Disclaimer:I do not own Katekyo. I only own some future plot devices, and Alex - but that's it xD
In this chapter, stuff goes on. BUT! Read carefully when you reach a specific part. You'll know what part I'm on about when you see it. Also, focus on what isn't said, instead of what is, when you reach the part above.
Also, shameless self promotion. I'll be starting up a request series soon, with pairings and the like being from you guys. More information is found on my profile, so check out the section titled 'Azure' to send in the things you want to see.
So without further fanfare, here is the chapter, so I hope you enjoy~
-(Scene Break)-
There was nothing wrong.
That was Alex's first clue that, yes, there was most likely something catastrophic going on in his general vicinity – it just hadn't reached the feminine teen yet. That was how things generally tended to go in the Sawada household. You would wake up, roll lazily out of bed with eyes almost glued together from sleep, and then you would drag your sorry backside down the stairs and enjoy a particularly scintillating conversation with the eldest Sawada, with a cool, refreshing glass of orange juice in hand.
All of that had gone off without a hitch.
Alex was sat at the table, sipping his orange juice (with ice – you can't forget the ice), eyes scanning the room as if he was waiting for a mass-murderer to break down the door and tear the house apart.
The second clue that something was terribly wrong was the fact that Nana was currently looking at him as if she was trying to dissect him with her mind alone, piece by piece. Her gaze was piercing, and Alex had to wonder for a moment whether or not he had walked into the bloody Twilight Zone or something between the time he dragged his sorry ass out of bed and got down the stairs. She was just sat there, still, reminiscent of a praying mantis waiting patiently for her prey, all whilst sipping down a warm cup of Earl Grey.
But the most frightening thing about it all was that Reborn wasn't around.
At all.
And it wasn't as if Alex hadn't tried to look for the creepy spawn of Hell. He had.
When he first noticed that the so-called 'World's Greatest Hitman' wasn't around, it had immediately set off alarms in his head. So, like any other curious teen, he scoured the house from head to toe, looking for the pocket-sized demon. The red-head had looked in Tsuna's room, the travesty that it was, and the baby wasn't there.
Ok, he had thought, maybe he was elsewhere.
So he moved into the bathroom – maybe he was there instead?
But no, he wasn't. In fact all he got there were a load of painful memories that he had futilely tried to repress, all of which centred on a small rag that hung limply from the rack.
All that he had left to check was the living room, and surprise, surprise, the hitman wasn't there.
And that was a thought that well and truly terrified Alex.
Reborn was out there, doing unimaginable things to the poor, poor populace of Namimori (though Alex had to wonder if Reborn's dastardly machinations were any worse than Hibari's own tender mercies) all in the name of forging Tsuna into a Number One Mafia Boss. If there was one thing that Alex had learned, it was that Reborn was pure evil, and most likely whatever plot he had concocted this time would inevitably lead back to the sarcastic red-head.
Just like it had the other day.
Especially like it had the other day.
To this day, Alex still couldn't figure out just why Reborn had manufactured a situation that culminated into him cooking. It all just seemed rather farfetched and absurd – like one of those crack-infested slice-of-life shows you hear about, where a deranged author tries their best to create strange situations for the cast – but that seemed to be the norm around here.
Reborn was a catalyst for chaos – at least that much was for certain, and sometimes Alex wondered if that was what he lived for.
Being a 2 year old there certainly wasn'tt much you could do. Other than, he supposed, go to nursery and make friends.
Alex didn't know what was scarier – the thought of Reborn being left alone with a bunch of impressionable two year olds, or the idea that he would actively socialise with a bunch of two year olds.
"Umm, Alex-kun, are you okay?" Nana asked, curious, tugging at the hem of her dress. "You look as if you've just swallowed a lemon."
"I guess you could say that I have," the redhead muttered, thoughts unable to stray from the idea of Reborn making friends with a bunch of children, "if what you call a lemon is the idea of Reborn having friends."
Nana blinked owlishly, before smiling.
Alex couldn't shake the feeling that she was judging him for his stupidity.
"Alexi-Alex don't be like that, I'm sure Reborn has some friends – I heard him talking about someone called Lambo Bovino before…" Nana stumbled, and Alex noticed the fact that she stumbled over his name.
