Tsunami Sawada knew there was something terribly wrong with her mother. It wasn't something she could explain, but it was as if there was something missing in her mother's mind.
It started innocently enough, with Nana cutting her daughter's hair. Tsuna didn't overly mind the short hair style...until she started picking up a strange change in behavior that told her she needed to run.
Iemitsu, a man she would never call "father", had wanted a son. And with her short hair, she looked more like a boy than ever especially with her being something of a tomboy to begin with.
But Nana began to forget she had given birth to a daughter, not the son he had wanted. And Tsuna knew she needed to leave this house now, before something terrible happened.
A kidnapping provided the perfect opportunity. She was nowhere near Namimori and it would take some time for anyone to find her and bring her home.
Which meant she could be free. Free to live her life, even if it meant leaving her mother behind.
It wasn't like she had much tying her to Namimori besides her mother, and the woman was slowly losing herself in the fantasy she had created with her child. Nami refused to be stuck in the role of a boy simply because Iemitsu had wanted one.
Tsuna was not an idiot. Instead she followed her heart and her instincts. It allowed her to grab a ticket she saw on the counter and run far far away. Three days before Iemitsu finally got solid information on his missing daughter and made a raid.
It would be nine years before he sees his daughter again...and she had changed from the girl he remembered.
Blue eyes looked through the forest. A wicked grin slowly crept onto her face as she lined up the shot...and fired.
Loud swearing was heard in French.
"Team Indigo is out, kora."
Natsu lived for the free-for-all exercise her brother made. Colonello had been stumped on how to train her in shooting, until he thought up of the perfect training exercise for a small child.
So twice a month his trainees went into the forest armed with permanent markers and paint balls. Once assured that there would be no actual live ammo used, the trainees and Natsu went wild. It was a no holds barred game between trainees with Colonello arbitrarily choosing sides. For obvious reasons, Natsu was always on his along with her now permanent partner Gokudera.
The Storm kid had a chip on his shoulder, but a good heart. And once he got used to being partnered with Natsu-chan, he seemed to calm down a lot. The kid was a genius.
Colonello took the high ground, mostly so he could observe the teams and his sister.
It still amazed him that the little girl wormed herself to the point he openly adopted her as a little sister. He could still remember the day he meet the scraggly waif who looked up at him with her then big brown eyes and ridiculously soft brown hair that went everywhere. Her clothes were torn, but there was such innocence in her eyes.
And she wanted to become a mercenary.
He had taken her in because children with such innocent eyes would be snatched up by the more depraved families and dealers in a heart beat and sold off. Even if it meant training her to be a soldier, it was still preferable to what could have happened.
So he gave her a small 'allowance' in lieu of a paycheck, trained her to be as dangerous as him, and did his best to keep her out of harm's way.
He refused to be part of stripping her childish innocence from her. No one deserved that.
And here they were, almost eight and a half years later.
Little Natsu was growing up to be quite a little terror, even if she had the majority of the Arcobelano (particularly Colonello) wrapped around her little fingers.
He'd never regret taking in the chibi. Never. She was just too damn cute, and he was sure even Lal would have hugged the girl to death and she was a hard ass!
Then something had him frown. He swore he just heard live ammo in a play training session. All the trainees knew that all live ammunition was confiscated, and their combat knives were only allowed for the first ten minutes before they had to hand them in.
Colonello heard the distinct sound of Natsu's air horn blowing a warning alarm twice. That was the signal for a five minute ceasefire on all teams.
"Some idiot just shot off live ammo near the borders of the training area. They almost hit Hayato!" said Natsu openly offended.
"What's your location?" asked Colonello. Any idiot who set off live ammo during today's exercise was going to get chewed out royally, and not just by him. Natsu could be particularly hellish especially since she hit her period...and that was after she was personally trained by Fon for a year and a half.
The Storm Arcobelano had been positively amused when Colonello explained the favor he was asking. Still, the guy genuinely seemed to like kids and once he saw that even though Natsu was rather clumsy for some strange reason she still didn't give up, he had taken her with him.
The girl never complained, even when faced with conditions most children would openly balk at. Particularly young girls.
Natsu had gritted her teeth and went through the bug infested territory, though she seemed to try and take it out on Fon whenever she could through training.
Fon openly admitted to giving the girl some truly vile foods that even he was leery of eating from his native cuisine and watching her reaction to them.
The girl was an absolute gem, and when Fon brought her back for her birthday he quietly informed the Rain that any favor owed was unnecessary.
