Tsuna is reborn as Ruggie. The pairing is firmly Leona/Ruggie, no gender bend this time.


Leona's hands felt like a vice around his throat. It hurt, but not as much as the sting of betrayal that came from him turning against them for such stupid reasons. The lion eventually dropped him, but there was a thick scent of ink in the air and Ruggie didn't need to be a genius to figure out what that meant.

His housewarden, the guy he'd had a crush on forever was about to go into Overblot...and with his signature spell, that would only lead into disaster.

Ruggie could tell from the expressions of the other students they understood what was about to happen, and that they were powerless to stop it. They were terrified and none of them would dare go against Leona, especially since he had lost all reason.

He had two choices. He could let things happen...or he could give Leona another outlet and hope for the best. Leona's ego had gone out of control and it was driving him over the edge.

It was a slim chance, but it was the only thing he had left to work with.

He would have to stop Leona with his dying will.

Leona's scent was thick with ink, and he was beginning to lose all sense of self. Then it hit him. The scent of an alpha rising in challenge against him.

Here he had thought he had beaten all those fools into submission already.

So you could imagine his shock when the scent came up close...and before he could dodge the kick, the scent of Ruggie hit him hard.

Leona crashed into one of the pillars, stunned for a moment. When he raised his head, his he saw Ruggie where he used to be standing with his leg extended. As he lowered it, the silver-blue irises had been replaced by a blazing glow that resembled orange fire, and closer inspection revealed an odd orange blaze on his forehead.

The wind shifted, and he realized in stunned disbelief that Ruggie was the alpha challenging him.

"I could have lived with you challenging that overgrown lizard to a pissing contest over the whole spelldrive thing," said Ruggie, almost conversationally. "But I draw the line when you use that spell on the people who look to you for protection. I can't stand it when someone in power turns abusive."

"Ruggie...are you challenging me?" said Leona with a snarl, eyes blazing.

Unknown to him, his eyes began to burn with a vibrant purple glow. Ruggie noticed, had already figured Leona to be a pissy Cloud, but it was nice to have confirmation.

Ruggie cricked his neck, not even caring at the sheer level of alpha pheromones Leona was letting off. Wisely, most of the students had begun to evacuate to give the two space.

Whatever Leona expected Ruggie to do next, it wasn't Ruggie putting on a ridiculous burst of speed that had him closing the distance too quickly for him to react. He narrowly avoided the punch, which caused the stone behind him to crumble from the odd red glow around Ruggie's hand.

If he had been hit with that, it would have been bad. It also forced Leona to take Ruggie's challenge seriously.

In the stands...

"Holy shit," said Ace, unwilling to tear his eyes away from the sheer carnage the hyena was displaying.

"I must admit, I never expected Ruggie to be that proficient in soul fire. I had thought such things died out," said Lilia, impressed.

While Leona had failed as a proper royal, Ruggie was displaying all the proper qualities. When he realized the threat to those under him, rather than balk at the threat he had immediately challenged his king. Never mind the fact that the fire around the hyena kin was the color that was often attributed to those born to be leaders.

The real question was why he had hidden it for so long. Those of orange fire didn't do well solo, and tended to gather those of sufficient compatibility to them.

Watching Ruggie was magnificent. The hyena didn't pull any of his punches, and Leona was clearly working to avoid being killed.

His eyes were wide as Ruggie decimated the spelldrive field, leaving craters in his wake.

Finally Leona stumbled, and prepared to feel Ruggie's fist in his face. It would not be a pretty end, to say the least, considering the damage he had already done.

Instead he found Ruggie's fist mere centimeters from his face, still blazing that strange orange light.

"Have you come to your senses yet, or do I have to pull out the really big guns?" he asked. His voice was oddly calm for someone who had been wrecking the place.

Leona cast a glance at a nearby crater. He almost dreaded to find out what Ruggie considered the 'really big guns', if this was his lower level.

"What do you mean, come to my senses?" he snarled. He refused to submit.

"You really don't get it, do you? You reeked of ink, you idiot! Did you really think I would do nothing and let you go into Overblot?" said Ruggie incredulous.

Leona stared at him.

"What?"

"Look at your pen dumbass!" said Ruggie exasperated.

He allowed Leona to move enough to get a good, long look at his spell pen...which had darkened so much it would only almost nothing to turn completely black.

Leona had been so busy trying to avoid getting his head caved in that he hadn't even thought of using magic.

He growled.

"If mine is this bad, then what about yours?"

Ruggie held up his own pen...which showed zero signs of magic being used. If anything, the feeling Leona got off it was that Ruggie was purifying any potential blot before it could happen.

"I'm not using magic," he said flatly.

Leona sensed someone approach and was annoyed to see the Diasomnia colors.

"Impressive. It's been quite some time since I've seen anyone use soul fire so efficiently. However, do you think it was wise to unleash all the limiters like that?" asked Lilia.

"Of course not and the backlash is going to be a bitch and a half to deal with," said Ruggie. "If I can, that is."