He filed it away for later – he would ask her when it was more prudent.
"Rambo? As in the…?" Alex focused on the more important thing. Like why Reborn would be phoning someone up about Rambo.
But hey, Alex never proclaimed to know the inner workings of Reborn's mind, but he was sure that it was a deprived landscape of sadistic pleasure and espressos. It was a sad day when you started to view Espressos as the epitome of all evil in the world.
"ALeeeeeeeeeeeex, stop being mean," she pouted, acting far younger than her age. "You know it's hard for me to pronounce L's properly."
"Sorry Nana-san," he laughed, "you're just too easy to tease."
"You know, Alex-kun, you remind me of someone I used to know," soft smile on her face, she removed herself from the table, going back inside the kitchen.
"I do? I don't suppose they were incredibly handsome, were intelligent far beyond their years and had men and women alike falling at his feet? Because if they didn't have them three criteria then I doubt I should remind him of you." He joked, smirk plastered over his face.
"No…" the mischievous note to her tone made Alex wary, "she was a girl."
His head crashed down on the table, like a tiny meteor impacting on the ground, and Tsuna would later joke that he was hard-headed enough to leave a crater in the mahogany surface.
But, in the end, all Alex would do was glare at him and mouth the word Reborn.
He would soon shut up.
-(Scene Break)-
The very first thing that Alex noticed when he left the house was that it was stupidly sunny.
And by stupidly, he meant stupidly. He was very much attuned to colder climates, coming from a place that was notorious for its rain, and he almost melted into a puddle of red when he left the house. Japan's summers were far too different for his body to handle, and after a quick rush back into the house to grab a few ice cubes and a bottle of water (Nana had gifted it to him with a smile, politely ignoring the beautiful image of a sweaty teen gasping from the outside heat), he returned to combat the trek to school.
How on Earth the inside wasn't boiling was beyond him, and all he could think for answer to it was that it was somehow related to witchcraft. And Reborn.
Reborn witchcraft?
Definitely.
Alex was half tempted to just turn back around and play dead. He hadn't even made it half way there before his body wanted to melt in a puddle of red.
But school was important. Unfortunately. That and he didn't want to attract the ire of the resident Boogie Man. He didn't want to give Tsuna a heart attack so early in the morning, even if Reborn would take sadistic pleasure from it.
That was another thing that Alex noticed. Reborn, and Hibari, have a rather strange relationship together. They always side-step around each other, as if waiting for the other to make a move, and Hibari seems to have a grudging respect for the tiny assassin. It was mystifying how that particularly odd brand of camaraderie erupted, but he supposed he wasn't really around to see that friendship-that-really-wasn't-a-friendship blossom.
Every time that a Hibari-localised situation occurred, Alex was always elsewhere. He was shocked that the teen hadn't hunted him down, armed and ready, considering the words that he spoke to him. If what the local rumours were to be believed, then the first thing Hibari should have done was hunt him down and bite him to death.
Alex, so lost in his thoughts, almost missed the scream of fear that rumbled out of a nearby alleyway.
"Either that was a scream of fear, or my stomach decided to inhale helium whilst I wasn't looking," Alex whispered under his breath, scowling, plucking out of his bag the same old rusty pipe that he used a while ago, and pilfered a trash can lid off one of the many bins lying around.
He manoeuvred his head around the corner of the alleyway, his ginger locks tumbling as he did so, and it took him a moment to digest what was occurring. An all too familiar boy, the same boy that both he and Ryohei worked hard on saving, was being bullied once more by Hibari's merry band of disciplinarians. Annoyance bloomed at the thought, and with a scowl he made his presence known, standing in the entranceway with the pipe and lid.
Scowl still branded on his face, he harshly smashed them together, the loud clang echoing loudly into the alleyway.
One by one, they turned, the pack of animals staring at him as if unsure of what to make of him. Alex stared right back, uncaring of the fact that he was outnumbered, and just clang the steel weapons together once more.
Then, like a pack of squirrels, they ran – stampeding out the alleyway in the opposite direction of the annoyed boy.
Leaving behind Alex, the young child, and just one of its members behind.