Colonello would openly admit to dumping her on Verde the second she got her partner Hayato. The brat was a total pain in his ass, and after realizing Natsu was falling behind on an education (because in this day and age education was very important if you didn't want to be taken advantage of) he had called the only Arcobelano who could possibly get her caught up in a ridiculously short period of time.
Verde caved into her magnetic aura within two months, though it took almost seven before he quit subjecting the Storm brat to the humiliation of being his person gopher/experiment.
It was Verde who clued Colonello to something none of them suspected. Natsu wasn't Flame Latent, she was Sealed. And whoever did the Sealing was someone who had a very potent, very old Flame.
Verde was only able to narrow the candidates for the act to a trained Sky, but not one he recognized.
Colonello flew down to the edge with Falco, to where Natsu was already reading the riot act to the idiot who had shot off the live ammo.
The second he saw that damn fedora and the chameleon he swore internally.
"Dammit Reborn, live ammo is restricted! There are rules posted not ten feet from you in multiple languages, kora!" said Colonello crossly.
Hayato was firmly attached to Natsu, but more in a right-hand-man sort of way or possibly a brotherly one, and not any romantic inclinations. Otherwise Colonello would have shot him on principle.
And no, he was not in denial that his baby sister would one day notice boys and start dating. She wasn't even going to look at the opposite sex until she was thirty, dammit!
And look, there was Reborn's current pet project. Poor kid was bearing the brunt of the asshole's boredom.
Reborn shot him a dry look.
"The brat shot at me first," he explained patiently.
Colonello's eyebrow twitched. He looked at Hayato.
"This true, kora?"
"The rules clearly state anyone within the marked borders is fair game and he was two trees in. I thought he was some stupid Mist illusion to distract us," said Hayato.
Okay, Colonello could give him that. The rules were placed outside the tree line for this very reason and it wasn't that far fetched that a Mist could have sent a Reborn illusion to distract them.
However Reborn was supposedly the World's Greatest Hitman. He should have at least noted the sign and read the rules. Hell, they alerted the staff that the backstage was off limits to outsiders during these games because they were meant to give the trainees a day to relax and have a bit of fun on their fellow rookies. He should have known not to enter the forest.
"When did you acquire such a young pair of puppies?" he asked Colonello.
The Rain twitched. He didn't want Reborn to know Natsu was his little sister, even if she was adopted.
He barely tolerated Viper knowing about her, even if they fell prey to Natsu's charm like the others did.
"I'm not a damn dog, regardless of what that damn Lightning said about me!" growled Hayato. It really didn't help his case.
Reborn smirked at him. He frothed at the mouth.
"Hayato, chill. Not like this brat knows anything since he apparently can't even read or understand others," Natsu shot back.
Colonello snickered. That was an obvious jibe at Reborn's failure to read the signs or listen to the staff.
"Natsu, why don't you go check and make sure everyone heard the ceasefire, kora?" he said with a grin.
"You got it, commander!" she said with a proper salute.
Reborn watched her with an odd expression on his face.
"I didn't know you had a daughter."
Colonello twitched.
"She's my sister, you ass. She's also off limits," said Colonello with a growl.
None of them had really been inclined to a physical relationship since being cursed, and anyone who got off on that sort of kink would have been killed by them on principle.
Reborn eyed Colonello with an unreadable expression.
"She's adopted isn't she? I can tell her hair is dyed," he said.
"Does it really matter? Why are you even here, kora?"
Reborn hooked a thumb at the poor bastard behind him.
"I came to throw Dino to your tender mercies."
"Well it will have to wait. We're almost done with our exercise and I'm not about to throw someone into our day off. It would throw everything off, kora."
"Then I'll have a nice long chat with that interesting little pair of puppies you've picked up."
"Like hell you will. Stay away from my sister, kora!" growled Colonello, his glare speaking volumes of how serious he was.
Reborn raised an eyebrow. Colonello was acting...off. Normally he wouldn't have attached himself to some random kid like this. Hell, he was acting as territorial as a Cloud around this girl.
The only time he saw this type of behavior...was around a Guardian keeping an unknown they knew to be dangerous away from their Sky.
Suddenly Reborn's interest in the girl shot up. It would take a powerful Sky to snag someone like Colonello, and he'd eat his precious hat if the Storm brat wasn't already Harmonized with her. Watching the two interact was informative.
Colonello had firmly established himself as a "Big Brother/male role model" figure in Natsu's life. Hayato, the right-hand/best friend. And yet nothing about the girl said she was an active Sky. In fact if he was any judge she felt like someone who only had the bare minimum of Flames to live and nothing else.
