Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Sawada Tsunayoshi was a problem. Reborn had suspected as much from the moment they first met, when Tsuna had treated him to a forty minute lecture on how his poor grades were a result of inherent bias in the schooling system, and how hiring a tutor to help him conform only perpetuated the existing flawed schooling model. Reborn had shot at him twenty minutes in. It hadn’t even slowed him down.

The next few days had done nothing to dispel Reborn’s first impression. For starters he found out that the reason Tsuna wasn’t a member of any school clubs, was because he spent all his free time agitating for the completely unauthorised and unsanctioned, student union. It was probably a contributing factor to his bad grades as well. It was definitely the reason for the disciplinary issues scribbled all over his school records. The running battles between the union and the disciplinary committee were the stuff of local legend. Apparently Tsuna was on the organising committee. Reborn could just feel the headache building.

Dino had been easy by comparison, and that was something Reborn had never thought he’d say. Unmotivated students were manageable, they just needed to be given some motivation. Shooting at them usually worked wonders. Lack of motivation, was not Sawada Tsunayoshi’s problem. He had plenty of motivation, just in all the wrong directions. It was, as Reborn had been finding, considerably harder to railroad someone when they already had a coherent belief system, and a ten step plan to demolish society and build a better one from the ashes. Under other circumstances Reborn might have found it all highly amusing. It really went against the grain to try and dissuade that kind of destructive chaos, but Reborn did have a job to do. He was a professional, somehow he was going to have to dissuade Tsuna from his revolutionary ambitions and convince him to take up organised crime instead.

Mentioning the mafia had earned Reborn a full hour long lecture on how organised crime was a disease of capitalism, and an authoritarian construct that would be torn down along with all the other structures of oppression when the revolution came. Reborn wondered if this was some bizzare form of divine punishment. Maybe he should demand a payrise.

Tsuna’s friends were no help. And yes he did have friends. Reborn privately suspected that Iemitsu was living in denial of his son’s anti-establishment activities, and had instead constructed an entirely fantastical version of the world where his son was helpless, and harmless, and had no friends at all. Reborn almost sympathised, it wasn’t easy for an organised crime boss to realise his son was absolutely devoted to abolishing money. Still, it meant that Iemitsu’s reports were all but useless, and so Reborn was in no mood to be charitable. He would have appreciated a warning about Tsuna’s friends.

First there was Kurokawa Hana, radical feminist, almost certainly a Cloud, with an unsettling tendency to kick men between the legs when they pestered her best friend, or when they irritated her, or when she was just bored. Reborn made a mental note to introduce this girl to Shamal, at some point when he could watch from a safe distance. Then there was Sasagawa Kyouko, the aforementioned best friend, quite possibly a Sky in her own right, and the kind of tree hugging pacifist that gave Reborn hives. They wre both on the student union council with Tsuna and spent a great deal of time organising protests with him. All peaceful of course, in deference to Kyouko’s principles. Reborn was just thankful that his student at least wasn’t completely sold on total nonviolence. That would be a major handicap in mafia life.

Sasagawa Kyouko had a brother too, so Sunny that it nearly hurt Reborn’s eyes to look at him, and he was definitely not a pacifist. What he was, was a menace, Reborn was a menace himself, he knew what one looked like. He and the captain of the Kendo club, Mochida Kensuke, (either Lightning or Storm, Reborn wasn’t sure which), liked to go out at weekends and pick fights with the local police. Reborn would be happy about their lack of respect for law and order, a trait that would stand them in good stead as members of the Vongola, if he weren’t so utterly appalled by their lack of subtlety. They were the ones that accompanied the propective Vongola decimo to out of town protests, the big ones, and whenever things turned violent, those two would somehow always be right in the thick of it, while Tsuna just stood back and smiled. Reborn knew this because he’d followed them a few times, trying to get an idea of what his student was actually like. He had a sinking feeling that the guardian bonds had already begun to set.

Then there was a girl who didn’t even go to Tsuna’s school, but spent an inordinate amount of time with their student union anyway. Presumably because Tsuna, and Kyouko were the only ones prepared to listen to her speeches on protecting mother earth. Kyouko liked her positive attitude, Tsuna liked her suggestions for direct action. Reborn, God help him, liked the Mist flames lurking just beneath the surface, he could deal with an eco-concious Mist, she couldn’t be any harder to work with than Mammon.

There were others of course, but those seemed to be the core members, the ones Tsuna went on marches with, the ones that might end up being his guardians. It was going to be a headache and a half coaxing them into a life of dodging the law when they seemed so keen to declare all out war on it.

The first step, he supposed, was in finding an established mafia member that Tsuna might be willing to bond with. To give him some actual ties to the underworld, and some support in navigating its pitfalls. Bianchi’s brother was about the right age he thought, and given he was already a named hitman he was presumably competent. It could go either really well, or really badly. He considered for a moment, and then made the call. If nothing else it would be entertaining.

Chapter Text

Mistakes were made. Reborn was mature enough to admit that. He really should have thought all this through. Although really how was he supposed to know what Gokudera Hayato had managed to get himself involved in over the years since Bianchi last saw him? Shamal was his teacher, surely he ought to have given Reborn some kind of a warning. Then again, Shamal’s sense of humour was kind of twisted, and his sense of self-preservation sometimes extremely lacking so maybe Reborn should have been less surprised. He really should have done his research, that much had become abundantly clear over the last couple of days.