"Well, that was something that was unexpected." Alex was left blinking at the sight, processing what had taken place. "Normally you lot are a bit more foolhardy then that, charging in recklessly like a school of pompadour-haired fish."
The member left behind blinked, as if unused to being singled out.
Alex raked his eyes over the last member, slowly and meticulously burning him into member. The one left behind was different from the rest of the Pompadour Crew, even if he fit the same fold as them. Other than the pompadour hair style, he looked ordinary, average, and if you squint you could see that he was slightly attractive. He was around the same height as Yamamoto, with eyes of the same colour, and if Alex didn't know better he would assume that they were related.
If he dropped the hair style, he probably would have even had a fan-club of his own, filled to the brim with overly clingy fangirls.
He would love it. Totally.
The disciplinarian was also glaring at him with the intensity of a thousand suns
"Pardon me, but I couldn't help but notice you were trying to hurt this little boy. Now, I don't suppose you'll be helpful and sate my curiosity on whyyou were bullying this kid, again?" Alex glared right back into mocha orbs, completely unafraid of the teen spelling death with his eyes.
"We needed to send out a message." The grunt said, humouring Alex with a response.
"A…message," colour him sceptical, Alex eyebrows quirked upwards, "what sort of message could you be trying to get out by assaulting a child?" The child in question ran towards him, storming past his previous aggressor, seeking solace behind the redhead.
The teen didn't answer, instead giving the child a meaningful look that Alex couldn't decipher, and rifled around in his pockets for something. He pulled out a phone, a sleek silver thing, and typed up a quick message, before returning it to its place in his pocket.
Well, this certainly didn't go to plan…
It seemed that the boy was tired of being cooperative, the teen charging towards Alex like a reckless bull
Taking into account the fact that he couldn't just jump out of the way off the hit, not unless he wanted the child behind him to be hit, the pipe-toting male cursed, staying adamantly in front of the kid.
Seeing the fist flying toward his face, he raised his make-shift shield in front of it, protecting him.
His arm shook painfully at the force behind the blow, rattling him, but gave him an opportunity to strike whilst the enemy was cradling his wounded fist. Swinging the pipe in a wide arc, he aimed to take him down in one blow, so that he could quickly remove the danger before his young ward was injured.
With a satisfying clunk, the attack connected, knocking the grunt down for the count. Alex felt slightly guilty, as he certainly won't be getting up for a while, if the force behind the blow said anything.
"Guess like all that training with Ryohei is useful for something," for the first time since he stepped foot in Namimori, he felt strong, powerful.
Gesturing for the kid to follow him, he listened in silence to the child's mad ramblings, as Alex escorted him out of the alleyway and away from the unconscious body. The duo entered a nearby convenience store, the clerk at the till giving the two a cheery hello, and after buying himself a can of Dr Pepper and the child some orange juice, he informed her of the body lying in the alleyway.
With a soft noise of understanding, she told him not to worry about it, and that she could take care of him. Thanking her, she told him no problems, and asked that he called her Sakuya-san. Nodding once again in gratitude, he left the happy worker, leaving the establishment.
"So, kiddo, you still have yet to tell me your name." Alex chirped, interrupting the kid's rant like a knife through hot butter.
"Oh, my name is Natsu Mitsurugi. Pleasure to make your acquaintance." Natsu's eyes glittered happily, the bouncy boy radiating energy as they walked together. "Hey, Pretty Lady, where are we going?"
"First of, my name isn't Pretty Lady – It's Alex Ivy. Or, well, Ivy Alex. And or your information, today is a school day is it not? So I'm taking you to school." Alex sighed, tired, "I can't exactly leave you alone, at least not in good faith, what with all of them grunts running around."
"Oh yeah, I haven't thanked you properly!" Natsu dashed forward, standing in front of him with hands on hips, chest puffed out like a cute baby bird, "Thank you, Alex-hime."
Impressively, the child pronounced his name right.
"So, Natsu-chan, why exactly were those guys being mean to you?" Alex asked, following after the boy, duly ignoring the fact that he was called hime.
"Those guys?" He parroted, staring at his saviour for recognition. After receiving confirmation, he continued, "They are always like that…" he sighed, morose.
