Due to the number of people who wish to borrow ideas from my drabbles, I've decided to post the rather simple rules I have regarding the stories that don't get posted as full ones.
One: Anyone who wishes to borrow the idea has to remember to credit me with the original concept.
Two: That you at least attempt to link me to the story once it's posted.
The second one is optional, but the first one isn't. I have no issue with people borrowing story ideas or concepts from my drabbles if they never get made into a full story, but I would like to be credited with the initial idea.
Tsubasa Sawada hated her life. Fortunately, she had a plan to remedy that and a great many other ills that she had endured ever since Reborn showed up and somehow managed to convince the Ninth that she was the one who should be Decima, rather than her twin brother Tatsuya. Her brother was a total ass, and payback would be hers.
"So just to be clear, I get in this and I can go back to my younger self?" she asked Verde, Spanner and ShÅichi.
"Yes, yes. Anything to get away from that dratted paperwork, right?" said Verde impatiently.
The twenty-four year old Decima smirked.
"Do you have everything in your hammer space," deadpanned Spanner. He knew it was called 'mist bindings', but Hammer Space sounded more fun and was easier to explain.
She had mastered that trick faster than anything in her life. If it meant escaping the hellish paperwork she never wanted, the headaches of having to be the one to say no, having to deal with Reborn (she loved the man, but he was a total nightmare when she was already having a crappy day), and her brother in general... screw it all, she'd dump it on the idiot who thought being the boss was great and let him deal with it.
So yeah, she had jumped at the chance to be the test dummy and get a do-over. She loved her Guardians, but she loathed being the boss.
Let her bratty brother deal with this crap.
One Week Later...
Tsubasa looked at the ceiling and barely withheld her glee. Then she looked at the calendar and grinned even wider. To top it all off, she was definitely four again.
She tested her hammer space...everything checked out there, including the rings. She was sorely tempted to bring out Natsu, to cuddle with her beloved lion.
But that would mean waking up her Flames even earlier. And that was not a good idea, considering how that jackass reacted the first time around.
She couldn't remember exactly what happened the first time...the seal made that very fuzzy...but she remembered it involved a pink ball and a tree.
She looked at her hands. They were so tiny. Unblemished. Untainted.
She had a year. One year to enjoy being a small little girl without a care in the world before she had to play "avoid the jackass" for a week.
The second that critical time period passed, she was going to start calling him that every time she saw him. It was ingrained in her and not even Reborn had been able to get it out of her. Admittedly, he didn't try that hard to get her to drop the openly insulting nickname.
Iemitsu was very much a braying jackass who needed someone to pull his head of out of his ass before Lal Mirch murdered him in his sleep.
Tsubasa had once told the broken Arcobaleno that if she ever did snap and kill the jackass, she would get a slap on the wrist and a very long paid vacation to the location of her choice.
Iemitsu had choked on his sake the second he heard that, before trying to worm his way into the long-lost patience she had for her sperm donor. It hadn't worked.
The fact Lal Mirch kept giving the jackass speculative looks when she knew damn well he was watching her entertained Tsubasa greatly.
(The fact said looks went hand-in-hand with discreet large bribes on part of Reborn, Tsubasa and Xanxus was a coincidence, and they would stick to that story. Colonello certainly found it hilarious.)
Tatsuya had no idea what his twin was planning. He was still a normal kid and as much as she hated doing this, she couldn't take it anymore.
He wanted to be Decimo the first time, so she would let him. He wanted all the limelight, and she fully blamed Iemitsu's sporadic influence since the man was clearly a sexist pig who preferred his son over his daughter.
If Tatsuya thought it was a smart idea to emulate the jackass...well, she'd be ready to pick up the pieces once the idiot got it through his head that the mafia wasn't a game like Takeshi once thought.
Hey, she was a girl and she had way too much crap to deal with the first time around. She was allowed to be petty as hell!
Tsubasa, age 5
This was the week. The moment when everything changed because of that jackass and his demands that a seal be placed on her.