Reborn blamed college education. When he was young hitmen spent their teenage years networking and building up a name for themselves, not sneaking into lectures and hanging out in the student union café. Education was for when you were established, and bored because hardly anyone could actually afford to hire you. Then you went to university for a while to broaden your horizons and give your prospective employers a chance to forget how terrified of you they were.

Apparently the Smoking Bomb disagreed. He’d apparently used the money from his first hit to buy a standard ten years older Mist illusion, forged himself a student ID and spent the last few years studying whatever he felt like and getting involved in all the most questionable revolutionary leftist student organisations he could find. In retrospect, a number of incidents attributed to the Smoking Bomb, made significantly more sense, when considered as ideological, rather than professional jobs.

…

He and Tsunayoshi got on like a house on fire, of course. Reborn could see all his carefully crafted plans dissolving in front of him, as Gokudera was distracted from his challenge by an increasingly heated debate on the role of the state in maintaining class relations. Reborn wasn’t paying enough attention to know exactly what the obscure and theoretical point of contention was, but even a blind man couldn’t have missed the sparks flying between Tsuna’s Sky and Hayato’s Storm. Compatible will indeed. Reborn had a headache again.

It took less than a day for Gokudera to move into Tsuna’s spare room. “Mutual aid”, Tsuna called it. It took less than a week for Gokudera to start offering basic classes on the safe handling of explosives, and what to do if you were arrested, “Direct action” Gokudera said with a grin that was mostly teeth. The real kicker was that all of those things should have been useful for a Mafia Boss. Having his subordinates close, learning new weapons, learning how to deal with the authorities, and yet somehow it was just further entrenching the existing problems.

There had been a pitched battle in the schoolyard on Thursday morning. It had been like watching a car crash in slow motion. The disciplinary committee had come down hard on a pair of union members that were flyposting the school gates, Gokudera had seen what was happening and retaliated in an entirely predictable fashion, the Sasagawa boy, and Mochida had heard the explosions and come running to back him up, then the rest of the disciplinary committee including Hibari had come to see what the disturbance was, then Tsuna had appeared with the rest of the union.

Reborn had seen less vicious schoolyard rows at Mafia school. Four people had ended up in hospital, with over a dozen nursing minor injuries, and the school had been forced to close for the remainder of the week in order to repair the damage to the grounds and buildings. And the worst of it was that he could see Tsuna and Hibari’s flames dancing around each other. He had no idea how that bond was going to work, but it looked like it was going to be even worse than the usual Cloud bonds. Nono was not paying him nearly enough to deal with this.

The level of chaos was astonishing, beautiful in its destructive force. Reborn really, really hated having to be the voice of reason. He wasn’t good at it, he didn’t enjoy it, and yet somehow, he was trying to stop the chaos in his student’s life rather than causing it. It felt wrong. He was tempted to invite Baka Dino over just for the chance to torment someone properly.

…

The incident had at least allowed Reborn the opportunity to shoot Tsuna with a dying will bullet. “Defeat the forces of oppression with my dying will” was perhaps the most predictable response to being hit with a dying will shot that Reborn had ever encountered. The boy had not been shy about his opinions that was for sure.

Apparently in this context, the forces of oppression had translated to Hibari, which made sense in a teenaged, high school sort of way. By the time the dying will time limit had expired they were both an absolute mess. Hibari had won by default because he was the last one standing but neither of them was in good shape. Reborn felt ambivalent. On the one hand Tsuna had done pretty well fighting against what was almost certainly an Active and properly trained Cloud, which was promising, but on the other hand that very fact had also exacerbated the whole fucked up Cloud courting thing the two of them had going on, so Reborn wasn’t sure whether to count the results as a success or just a further headache.

Honestly this whole mission was a disaster, an utter unmitigated train wreck. Reborn could see the future spread out in an endless string of impossible tasks and he wondered whether a blood transfusion would be effective in convincing the Vongola rings to accept Xanxus as heir. It was early days yet, but Reborn was beginning to entertain serious concerns that however much damage Xanxus could do as Decimo it would be nothing compared to the havoc Tsunayoshi would wreak. Not that Nono would believe him. He’d probably have to meet the little menace for himself before he finally realised his mistake.

Chapter Text

Reborn felt the ever increasing urge to slowly and methodically bash his own brains out against the nearest wall. Seriously. Why did everything Sawada Tsunayoshi did make his job harder. Was he being punished? Was karma actually real, was this the universe making him suffer for a lifetime of tormenting other people for his own amusement in between murders for hire. If that was the case why wasn’t Colonello, or Verde, or Lal having to deal with this. (hmm, maybe he could find some way to rope them in and spread the misery. Lal was CEDEF, it was practically her responsibility, after all, none of this would be a problem if she’d just castrated Iemitsu before he could breed.)

On the plus side Tsuna now had a Rain, which meant that as far as Reborn could work out in amongst the unholy mess of crisscrossing flame bonds that a pair of untrained resonant Skies had managed to weave between them, Tsuna now had at least one of each Flame type. That was good, that was a full set. Even if some of the elements seemed to be shared with Kyouko. She was a nice girl, and she got on well with Tsuna, she wouldn’t mind sharing.

So full set, that was good. That was actually one of the things on his original checklist, before he arrived in Namimori and realised exactly what kind of disaster he was faced with. However, on the minus side, the new Rain, whose name was apparently Yamamoto Takeshi, had taken to Tsuna’s philosophies with all the zeal of a new convert looking for something to believe in.

