sent you to a rehabilitation center to help you," the blond said.

"A lot of good it did me. I think I went through three psychiatrists trying to gauge me to speak about something else other than bullying being the reason for me doing self-harm." He scoffed, surprising Ienari. "As if bullying is a minor reason. Please. A lot of kids committed suicide because of it all over the world, and they think it's a minor thing. You know, I think child protection services talked them into implying that Mom did something that I wasn't telling."

An uncomfortable silence reigned between the two. The blond could feel annoyance. Their mother was a loving one despite her past misgivings. Ienari, taking the chance to change the subject, asked, "So…if you were in a rehabilitation center…how did you come across Reborn?"

Tsuna's smile returned, knowing what Ienari was up to, and because of that certain memory. "He came to the rehab center along with Mom three days later. The first time I met him, it terrified me."

"No surprises there." Ienari half-joked.

Tsuna threw him the pillow he was hugging before continuing his story.

…

Tsuna felt like running away. This man in front of him at the visitation room was staring at him—observing him, would be the specific word for what he is doing right at this moment. But Tsuna was a big boy, he tried telling himself. He had to look at him in the eyes, as his mother always tells him. If he shows weakness towards the man, he felt like something bad would happen.

True, he was scarier than all the bullies that he had encountered once before, and he was rather weary of that. But this man in front of him…he was giving them a run for their money.

His mother didn't seem too worried about him, as she was the one who wanted to introduce the two of them two days ago since mentioning that she has met someone who worked at the same place his father did.

There the man in a fedora sat, patting a green chameleon, looking so refined and…what was that word…ah, yes, dangerous.

But something tells Tsuna that he was not going to harm him. No, it just seems like he's…measuring him about something. Bravery, maybe? Tolerance? Who knows?

"Mom, who is this?" Tsuna asked her, making sure that he was showing that he was scared at the mere presence of the man.

Nana sighed, "Tsu-kun, this is Reborn. The person I told you about the other day."

"You mean the one who got here because we were visited four times by that man?"

"Four times?" Reborn asked.

"Yeah. A visitor who always calls himself our 'Papa' when he comes. But I don't know him. I don't have a Papa." He said with a straight face.

For some reason, it amused the man. "You have a pretty good memory,"

"I remember strange things," Tsuna replied with a soft voice. "Including some things regarding an old man who visited us once."

"I see…" Reborn muttered in acknowledgement. "How are you holding up here?" he asked.

"The third psychiatrist gave up on me." He informed. "The one from Namimori Child Protection Services."

A frown marred Nana's features. She always hated those undercover people from that organization, thinking that all of the children's problems resulted from bad parenting. She has half the mind to tell them that she is aware of what they are saying, but is unnecessary to gauge a child to say something else other than him being bullied.

She was about to say something when Reborn beat her to it. "Nana, can you get Tsuna out of the center immediately?"

The woman nodded. "I could pull some strings. It would take at least two days." She knew a friend in this field who runs a school for troubled kids.

"Then tell them to pull him out. He has a new counselor."

Tsuna tilted his head. "Who?"

With a satisfied smirk, Reborn replied. "Me."

…

"That didn't sound so good." Ienari shivered as he remembered the first time he was introduced to Reborn three years ago.

"It really didn't." Tsuna agreed. "Mom pulled me out from the center immediately, and since it was in the middle of the school year, I had to re-enroll at Namimori Elementary. And for the rest of the year, I was subjected to Papa's teachings, but not to the extent of what you and Dino-san went through." He explained. "Since he was still tutoring Dino-san at that time, he could only come on the weekends."

"But why did you go back to that school? I thought they were infested with bullies?"

"Simple. Mom made an ultimatum to the school. If I get hurt for the rest of the year because of bullying, she would sue the entire school for neglecting their students. Add to that, Mom made it her job to pick me up every single day, and no staying inside the school after hours for good measure. That went on until graduation with Reborn coming over on the weekends to 'teach' me."

Ienari somehow felt a bit sorry for the younger Tsuna. "What did he make you do?"

"Half of what you have been through, minus the mafia."

"Ouch."

"Yeah. But there was counseling on the side, so that's a plus." Tsuna assured him, but not so much.

"How…how did you end up in the school then, if Reborn was helping you?"

His question brought a bright smile on Tsuna, which made Ienari curious. "Kyouya's mother."

TBC

And cliffhanger! I hadn't done that in a while.

And so the history of the family is now being revealed. Of course I'll do Tsuna first before Ienari. It can be considered fillers, but it holds a lot of significance in the story with how Ienari will view his big brother.

Remember, Tsuna tells parts of his life in order for those who needed counseling to open up to him to solve their problems.

I kind of re-adjusted Nana's age here. The wiki says that Nana was thirty-four when Tsuna was thirteen, which means that she had Tsuna at age twenty-one, and kind of twisted her history as an undercover waitress when she met Iemitsu.

Making her a cop stemmed from me watching too many homicide detective shows, particularly Unforgettable. I even managed to create a plot bunny from them. But I have no plans in getting it in full writing. It resulted in me having a character die. As in, die.

SO! I'm making this quick before I prepare to leave, and I just hope I get the next part done soon.

By the way, an anonymous reviewer had brought my attention to something. I understand that most of you don't really like yaoi, but may I suggest just simply not reading it is far better than telling the author that you don't like the fact that there is yaoi in one's fanfic? Now, I'm not mad, Anon, not really, but I really had to put this in attention to my readers.

The readers—maybe even including you—voted for themselves if they would like to see any pairings here other than the R77 I put in, and they gave me their answer. If you're still not convinced, look at my reviews for confirmation. It's to make sure that I'm not making most of you uncomfortable with the pairings and to make the necessary adjustments and get rid of the implications of certain pairings should most of you not like it.

So there, sorry for the rant, but I felt like I needed to voice out my thoughts here since I have no other ways to contact you.

Well then, I'll update as soon as I can, but I think I can still pitch in the next chapter right before I leave. No promises though.