"Do you know why?" No matter how guilty it made him feel, the saviour had to continue to ask. He needed to get down to the bottom of this.
"…no." Alex didn't know him well enough to tell if he was lying or not, so he just let it go. There would be other, more prudent ways of finding answers.
By going directly to the source.
"We're here." Natsu suddenly announced, the excitement quickly returning to him. With a hasty goodbye, the child ran off into the gates of the school, escaping into the school before Alex could even say goodbye.
"That…that was bizarre." Alex twirled on his feet and left, not even bothering to take in the sights. He was late, incredibly late for lessons, and he was running through excuses he could give to the teacher.
He could always just say that he got lost. But then they would question him on how he got lost when he had been going to the school for at least a month already.
The teaching faculty at Namimori Middle aren't exactly stellar, so he could just forge a note saying that he wasn't well and be let off from school. But then they would phone home, and then find out that Nana hadn't written a note and that wouldn't be fun.
Certainly not for Alex at least.
"Herbivore."
Pardon?
Alex stopped, stock still in the middle of the street, recognising the voice that had interrupted. With measured steps, he started back up, ignoring the grating voice that was slowly but surely catching up to him.
"Herbivore."
Alex carried on walking.
"Herbivore."
The walk was slowly becoming a power walk.
"Herbivore."
"What. Hedgehog. What." Irate, Alex tossed the boy behind him a frigid glare, just daring him to say anything. "Why are you following me like some bizarre puppy? Do you have a crush on me? Because, I'm sorry tall dark and pointy but you aren't exactly-"
"You're late."
"Yes, Hibaka, I'm aware that I'm late but-"
The last thing that Alex saw before being knocked unconscious was a speeding Tonfa colliding with his forehead, sending him crashing into unconsciousness with all the grace of a building toppling over.
"You are also annoying."
A second tonfa crashed into the unconscious boy's skull, making Alex moan in discomfort.
-(Scene Break)-
With the headache of the century, Alex stumbled into the classroom a sweaty mess.
A quiet apology to the teacher, who after seeing the bruise on his forehead just made a noise of understanding, the one living body of Alex crashed onto his desk, all but dead to the world.
Ryohei said his typical greeting, whilst Mrs Heartoak just dropped off a letter on his desk.
Not even the Extreme-ness of Ryohei could keep him wake long enough to sit through the lesson.
-(Scene Break)-
Head aching, but thankfully not as bad as before, Alex shambled his way into the Boxing Club.
The school day was over, but like usual, Alex stayed behind to help out in the Boxing Club. After the other two members left, much to the red-head's chagrin and Ryohei's shouts of 'unextremeness' it was just them two now. Hardly anyone – other than Hibari, but Alex doesn't want to even think about the carnivore – was left inside the school building, and at one point even he had left, heading back to the Sawada residence to pick up some food.
"Oi, Ryohei," gruff from the headache, Alex broiled when he was being ignored by the boxer, who was pummelling a sand bag hanging from the ceiling into submission.
"Ryohei."
The scuffle raged on, the boxer quite obviously not hearing Alex.
"R-yo-heiiiii."
Still he punched on.
Then Alex got tired of getting his attention, and instead reached into the bag in his side. One smack of the pipe on the lid was enough to remove Ryohei's attention from his training.
And make his headache flare up, but it was a worthy sacrifice.
"Alex…" Ryohei stared in confusion, "I thought you went home?"
A sigh, and a yellow bento was hoisted into the air.
"That's food." Ryohei charged from his post, snagging the bento from where it dangled. "EXTREME THANK YOU!"
"Don't worry about it Ryohei, just enjoy it." Alex followed Ryohei to where he sprawled himself, the boxer flopping onto the floor to eat his Bento. "I had a little help from Sawada-san on this one, so it is better than usual."
"Sawada-san?"
"Not the 'EXTREME BOXERS' one – his mother."
At this Ryohei just grunted in understanding, digging into the food that he prepared. Alex joined him, using his chopsticks to pluck some rice out, eyes coming into contact with a small slip of paper hidden within.
Now isn't that peculiar…
Alex pocketed it, making a note to read it when he is alone.