It had started with Yamamoto’s suicide attempt. Which, as far as Reborn had been able to work out from the tangle of teenage melodrama, had been half cry for help, half despair at the lack of deeper meaning and purpose in his life. Tsuna had managed to convert him in one impassioned speech about the poison of conformity and the need to fight against it with true expressions of individuality and the power of friendship (at least that was how Reborn had mentally started translating Tsuna’s cries for solidarity.)

Clearly something about it had struck a chord with Yamamoto, possibly just the fact that someone was talking to him about something other than baseball had done it. Fair enough really, God knew Reborn would be contemplating suicide, or more likely homicide, if that was all people ever talked to him about.

It was interesting to watch how supportive all Tsuna’s friends were of the boy, in their own, unique ways. Gokudera snapped at him a lot, but kept shoving incredibly dense political tracts at him, with a low growl that he should read them. Kyouko had been slowly introducing him to her music, while the Mist girl Haru had taken it upon herself to modify his wardrobe with… mixed results. (Part of Reborn was quietly impressed by her cosplay outfits, and wondered if she’d be willing to compare notes).

Tsuna himself had taken to delivering impassioned speeches in the middle of the local park which Yamamoto attended religiously. Tsuna, Reborn grudgingly admitted, wasn’t a bad public speaker, although according to Kyouko he’d been terrible when he’d started.

Apparently the public speaking was how Tsuna had got interested in politics to begin with. According to Kyouko it had started when an unusually sympathetic supply teacher had suggested that the best way for Tsuna to get past his crippling shyness might be desensitisation. She’d recommended he take lessons in public speaking, that facing up to the fear might help him realise that it wasn’t as bad as he’d built it up to be. Reborn had to hand it to her, on that count at least it definitely seemed to have worked, Sawada Tsunayoshi was many things, but shy definitely wasn’t one of them.

Unfortunately practising public speaking had turned out to have an inconvenient side effect. Learning how to give a speech had encouraged Tsuna to study the work of great speakers, of all persuasions, political and otherwise, and that was how Tsuna had discovered anarchism. Clearly he’d never looked back, because now Reborn had to deal with the fallout.

In any case, Tsuna now had a full set, and all of them except Hibari were only encouraging him in his revolutionary ambitions. They’d all gone to a protest together a day ago. Reborn had followed along in morbid curiosity. Apparently it was a protest against some kind of factory poisoning the river a few towns over. Tsuna had a megaphone. He was on the local news. It was a security nightmare, and Reborn had no idea how Tsuna’s CEDEF watchers had kept him from being murdered by his father’s enemies.

When Reborn had tried to bring up his concerns Tsuna had just told him that to let fear rule his actions would be the death of his resolve, and well Reborn did have to admit he had a point. He’d had to violently break Dino of that tendency before he could even begin to manifest his flames without the aid of a dying will bullet. Tsuna’s resolve on the other hand, had very nearly caused a breach of omerta when he started manifesting them on live tv. It had only been a quick use of Reborn’s Mist secondary that had prevented disaster. A visit from the Vindice was the last thing any of them needed.

Reborn had no idea how to broach the subject of the Vindice with Tsuna. It had to be done, if only to keep him from accidentally incurring their wrath. The trouble was, if he did tell Tsuna, he had a nasty suspicion his student might intentionally incur their wrath. It would require some thought. There had to be some way that wouldn’t result in Tsuna immediately picking a fight with them, Reborn just, wasn’t quite sure what it was, yet. But he was sure that having them show up to arrest Tsuna was not the best answer. Tsuna had made his views on the police abundantly clear, and Reborn seriously doubted the horror movie mafia police would get a better reaction. He’d never thought he’d have a problem with a Sky having too much resolve.

He definitely needed to spread the misery. Being the voice of reason was wearing at his nerves. So he made a call.

“Oi baka Dino. Come to Namimori as soon as possible.”

Chapter Text

Dino had the sneaking suspicion that Reborn had expected him to be more frazzled by this situation. Maybe he should be. Technically this was an absolute disaster for the entire Vongola alliance. He really ought to be at least a little concerned. It was just… the look on Reborn’s face.

After all it wasn’t every day that Dino got to see Reborn look out of his depth. Before coming to Namimori Dino would have said such a thing was impossible, Reborn was unshakable. But then he’d seen the carefully hidden panic in his former tutors eyes as a fluffy haired teenager in a Che Guevara t-shirt stormed into the house and started lecturing Dino on his role in propping up the neo-liberal establishment.

Dino really should be concerned, but mostly he was just feeling highly entertained. Finally, Reborn had found a project that was more than he could handle. It was karma and Dino was going to savour the moment. Years of hell training, and playing victim to Reborn’s twisted sense of humour, and now Dino had his reward. He got to watch Reborn suffer.

Besides. Dino actually found himself quite liking the kid. Brave, not afraid to stand up for his principles, and smart enough to argue them convincingly too. Dino could respect that. Especially since convincing him to become Vongola decimo wasn’t actually his problem.

Dino would be lying if he said his offer of brotherhood to Tsuna wasn’t at least partly driven by a desire to provoke Reborn (and the response had been truly glorious), but it was more than that. He liked Tsuna, liked his strength, and his uncorrupted idealism, and whichever road his little brother wanted to take he deserved to have someone to stand by him. It wasn’t like Dino had any other exciting moral crusades to get involved in.

…

Dino would pay for his treachery. Reborn would make sure of it, even if he had to bribe Viper into making him think he was a real life my little pony for a month. This was not what Reborn had wanted when he told Dino to come to Namimori. He’d wanted baka Dino to share his misery, and possibly act as a stabilising older brother type attachment that would soften Tsuna’s poor view of the mafia. He hadn’t expected Dino to encourage him.