Something wasn't adding up, and her facial features were damn familiar for some reason.
The last Heir of the Vongola was dead, leaving young Tsunami Sawada the only one capable of taking the post of Decimo. Unless Iemitsu got off his ass and got his wife pregnant again, which wasn't likely. And even if he did, there was no guarantee the child would be a Sky, much less survive long enough to take the title.
So Reborn was told to go to Namimori and begin the girl's training.
At least, that was the plan anyway.
The second Reborn saw the photograph, all sorts of alarms went off in his head.
He looked at Nono with a raised eyebrow, his expression blank but his eyes having none of his usual chaotic humor.
"Is this supposed to be some sort of joke?" he asked bluntly, not amused in the least.
Nono blinked.
"I am dead serious. Tsunami will be the next heir."
"I'm not talking about that, Timoteo. I talking about this file. This photograph is clearly altered," said Reborn flatly, anger rising in his voice.
"What."
"This is clearly a digitally altered photograph with a time-lapse alteration. Where is the most current photo of the girl? And why is this file so thin? Two pages is not enough for me to work with, not for this assignment."
The photo was not a proper picture of what the girl looked like, and there was no mention of her current grades, personality, likes or dislikes. In fact, for the file of a potential heir of the family and the daughter of the man who was supposed to run the intelligence division, the information was clearly outdated. At the very least it should have her grade point average, and that was completely missing.
Nono looked completely baffled, as if he had never noticed it.
Coyote looked at the file, and then he gave his boss a look.
"Reborn's right, this file can't possibly be accurate. Not for someone of our family. And that photograph is definitely made with some computer program. What the hell is Iemitsu trying to pull?"
And that wasn't all. The photograph looked very familiar. Too familiar.
Change the hair to dyed blond and the eyes to a deep blue and it looked almost identical to Colonello's adopted sister Natsu.
A lot of little details were adding up to something that Reborn really didn't like.
Natsu pulled people to her like a Sky, but felt like she didn't have any Flames outside of what was needed to live. And the file he had on Tsunami clearly stated the girl had been sealed at five...which would have disastrous effects on a still developing child. Especially a Sky with the Vongola blood.
"You need to call Iemitsu in and have him explain why he sent you a false file on his own daughter," said Reborn.
Nono's eyes grew hard. It was entirely possible Tsunami was dead, and Iemitsu was trying to cover it up. The man was always bragging about his child, despite never seeing her for months, years at a time.
But he also knew Reborn. He could see the Arcobelano was holding something back.
A few hours later...
Nono went from unhappy at being tricked straight to livid with his favorite nephew.
Not only was Tsunami Sawada missing, but the girl had been gone so long that most of the neighbors dismissed her existence as nothing more than a mother who couldn't cope with the loss of her daughter. And the less said about their attitude towards Iemitsu, the better. If not for the marriage certificate and the rings, people would openly believe him to be Nana's deadbeat boyfriend who mooched off her when he was low on funds.
Going back several years, Nono discovered CEDEF had gotten word of an abducted child belonging to the Vongola, but had come up empty. They had dismissed it out of hand and forgotten about it entirely.
So now they were quit possibly out of an heir and out of options, all because of Iemitsu's incompetence and stupidity in not keeping a closer eye on his family.
There was only one reason Timoteo still had hope, and that was Reborn. He had seen the Sun take a pair of markers and alter the fake photo to give it a slightly different look, before nodding to himself.
Timoteo gave Reborn a new order. Find the missing Tsunami and insure she was capable of taking on the role of Decimo.
Natsu looked past the shore line into the distance. She shivered again and pulled her jacket tighter.
"You haven't been sleeping lately, kora. Something up?" asked Colonello with concern.
"There's a strange wind blowing," she said, her eyes distant and almost blank. Like she was seeing something no one else could. "Something that will change a lot of things, for good or ill I can't tell."
Colonello trusted her instincts. It had saved her more than once, and even Fon said she seemed to have a sixth sense.
"Any idea where the change will come from?"
Natsu suddenly looked up, shading her eyes.
"Sun. It comes from the sun and a sky that has become clouded with grief and weariness."
Colonello sat on her shoulder, trying to understand. From what he got, something involving Reborn was heading their way, but it could go good or bad depending on how they reacted to it.
Considering the recent rumors out of the Vongola involving the sudden death of their last available heir, he had a bad feeling things were going to get complicated very quickly.
If he was right, then there wasn't any question of what was going to happen. He would follow his baby sister anywhere, especially if it meant keeping her safe in the cutthroat world he lived in.