"Alex…" Ryohei started, taking his mind off the slip of paper, "Is it bad that we are the only friends the other has?" Ryohei asked the perplexed boy, eyes closed as if in hiding from the world.
Alex stared, perplexed at the question, unsure of where this was coming from.
Not really knowing what to say at the moment, even if it was against his verbose nature, he just stayed silent, his mind racing to figure out the right words.
He embraced him.
Because sometimes, you don't really need words to get your feelings across.
"You know, we are all we need. You'll grow up, get an education and train as if your life depends on it. You'll become a famous boxer, and I'll be a teacher, and that is all we need. With time, we'll meet new people and get new friends, and that's something I'm certain off. All we need to do is be Extreme, got it?"
Moving his head away from its rest on his arm, he stared up at the startled boxer, who had a light blush on his face at the close quarters. After waiting for a few more moments, just so that the boxer could calm down and realise that it isn't a bad thing, Alex stood up, stretching like a cat.
"Shouldn't we get to training then, otherwise we might not even get to York hall or Madison Square Gardens?
With a cry of Extreme, Ryohei was on him in seconds, the red-head scrambling out the way.
The slip of paper forgotten.
-(Scene Break)-
Why did it always end up being the park?
Alex stifled a yawn, his face twisting and contorting as he held in the air, the tired teen rubbing at the sleep in his eyes as he left the house. It was early, far too early for anyone in the right mind to be up and about, but for some bizarre reason he had been called out by Nana. The note held nothing more than a location and a time.
She had left it in a place that she knew he would see it. A place that was so specific that it couldn't have been placed there by accident, unless a new ingredient for rice was paper, and no cooking journal that he has ever read ever stated paper as an important ingredient.
Sure, it could have been a prank, but Alex could feel that it wasn't. This sort of thing just wasn't Nana's style – sure, she was playful, happy and oblivious, but she was too much like Tsuna to play a malicious prank.
Though in saying that, something told Alex that she wasn't as oblivious as he had previously thought.
The familiar, rusted archway looked as if it would fall when he stepped under it, and with a nervous glance upward Alex could see that it had sustained quite a bit of damage since he had first seen it. Before, it was only just showing signs of disuse, but now…now it looked like it had been abandoned for years.
But so did the rest of the old playground.
It was like stepping into the garden of antiquity. Tall, discoloured slides stood sentinel, ruby plastic held up by corroded steel, side-by-side with russet swings. Carefully, as if the surrounding world would fall apart if he made to much noise, Alex walked inside. Every other time that he had been here, he had just rushed through, and whilst he did admire the general avant-garde appeal of the place he tended to just ignore the tranquil side to it.
And the creepy side.
"I've never noticed how disconcerting this place was," trailing off, Alex took a seat on one of the rusted swing-sets, praying to a higher power that it wouldn't dissolve just because of a little added weight. Relieved when it didn't melt, he relaxed his tense muscles, fishing out the slip of paper that sent him on this merry adventure in the first place.
"Alex-chan, please come see me in that old park. Make sure to be there for three in the morning, and don't be late," Alex read aloud, softly so as to not break the tranquil atmosphere, a light smirk crossing his face as his eyes traced the smiley face printed at the end.
How very…Nana.
"Alex, you came!"
Speak of the Devil.
"Sawada-san, please," hand on heart, Alex honestly nearly jumped out of his skin.
"Did I scare you?" Nana giggled, joining Alex on the swing. "I'm sorry."
"No. You didn't. I don't get scared." As an afterthought he added "Totes".
"I'll take your word for it," she had the same old smile on her face; the smile that he learned was purely Nana.
"So, what are we here for…?" Alex's attention disappeared, the words dying in his throat as he took in just what she was wearing.
Nana's attire, in Alex's opinion, was nothing short of baffling. A burnt yellow chrysanthemum was slotted loosely behind her ear, contrasting brilliantly with her brunette locks. A loose fitting, ivory blouse clung hesitantly to her lithe frame, the edge of which made way to a pair of imperial blue jeans. To top it all off, a pair of boots fit snugly to her feet, the chocolate footwear looking fashionable despite how worn they looked, the fabric looking faint.