In retrospect maybe he should have. Dino was his student, it was perhaps inevitable that a certain love of chaos would have rubbed off on him, and it wasn’t like Dino had any pressing reasons not to just sit back and enjoy the mayhem. He wasn’t going to be professionally embarrassed by this mission’s abject failure.

Still volunteering to act as a distraction for Hibari Kyouya while the student’s union fly posted the school with announcements of a demonstration against police brutality was definitely over the line and Reborn would make him suffer for it. Especially since that was the kind of violent chaos Reborn would have liked to be involved in.

First though, he had an unpleasant and rather overdue phonecall to make to his employer. As he’d expected, Nono wasn’t pleased with his report. It had been very comprehensive, with photographs and video and police records. It gave a very clear picture of the situation in Namimori as it stood, impossible to argue with. It also said absolutely nothing the Vongola wanted to hear, and the Vongola boss was therefore not pleased. Truthfully Reborn thought it was actually rather unfair that he was the one on the wrong side of Nono’s reaction. As far as Reborn was concerned the blame for all of this could quite safely be laid at that idiot Iemitsu’s door. Still Reborn knew better than to voice his opinion on the subject. Timoteo never liked blame shifting.

“This is less than ideal.” Timoteo said, in a tone of voice that spoke volumes about exactly how displeased he was with the situation. No doubt his lackeys would be suitably terrified by his displeasure, but there were reasons he’d hired Reborn for this and one of those reasons was that Reborn was neither contractually obliged, nor personally inclined to grovel at bosses. He was an independent, he could call the Vongola ninth out on his bullshit if he wanted, and it would take more than an angry old Sky to intimidate him. So he didn’t even try to spare Timoteo’s feelings when he retorted. After all, the Vongola needed to know what they were getting themselves into.

“Well that’s the trouble with last resort, final hope, only surviving heirs isn’t it?” He snapped. “It might sound very good on paper, in books the last resort turns out to be a hidden untapped easily moulded genius that is just what was needed to save the day. It’s all very nice in theory. In practice what you get is this. Half forgotten, unqualified heirs, that have been allowed to run wild, and therefore have all sorts of inconvenient ideas of their own, and absolutely none of the training needed to actually do the job required. And they know you can’t get rid of them because if you could then you wouldn’t be resorting to them in the first place, and more often than not they’re smart enough to be little shits about it. Of course none of this is ideal. But there are limits to the miracles even I can work, to a certain extent you’re just going to have to figure out a way to deal with it.”

“What exactly are you trying to tell me?” Timoteo sounded like a man bracing himself for bad news. That was probably for the best, Reborn really didn’t have any other kind to give him.

“I’m telling you that even if I can find a way to sell Tsunayoshi on the Vongola and trust me that’s no sure thing, Vongola’s days as a mafia family are numbered. If you’re lucky he’ll decide it has potential to be reformatted as a revolutionary organisation. If you’re not, he’ll bring the Vindice down on all your heads when he goes public with Flame lore, and then will probably declare war on them.”

“What about returning to Vongola’s roots? Did you tell him about Primo’s vigilante mission?” Desperation down the phone and how had one rebellious teenager brought two of the mafia’s most powerful men to this?

“Yeah, you probably don’t want to know  what Tsuna thinks of vigilantism. Misguided reactive impulse of the ordinary population to an excessive lack of social stability, generally complicit with local community authorities, was the mildest thing he had to say on the subject.” Reborn said flatly. That had not been a fun conversation.

“I see.” Timoteo was silent then, clearly unsure what to say next.

“Are you sure Xanxus isn’t an option?” Probably not, because honestly that would make life so much easier and Reborn didn’t think he was having that kind of year. Anything that could go wrong would go more wrong than anyone could predict. From Timoteo’s sigh he was thinking along similar lines.

“It’s no good. The rings would reject him thanks to the bloodlock, and the alliance wouldn’t follow him without them. The mafia can be old fashioned about that kind of thing.” Reborn wondered quietly to himself whether killing off the whole conservative old guard of the mafia would be easier or more difficult than turning Tsuna into a viable heir for the Vongola. He was pretty sure he could do it, he was after all, the world’s greatest hitman.

It would of course, be pretty messy, but still, it was a thought to hold in reserve. If he could just convince Timoteo to sign off on it then it might just simplify a whole host of issues.

Chapter Text

“The problem” Tsuna declared to the crowd with a borderline terrifying amount of orange fire in his eyes, “Is false consciousness. You get so caught up in the dominant cultural hegemony that you start to think that the system is acting in your interests.” There was a rumble of approval, Reborn resisted the urge to slowly bash his head against the nearest wall.

The problem. Reborn thought bitterly, was that Iemitsu and Timoteo had been stupid enough to leave a baby Sky unsupervised in a townful of impressionable civilians. Cults had been started for less. To be fair they’d probably been trusting the seal to keep a lid on Tsuna’s natural… charismatic tendencies, or so he assumed, but Reborn was in no mood to give credit to the kind of morons who forgot basic principles like “trust but verify,” or “everything that can go wrong will go wrong.”