With the threat of the Overblot handled, and Leona back to his senses, Ruggie let the strange energy he had been using go.

He knew there was going to be hell to pay, but at least he had avoided Leona snapping entirely.

Ruggie knew they were going to lose the tournament, and badly. He had done his best to wear Leona out to prevent him from snapping entirely.

The real headache was trying to avoid passing out the entire time.


Leona's nephew was adorable as heck, and the grumpy lion did have some fondness in his eyes for the cub.

Ruggie went to get a glass of water when his vision began to fade. Talk about crappy timing. His hyper intuition was going off like crazy, warning him of something bad was happening. However he had no energy at all to prevent it.

He heard Jack crying out, as were everyone else. His limbs felt numb and his vision was going out. He knew he was blacking out, but he couldn't stop it even if he wanted to. He collapsed on the floor, unable to move.

Third POV

Jack knew immediately something was wrong the moment Ruggie began to sway.

Even Leona's eyes widened as the hyena began to tilt a bit, before collapsing on the ground. Jack went to check on him, and there was no hiding the sheer panic in his voice.

"He's not breathing!"

"What?!" said Ace in shock and horror.

The nurse, who had been standing aside, rushed to the fallen hyena. His face paled, as he began doing...something...to the hyena.

Ruggie's face was beyond pale, but they did get him breathing again. Either way, his condition was serious enough that he was being sent to a hospital.

A few scant hours later, the entire Savanaclaw dorm awaited Leona's word about Ruggie's condition.

"Doctors said he'll live, but he's still in critical condition. At the very least he'll be on extremely limited magic use for two weeks once he pulls through," said Leona.

"What exactly happened?" asked Jack. That had terrified him to this core.

"They wouldn't give me specifics, but what little I got out of them was that Ruggie did something to remove all the limiters on not just his magic, but his body as well. Those craters he created in the field? That was caused by him using a hundred percent of his muscle power, and the body is not supposed to do that," said Leona. "From what I understand, removing the limiters put a major strain on his heart, which is why he wasn't breathing."

"Is...is he going to be okay?" asked a cat beastkin.

Leona would have mocked them for a sign of weakness, but he could see the same expression on everyone's face in the dorm.

He honestly had no idea how well loved Ruggie was in his dorm.

"We can only hope," he replied finally.

Leona didn't tell them this, but the nurse had checked him over as well after they got Ruggie sent to the hospital. Apparently whatever Ruggie had done to him on the field had the strange effect of purifying enough of the blot that Leona was no longer at risk for going into Overblot. However, the second his brother found out what happened he made it clear he was going to force Leona into therapy to prevent a repeat.

Leona...wasn't going to argue. The fact Ruggie had cared enough to do something he clearly knew would likely kill him to save Leona from himself had shocked him to his core.

And he definitely knew something would happen if that comment he made to Vanrouge about 'backlash' was any indication.


Ruggie knew he had fucked up. Honestly, he never would have bothered to challenge Leona if it wasn't for the risk of Overblot and the fact that if he didn't do something, the other students could have been killed. Leona's signature spell was simply that dangerous.

He could hear the heart monitors, and the scent told him that he was in the hospital again. Not very surprising, since he had gone from 'inactive' straight into 'hyper dying will mode' without having trained his body first. The fact he was alive was a miracle, in all honesty.

It was a good thing he had reincarnated into a new world, because he damn well knew Reborn would never let him hear the end of his bitching for doing something so reckless and stupid.

Ruggie, formerly known as Tsunayoshi Sawada, sighed.

And here he was honestly hoping for a nice, quiet life as opposed to the bullshit he had to put up with last time.

To make matters worse, he knew how things would go once he returned. It was the same song and dance, and he hated it.

He would fall for a monumental asshole, something would happen to cause Ruggie to challenge them, and they would become threatened by the fact there was a second stronger alpha so close to them.

He could put up with a lot of things, but abuse was not one of them. And unfortunately for his past 'boyfriends', Ruggie knew more about how to destroy someone than they did.

To be fair, they had no idea he had been trained by the world's greatest hit man in a past life, on top of his crazy famiglia.

Ruggie wanted to sigh. Leona probably hated him now, just like all the others had. He barely tolerated the small shows of dominance in his dorm, and most of the other alphas had learned quick who the top dog was by the end of the first week.

He knew perfectly well why Savanaclaw didn't have a vice housewarden. It was because all the others had eventually gotten their heads too big and tried to challenge Leona for the top spot, only for him to kick their ass.

It was a pity...he actually liked Savanaclaw and it had felt like home. Odds were he'd have to change dorms now, because he highly doubted Leona would let him stay after he had kicked the lion's ass all over the stadium the dorm had.

Just the thought of doing the paperwork for repairs made his hands twinge from phantom pain. Thank the Seven he didn't have to deal with that headache, as he doubted Crowley would be that cruel. Then again, he didn't hear Ace or Deuce bitching about having to do paperwork for the chandelier they broke or Riddle for the damage done to the gardens after his episode.