Just one more week. She knew Iemitsu's patterns better than he did...he hated civilian life, and only married her mother because he needed an heir to shut up Daniela.
She saw the way he acted. The small details that gave Reborn his "mind reading" ability and knew he wouldn't last more than a week.
The day she actually asked Reborn how the hell he was able to read minds, and learned it was less "invasion of mental privacy" and more "reading the thousand tiny queues people dismiss" (she learned there was an actual term for it... "Cold Reading" was a skill many a fake psychic used on people to scam them for money or publicity) she practically demanded he teach her.
Reborn, never one to pass up an excuse to shoot at his beloved students for the sake of learning useful (or pointless) skills, had gleefully done just that.
The way people openly shuddered when they realized Reborn had somehow trained his student to be just like him was so damn funny the two of them made a point to meet up and do it just for laughs.
Dino's reactions when he realized what she was doing was so damn funny it still made her laugh her ass off. Reborn may or may not have smirked rather evilly to make his twitching worse.
Tatsuya accidentally kicked the ball too hard and it got stuck in the tree. She could tell none of the adults were willing to take a break to get it down, which left the daring little girl to get it so they could keep playing.
Feeling the branch under her creak, an epiphany hit her.
Oh...this was when I activated my Dying Will for the first time.
Well, she wasn't a kid and the idea of a broken arm wasn't that scary anymore.
She suffered worse from a single fight with Hibari.
She managed to get the ball down, and when the branch gave in full view of the adults who did nothing to catch her, she reigned in her Flames so tightly there was no chance of it slipping out.
There was a sharp, painful crack and she didn't bother to hide her reaction. Nana came home just in time to find her daughter bawling her eyes out, pink ball on the ground and her arm clearly in a lot of pain.
She was not pleased finding out from Tatsuya that her daughter had gone up the tree on her own and her husband and his boss stood by and watched her break her arm without even once stopping her or attempting to help liberate the ball for her. She was even less pleased that Iemitsu had shown zero inclination to get up and his boss had only just started to stand when her daughter fell from the tree.
Timoteo wouldn't exactly be welcomed in the home anytime soon. And Iemitsu found himself sleeping on the couch for the last night of his visit and a cold breakfast the next morning from his very pissed off wife.
Tsubasa hated the cast, but she'd rather have a broken arm over that damn seal. Thanks to Reborn, she was fairly proficient in Sun Flames, so it came off a little quicker than normal. No one batted an eye...children tended to heal faster than adults anyway and she bounced right back.
Now she was free to discreetly gather her Guardians a second time.
Fon was both horrified and highly amused when, during one of his rare times away from the Triads to visit his sister, he found his nephew in the presence of a rather discreet Sky. A Sky that for some terrifying reason was far too much like Reborn when he was in a trolling mood.
On the plus side, he would finally have an answer to that annoying mind reading trick Reborn liked to use on people.
Tsubasa Sawada was an adorable, fluffy little girl. And an Active Sky.
He could feel that pretty quick, though she apparently had enough of a handle on it that while it leaked quite a bit, it didn't go near Kyouya or Fon personally.
It was something of a relief, because he hated that empty feeling when a Sky tried to claim him, only to fail because he was simply too strong for them. That ache that came from knowing a taste of having a home where he belonged, only to be rejected because they couldn't sustain it.
Fon had a well hidden disdain for most Skies that tried to claim him as a Storm. Like he was some sort of prize for them to show off.
There was a knowing sort of gaze in the girl's expression. Kyouya looked rather irritated seeing him (his pride made him irritable that he couldn't beat Fon), but settled at the gentle hand on his arm.
Fon almost felt rather jealous of his nephew. His Sky had somehow managed to track him down and was already in the very beginning stages of harmonizing with the rather vicious Cloud he knew the boy to be.
Seeing the little girl try and stumble through a few beginning martial arts moves while sparring with Kyouya (which explained why he even showed an interest in a girl), Fon's teaching side kicked in.
Tsubasa seemed happy for the instruction and was an attentive student.
Every time her Sky tried to drift towards Fon, she reigned it in quickly.