There were a lot of people watching Tsuna speak. More than enough to make Reborn twitchy, and that was without the uncomfortable prickle of unfamiliar Mist flames that had been brushing at the edges of his awareness for days. But it wasn’t really the risk of assassination attempts that had Reborn worried. There was a harmony rippling through the crowd, that could just as easily become a spontaneous musical number as an angry mob. Reborn could feel the power of it, looping back and forth through shared purpose and the will of a Vongola Sky, the support from the crowd amplifying and in turn being amplified by the force of Tsuna’s flames. This, he knew, in blood and bone and soul, was a power that could move mountains.

There was nothing in the world as terrifying as a Sky with a cause and fellow believers at his back.

Still, it could be worse. It could have been a cult. If it had been a cult Reborn would have packed up and left. He was not dealing with that shit again. The last time he’d tried to handle a Sky cult, he’d ended up having to call Skull to rescue him from being sacrificed to actual man eating goats. That had been one of the most humiliating days of his life, not least because Skull had proven physically incapable of not rubbing it in at every opportunity. It had taken ten years, and some truly astonishing levels of physical violence to get him to finally shut up about it.

…

Of course, the only thing worse than leaving a baby Sky to run amok, was leaving a baby Mist to do the same, and by God the Estraneo had dropped the ball on that one big time. What had they been thinking? Mists were an unstable menace even when they hadn’t been traumatised to hell and back by having their own family experiment on them. Reborn would quite frankly have been astonished if Mukuro hadn’t gone homicidal maniac.

Still just because Mukuro’s insanity was predictable, didn’t mean it was manageable. There was nothing manageable about a crazy Mist. The first generation of the Vongola could attest to that. Giotto and his supporters had run halfway across the world to get away from the last Mist that had gone quite this level of giggling psycho. Reborn had heard reports and been utterly relieved that particular source of apocalyptic chaos had been far, far away from Namimori and his current disaster of a student. Those two never needed to meet. Ever. Crazy Mists and feral Skies were enough trouble on their own, even Reborn didn’t want to see what happened when you combined the two.

Actually no, that was a blatant lie. Reborn could be honest with himself if not with anyone else. There was a crazy Mist at the back of his own mind who would, thanks to an unholy combination of scientific curiosity and good old fashioned sadism, like very much to see what would happen. What he didn’t want, was to have to see it up close and personal. By preference, he’d be watching from a comfortable distance, possibly in a lead lined bunker in an undisclosed location, sipping at a cocktail while watching the world burn. Definitely not living in the same house as the Sky in question.

Reborn was becoming increasingly certain his karma had finally caught up with him. Who knew all those murders for hire would put him so far into heaven’s black books. Rokudo Mukuro was, according to Viper, and Viper was usually right about these things, headed to Namimori, had in fact, probably arrived yesterday, and it was only a matter of time before he met Tsuna.

They’d either turn out to be sworn enemies or brothers in arms. Reborn wasn’t sure which prospect was worse.

…

Still they hadn’t met yet, and Reborn was having enough trouble corralling today’s problems without borrowing tomorrow’s. Just as an example, there was the Yamamoto problem. To be specific the Yamamoto Tsuyoshi problem, which was distinct, but related to the Yamamoto Takeshi problem. The Takeshi problem was simple enough, if lacking in any obvious solutions, the boy was a true fanatic of the highest order, Reborn had seen it before and would see it again. Maybe he’d calm down as he got older, maybe he’d die in a blaze of glory. Either way, there wasn’t much Reborn could do at this point.

The Yamamoto Tsuyoshi problem was a little different. The Yamamoto Tsuyoshi problem was that he was concerned about his son, but far too moral to threaten a teenager with a sword, even if that teenager was a rampaging feral Sky. So he looked for the nearest adult that could conceivably be considered responsible for said feral Sky and settled on Reborn. On the one hand Reborn had to admire the man’s balls. Not many people were brave enough to threaten the world’s greatest hitman with disembowelment if answers weren’t given about what exactly his son had gotten involved in. On the other hand, Reborn felt absolutely no qualms at all redirecting the Autumn Rain’s ire onto Sawada Iemitsu, Reborn was not paid enough to take the heat for Iemitsu’s screw ups, no one was paid that much, not even Lal and Reborn had seen the size of her paychecks.

Chapter Text

“You know” said Tsuna in a speculative tone of voice that Reborn had come to dread. “I’ve been thinking about getting a tattoo”.

“You’ll regret it when you’re older Troublesome Tsuna.” Reborn had found that his best chances of derailing any of his student’s disastrous plans, was to intervene within the first couple of minutes, before the idea had a chance to settle in the brat’s mind. It was also best not to sound too invested in the response, if Tsuna thought Reborn really wanted something he would most likely do the opposite, just to be contrary.

“I think it would be cool.” Then again, sometimes there was nothing anyone could say or do to rein that boy in. Reborn would be impressed, if it wasn’t his problem. “Dino nii has tattoos” Tsuna pointed out, not unreasonably it had to be said. Troublesome Tsuna might be a menace, but he knew how to apply logic.

“He’ll regret it when he’s older too.” Reborn was in no mood to indulge his student, no matter how much rationality he tried to fake. The edge of unfamiliar Mist flames, powerful Mist flames, brushing up against the edge of his range was wearing Reborn’s patience paper thin.

Rokudo Mukuro was in town, and was somehow managing to be a headache even before he even did anything. The Mist in Reborn could respect that even as it bristled at the challenge. He almost wished the young Mist would just make a move, if he didn’t know for a fact that would drag Troublesome Tsuna into the mix, and that Troublesome Tsuna would then proceed to do what Troublesome Tsuna always did and escalate.