"So you noticed this, huh?" Nana giggled, laughing at the look of bafflement on the red-head's face.
"You can certainly say that…" Alex sat on the old swing, surprised, as he stared.
"I don't usually wear things like this," she was still smiling, though the smile was slowly growing strained, the usually oblivious woman painfully aware of the analytical stare.
"You can say that again." Alex, finally realising that she was growing uncomfortable, removed his gaze, instead focusing up into the night sky. "What makes today so different?"
The housewife opened her mouth as if to say something, but stopped, instead sighing lightly. Her eyes, the exact same shade of brown as Tsuna's, joined Alex's emerald as they perused the night sky.
"Today's my anniversary, you know." Nana reached a hand into her hair, pulling the frayed chrysanthemum from her hair, letting the flower rest lightly in her palms.
"For you and Tsuna's father correct – the construction builder?" Alex remembered only little of the actual conversation, but one thing that he had managed to glean from it was that her husband was a construction worker.
"That," the confliction on her face faded, replaced instead by conviction, "I, I want to ask you something, something incredibly important."
Curious, Alex just bit his lip, and with a slight gesture told her to go ahead.
"Just know this, once you know what it is, please hear me out. Don't just step away and whatever you do promise me you won't tell anyone about this." Wild-eyed, the words tumbled out like liquid desperation, and for the first time Alex could see fear in her eyes.
Nana was reaching out to him, and Alex knew that after this, everything was going to change.
Later on, when all that was said and done, Alex would swear on his heart of hearts that this would be one of the few things he would never regret. No matter how hard the trials put forth became, no matter how distressed he would become, no matter all the pain he suffered – his decision would be something that he'll always stand by.
Goodbye Halcyon Days…
All Alex did was nod, agreeing to her terms.
"Thank you," taking a deep breath, Nana began her tale. "I guess, well, I guess you could say that my husband isn't who he says he is. He is a part of the CEDEF."
"CEDEF?" Alex parroted.
"The CEDEF, the 'Consulenza Esterna Della Famiglia'. It is an off-shoot of the Mafia Family known as the Vongola." Alex's eyes lit up in understanding at that name, Vongola.
Isn't that the Mafia family that Tsuna is…?
"I know about the Mafia. I know about Reborn, about Iemitsu, about everything. I know what that Reborn wants to do with my baby, what he wants to do with my little Tsuna," Her voice cracked, tears dripping down her face as she spoke, "he wants to take my little boy and break him, tear him apart and then build him back into a monster."
Petals fell as the tormented woman clutched tightly to the flower in her hand, staining the ground with yellow. Her sorrow palpable, her heart-ache clear for the world to see, and all Alex could do was watch as the woman broke apart in front of his eyes, unable to help her as she cried.
"A…monster?" Alex echoed the words back to her, powerless to do anything but repeat the words over and over again.
"A monster like Reborn, a monster like Iemitsu, a monster…" Nana had pulled out a handkerchief, a small pleated thing, dabbing her eyes lightly – trying her best to stem the flow.
"A monster like me."
"What do you even mean by that?" Alex shouted, outraged.
"I want you to do something for me," Nana reached out, the flower tumbling to the ground, as she gripped Alex's hands tightly. "Please! Help me protect Tsuna!"
"Help me protect my precious baby!"
Chapter , Fin~
...I hope you like cliffhangers.
Okay, so that last section is probably confusing to you, but I'll try my best to give a non-spoileriffic breakdown of it. My logic of Nana is that she would do anything for her child, even if at times she is disappointed in his lack of success, and also do anything for her friends. It may seem completely random that she would approach Alex, but all that will be explained in chapter 7, where we see more Alex/Nana interactions and a plot forming.
Shocking I know. We're actually moving forward.
I did promise flame reveal + Mukuro + Ninjas,but I can't toss in Mukuro yet - so instead I gave you guys Hibari. I feel like an angry parent, trying to force-feed a child something that they don't want when they were promised something else xD.
Another reminder to check my profile if you are interested in requesting a drabble, and to read the information there. Other than that, all I have left to say is that I hope you have enjoyed this chapter.
Signed, HalcyonNight.