For the first time in far too long, Fon found himself relaxing in the presence of a Sky.
It was as she was about to leave for home that she let something slip that had Fon thinking.
"You should get Kyouya-kun a bird. Or a small animal like a hedgehog...he seems to like them better than the big snarly ones."
Fon blinked.
"Oh?"
"Sometimes little birds will flock towards him when he's napping in a tree and he never even seems to mind. I think he likes them," said Tsubasa in a conspirator's whisper.
Fon smiled. Come to think of it he had seen that happen a few times, right before Kyouya registered his presence and came at him with tonfas blazing.
He had to leave for a few days in order to complete a hit...but when he returned he had something hidden inside a small box for Kyouya.
"Carnivore," said Kyouya, dismissively.
"Don't be like that Kyouya... I brought something for you."
Considering he had gotten a box big enough to be mistaken for some new tonfas, he wasn't surprised when Kyouya took the bait. Especially since Kyouya's current set was looking like they were one good hit away from breaking.
The look on Kyouya's face when he opened the box to find a small ball of yellow feathers that promptly hopped along his arm to nest on his shoulder was absolutely priceless. Good thing Fon had a camera.
A few blackmail pictures later, and Kyouya was back to glaring.
Except for once he didn't immediately try to challenge Fon to a fight.
"What is this, carnivore?" he demanded. Fon was rather pleased with himself... his nephew's tone wasn't nearly as antagonistic like it normally was.
"It's a little friend. Tsubasa-chan said you might be lonely and pointed out that you happen to like small birds. This poor fellow was stuck on a branch, so I thought you might enjoy his company," said Fon.
"Hibari! Hibari!" chirped the bird happily.
Kyouya looked at it for a moment, uncertain how to react. It was the most positive interaction Fon had gotten from his nephew in years, since the boy's Cloud instincts first started waking up and he started seeing his uncle as a rival. He missed those days.
It was to this scene that Tsubasa arrived to. She clapped her hands in delight, and promptly gave the bird it's new name.
"Hibird!"
Kyouya blinked, before he stared at her. Then he looked at his new feathery companion.
"It fits him," he said finally, before going off to nap.
The newly dubbed "Hibird" nestled in Kyouya's hair like a nest. It was a strangely peaceful scene and Fon was very pleased to witness it.
"Your suggestion worked," said Fon. He was genuinely smiling for once. It had been far too long since he had made any headway to bonding with his nephew.
"He likes small animals," said Tsubasa.
"Would you like to learn more martial arts while he bonds with his new little friend?" asked Fon.
Tsubasa's smile warmed his heart. There was something so warm and accepting about it... it was how a Sky should be, but most failed at.
It was so easy to fall into a familiar pattern of teaching a student. He didn't do it often, since it was rare to find anyone worth the time and effort to teach, but this girl was a gem in the rough. It was so relaxing that he almost missed the little things that most people wouldn't notice to begin with.
Tsubasa didn't fight like a complete novice trying to learn something new.
She fought more like someone recently cursed into a smaller body trying to familiarize themselves with a much shorter reach. She fought the same way Fon had when he was first cursed to this form.
But he knew for a fact that Luce was still living...for the moment. She was fading, and wouldn't last another five years. And until then she was the Sky Arcobaleno.
Which begged the question why he kept imagining Tsubasa-chan at least a decade older when he saw her, with eyes blazing with Sky Flames. And how she knew Kyouya liked birds to the point he'd put aside his disdain of his uncle long enough to tolerate his presence without fighting.
Hibird flew over to Tsubasa, and settled in her caramel colored locks.
"Hime! Hime!" he chirped.
Tsubasa blinked.
"Hime?"
"You're tolerable to be around," said Kyouya dismissively.
Fon hid a smirk. If he hadn't already guessed that his nephew was being drawn to this gentle and open Sky, that would have clued him in. Kyouya was very much a 'lone wolf', so for him to give her a title like "princess" so openly was a major tell that he was being drawn in to her Sky.
Besides, Tsubasa was adorable when she blushed like that.