Reborn had yet to find a situation Tsuna couldn’t turn into even more of a headache just by being himself, and trying to make him listen to reason was an uphill battle Reborn did not feel qualified for, he was more used to working the other end of the scales.

“I’m going to get one” Tsuna said with a nod of determination. “Maybe we should all get group tattoos.” Case in point really. Reborn was pretty sure he was actually the one that goaded Dino into getting his first tattoo, he had no idea how to go about convincing Tsuna not to get one.

Fuck it. Reborn threw his hands up. Troublesome Tsuna wasn’t his kid. If Iemitsu couldn’t man up and face reality enough to try and rein his son in that wasn’t Reborn’s fault. Sometimes you just had to pick your battles. He had enough on his plate trying to turn the brat into a mafia boss, moral policing was not his problem.

“Try not to get anything too stupid.” He tossed over his shoulder as he walked away, because there was choosing your battles and then there was laying the groundwork for future “I told you so’s”, and as any good teacher or hitman knew, it always paid to plan ahead.

…

It could have been a lot worse Reborn supposed, left to their own devices he shuddered to think of what kind of cutesy politically themed monstrosity Tsuna and Kyouko would have come up with between them with Haru and Takeshi egging them on, and Hayato suggesting the addition of aliens from the sidelines. He suspected the hand of Hana in holding them all back from anything too absurd. He really should buy her something nice at some point.

Tsuna had a lion cub wreathed in orange flames which was at least thematically appropriate, if a little… cuddly for most mafia tastes. Hayato had a similar Storm tinted leopard cub, presumably to match Tsuna. Hana herself had gone with a praying mantis embedded in a tangle of purple edged briars, while Kyouko had an orange dove, and Haru a panda under an indigo moon. Takeshi had apparently got his in some unspeakable location and morbid curiosity hadn’t quite driven Reborn to investigate further yet. Mochida and Sasagawa the elder had apparently been out of town while all this happened, but from their reactions, Reborn was sure they’d have their own ink within the week.

Hibari had made renewed and furious attempts to bite all of them to death for a week after they’d all shown up at school with their new non regulation body art. When the murder attempts failed he took it out on the school by intensifying his reign of terror. For the rest of the week the school population had been afraid to breathe too loudly for fear of drawing his attention.

The following Monday he’d turned up with a purple bird over his collarbone and a look that dared anyone to comment. No-one did. The situation was never raised in his hearing again, but over the next few days a number of Hibari’s disciplinary committee showed up with tattoos of their own which were also never spoken of.

This really was shaping up to be one of the most fucked up Cloud courtships Reborn had ever had the misfortune to be caught in the crossfire of.

Still at least the worst seemed to be over Reborn had thought, foolishly.

Then Sasagawa the elder turned up with a face tattoo of a kangaroo in boxing gloves and Reborn had to resist the urge to methodically beat his brains out against the nearest wall. Combine that with the larger than life sword wielding racoon Mochida had inked onto his back, and was using as an excuse to go shirtless at all times, and Reborn was seriously considering the merits of telling the ninth to go fuck himself.

Only pride held him back. He was Reborn, the world’s greatest hitman, the Sun arcobaleno, the most terrifying motherfucker anyone was ever likely to meet. He was not going to be run out of town by a gang of teenaged delinquents with an agenda.

Clearly, he just needed to up his game. Being the voice of reason just wasn’t his style, maybe he needed to go back to basics, play to his strengths. After all, fucking with people was his job, it was time to show those upstarts how it was done.

Chapter Text

When the inevitable happened, it of course, happened at the most inconvenient time possible. Reborn wasn’t sure why he’d expected anything else. Clearly this was how life went now. Leon, the traitor, had actually decided giving Troublesome Tsuna Flame conductive weaponry was a good idea, and so, when the Ranking kid got himself kidnapped, he, and along with him a fair amount of Reborn’s firepower were out of commission.

Not that he needed Leon to be deadly of course. But it was annoying, and made it harder to be subtle. And of course, on realising the brat was gone Haru had made enough of a fuss that the whole three ring circus had packed up to Kokuyo land to find him.

As to how they knew where he was, well that was anyone’s guess, most likely some kind of flame sensing fuckery of some sort. Reborn hadn’t taught any of them that kind of technique but Takeshi, Hayato and, the girls at least were very very good at both watch and learn, and wild improvisation, and what Ryouhei and Kensuke lacked in perceptiveness they more than made up for in sheer determination. Combine that with the way they all shared techniques and ideas like some kind of terrifying hivemind and Reborn had long since lost track of what they were capable of.

At any rate, they had all arrived in Kokuyo land. All of them, including the little kids, and Nana, and a masked Bianchi, and Yamamoto Tsuyoshi who had decided the best way of managing the Takeshi problem was to follow him everywhere so he could pull him out of trouble and then feed that trouble to the Family sword. It was like the world’s most fucked up family holiday.

Nana had even packed a picnic basket.

Reborn died just a little inside when Sasagawa the younger pulled out a camera with the kind of bouncing enthusiasm that properly belonged only to large friendly dogs and the kind of self-help gurus that advocate clean living and Zumba lessons as the path to enlightenment. There were so many photographs. Cutesy ones, mock scary ones, funny ones, dramatic ones, even little clips of film. It was horrifying. It was especially disturbing how they were able to maintain the holiday atmosphere while also searching for Fuuta with a predatory intensity.

The camera didn’t go away when the fighting started either. Any attempt to make a point about not generating incriminating evidence was swept away by Haru’s breezy assurances that it was all so clearly flashy and overdone that they could argue it was part of a movie they were making.

Then Yamamoto the younger had said that making a movie sounded pretty fun, and it would be a shame to waste the footage, and Sasagawa the elder had declared that he extremely supported his sister’s filmmaking ambitions, and Mochida had started non too subtly practicing dramatic poses in front of the camera. After that, the conversation had quickly devolved into a whispered debate between Gokudera and Kurokawa about security culture versus the value of propaganda, and how they might be able to use the footage without actively incriminating themselves.

It was almost a relief when the man who claimed to be Rokudo Mukuro had managed to shatter the damn thing with a wrecking ball.

He wasn’t Mukuro of course. No. Apparently the man who had attacked a group of teenagers with a wrecking ball was not the bad guy. He was possessed, and actually an innocent victim of their real target. He probably should have seen that coming. Reborn really fucking hated fighting Mists.

Several minions and a picnic later most of the party had made their way to the main building where the real Mukuro had holed up. In a flash of uncharacteristic common sense, Nana had decided to wait outside with the little kids and Yamamoto senior. Something about letting the teenagers explore their independence and supporting their freedom to pursue their passions in life. Reborn was just glad to be off of babysitting duty.

Finally, a chance to show those brats the true meaning of chaos.

First he let them head on up to confront Rokudo, then, after setting a timer for a carefully calculated seventeen and a half minutes to blow up a wall and release Hibari Kyouya from the cupboard he’d been locked in, he made his way upstairs to enjoy the fireworks.

…

The scene he was confronted with was roughly the one he’d expected. There was much shattered furniture, many unconscious bodies, and now Troublesome Tsuna and Rokudo Mukuro were facing off over a field of possessed minions. Judging by how unhappy Kyouko looked, there had been a lot of physical violence involved in reaching this point, and judging by how irritated Hana looked that violence had taken the form of a lot of male posturing.

Reborn smiled. This was his sort of setup.

Then Rokudo started monologuing. Shit. Did this idiot know nothing. You didn’t try and talk to Troublesome Tsuna. It was like giving him a free pass to make whatever speeches he wanted. And sure enough, as Rokudo concluded his rousing speech in support of purging the entire mafia and declaring a better world from a pile of ashes, Tsuna spoke up and made everything worse.

 “Actually, I don’t think you’re going far enough.” He said, and Reborn resisted the urge to bury his head in his hands.

“What.” Well at least Rokudo was even less in control of this situation than Reborn was.

“I don’t think you’ve thought things through to their logical conclusion. The Mafia aren’t the real problem.” Tsuna’s eyes were glowing with a painful earnestness.

“Oh, then what is the problem oh mighty Decimo.” Rokudo snapped and Reborn prayed that he’d lose his temper and throw a punch.

“The problem” Tsuna enunciated slowly, with glee at the opportunity to win someone over to his politics. “Is society. The mafia is a result of the socio-economic demands of capitalism coming into conflict with the established laws designed to limit the activity of individual corporations for the sake of maintaining the system as a whole. The mafia isn’t the cause, it’s just another symptom of the inherent corruption  of the existing system”

“What?” Actually, the look on Rokudo’s face was pretty funny. If Reborn had put it there he’d have considered it a job well done. Unfortunately. He hadn’t.

“Join me, together we can overthrow the entire structure of society.” Tsuna, outlined in the glowing orange of sincerity, held out his hand. Rokudo finally lost his temper. There then followed a satisfying amount of violence, interspersed with incoherent shouting about vengeance, justice, and death (Mukuro), and false consciousness, solidarity, and freedom (Tsuna).

Reborn allowed them to hit each other for a few minutes before deciding it was time to bring things to a close. It was at this point he realised a minor flaw in his original plan to shoot Tsuna and let dying will mode take care of it. Namely that at this point Reborn doubted shooting Tsuna would have any effect. He already seemed to be running in dying will mode, and had apparently, somewhere along the way, managed to piss Rokudo off enough to also reach dying will mode.

It was just, it did feel like a bit of a shame. Reborn did still have one dying will bullet left over, and it seemed such a waste not to use it.

He cast his eyes over the battlefield to see who was still conscious. Ah, Sasagawa Kyouko, now there was a possibility. Not his first choice but the results should at least be amusing. He took aim and fired. As it turned out, Kyouko was maybe a stronger Sky than he’d expected.

“Stop the fighting with my dying will.” She screamed, with a respectable amount of pent up frustration. Well at least she was honest in her convictions.

Then she charged into Tsuna and Mukuro, grabbed them by the hair, and bashed their heads together, hard.

“Violence.” She intoned, eyes glowing orange with the kind of conviction that could move mountains. “Is not the answer.”

Any response the boys might have made to her was lost in the rattle of chains as the Vindice appeared.

Chapter Text

 “Shit, it’s the ghouls.” Never let it be said that Gokudera was slow on the uptake, half conscious on the floor and it still took mere seconds for him to register what that sinister rattle of chains meant. Reborn was almost impressed.

A shame he was too busy panicking to give the brat the credit he deserved, but there were bigger concerns right now. Troublesome Tsuna was not ready to meet the Vindice. Reborn hadn’t had time to ease him into the idea, prepare the ground, get some idea of how he would react. Now his police abolitionist student was face to face with the mafia cops and Reborn had no idea what he would do.

“Rokudo Mukuro, you are under arrest.” The Vindice intoned, oblivious to the oncoming disaster, and Reborn couldn’t bring himself to look away from the powder keg in the middle of the room.

There was Tsuna still riding the high of an intense political discussion, there was Kyouko, still in dying will mode, there was Mukuro himself mad as only a Mist could manage and powerful as hell. And there were two officers of the Vindice, the nightmares of hardened mafia men, only dubiously human, and utterly lacking any trace of a sense of humour.

“Reborn.” Troublesome Tsuna said, in a tone of voice that predictably promised trouble. “Are these the Mafia cops? You didn’t tell me the Mafia had their own pigs.” The threatening aura of the Vindice suddenly intensified, Reborn hadn’t actually known it could do that. They did say that teaching was a learning experience, but Reborn honestly could have done without that particular educational snippet.

“Yeah.” Drawled Hayato, still immobile on the floor but absolutely willing to throw oil on the fire anyway, sometimes that brat really did remind him of Colonello, that idiot was a little shit stirrer too. “The Vindice, better known as the ghouls, somewhere between unholy eldritch abomination and secret police force.” Then turning to Mukuro with a look that was half horrified awe, half morbid fascination. “What the hell did you do to get them on your tail personally?”

“Oh the usual. Murder, mayhem, general chaos.” Mukuro didn’t sound nearly concerned enough. But well, crazy Mist, no use expecting a reasonable reaction.

Kyouko looked as though she wasn’t quite buying it. Hard to say whether it was the dying will shot boosting her Sky intuition, or just a knack for seeing through a smokescreen. Reborn made a mental note to investigate later for training purposes, assuming they all survived this.

“If murder, mayhem and general chaos were enough to get a person arrested by the Vindice, then why haven’t they gone after Reborn sensei.” She asked, fairly reasonably as it happened, although he could have done without the extra scrutiny on his actions. Truth was she was right, it did take more than murder and mayhem to draw the Vindice’s attention.

It was more insight than he’d initially credited her with. Stupid of him really. Just because someone wasn’t a combat specialist didn’t mean they couldn’t be competent in other ways. Unfortunately it was then that she finally dropped out of dying will mode, and promptly crumpled to the floor, unable to continue the “surprisingly reasonable discussion” portion of the conversation.

Reborn decided now was probably a good time to intervene. If only to keep anyone else from opening their mouths and saying something inadvisable, considering who was still conscious it was highly unlikely that any of them would be even half as reasonable as Kyouko.

“The Vindice police the Mafia laws, smart people don’t cross them Troublesome Tsuna.” Tsuna just grinned, nothing good ever came from that grin.

“That’s what people told me about the disciplinary committee.” Then he turned to Mukuro. “So what do you say? Want some help resisting arrest.” Reborn did not like the deranged smile on Mukuro’s face. He really didn’t like the sensation of Mukuro and Tsuna’s Flames clicking together, as he responded.

“Well I mean, if you’re offering.” He drawled. Reborn mentally prepared himself to have to explain to Nono just why he had to bail the future Decimo and his friends out of Vindicare. He had a feeling “youthful high spirits” would not be accepted as an excuse.

“Resistance will not be tolerated.” Reborn could have sworn the Vindice officer actually sounded annoyed. Given their usual reputation for unshakable eldritch indifference it was quite an achievement. Leave it to Troublesome Tsuna to be able to irritate anyone.

Then of course, at exactly the perfect moment, the timer went off, releasing Hibari Kyouya in a master stroke of violent chaos that had Reborn feeling almost like himself again. Troublesome Tsuna might have raw disruptive talent, but Reborn was still the master of chaos, and it felt good to be doing what he was good at.

Hibari arrived in the room in a cloud of plaster and splinters from where he’d decided to go through the door without opening it. He was literally glowing purple with rage after being left to stew in a cupboard with nothing to do but nurse his grievances and train a small bird to sing the Nami middle anthem, and immediately upon his appearance he proceeded to live up to all of Reborn’s wildest hopes. He took one look at the mess, the semi-conscious bodies strewn across the floor, the vaguely human shaped eldritch abominations looming in the centre of the room over a Sky charged with righteous determination, and a Mist charged with vengeful fury, all of them perfectly willing to throw down, and immediately decided to fight everyone.

Reborn had never seen anyone actually try to bite one of the Vindice before but he would treasure the memory almost as much as the sight of Troublesome Tsuna being casually punted into Menacing Mukuro and the both of them landing in a tangle of limbs and lost dignity right on top of Hayato. It would be perfect, if he hadn’t ended up somehow losing his hat somewhere in the whirl of violence. Clearly Hibari had practice fighting an arcobaleno, it was surprising how few people knew how to effectively angle their attacks that far downward.

Still it was a beautiful moment. Up until Leon, the traitor, decided to upstage him by finally spitting out the weapon he’d been brewing up for Troublesome Tsuna. It was of course, the worst thing he could possibly have given Reborn’s student, and Reborn was going to strangle him for real over this one. Why oh why did Leon refuse to listen when Reborn told him not to give the brats the weapons they wanted most in the world. That damn whip he’d given Cavallone was bad enough, but at least that was only a potential source of personal embarrassment. Reborn still didn’t understand how the mafia at large hadn’t got the hint on that one, but he was thankful every day that they hadn’t. None of the other arcobaleno would ever let him live it down if they found out that Dino had once evaded him for a whole three months by running away to join the circus, it had taken a not inconsiderable amount of manipulation to convince the world it was actually some sort of kinky sex thing.

That had been bad enough. This though, this was worse.

Troublesome Tsuna picked up his shiny new megaphone and knew exactly what to do with it.