24 Sept - Katekyo Hitman Reborn! - The Future is Coming On [Tsuna]

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Title: The Future is Coming On
Day/Theme: 24 September 2008/death is another country
Fandom: Katekyo Hitman Reborn!
Character: Tsuna-centric, some Kyoko/Tsuna.
Rating: PG
Summary: Scenes from Tsuna's life as he grows into being the boss of the Vongola.
Notes: These are the Macchina and these are the Todd. The title is a line from the Gorillaz song Clint Eastwood. Constructive criticism is welcome.

 

 

 

"Can I offer you a drink, boy?" The Macchina boss smiled as he gestured at the glass-fronted bar that ran down one wall of the room, and didn't look particularly friendly.

It reminded Tsuna pointedly of how much younger he was than the other boss. He wished that the suits Reborn was having tailored for them weren't taking so long. They looked out of place in their school uniforms against this man and his black-suited bodyguards.

 "We have business," Tsuna said, trying to regulate his tone to be as inoffensive as possible while sounding firm. His voice squeaked.

"You'd like to get this over with quickly, eh. Well then." Macchina grinned, patronising and terrifying with the creaks of his metal jaw. "Let me sit down and get right to the point!"

Tsuna wondered if it was obvious that he was still acting on the advice of his tutor, trying to avoid getting his judgement ruined by alcohol. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to have one drink for the sake of looking friendly?

Tsuna bit his tongue so he wouldn't say anything. Now that he'd made the decision it would look weaker to back down. Anyway, did he want to get friendly when the guy smiled at him like that? The Macchina family had once sent those weird robot hitmen to kill Reborn, after all.

He kept his straight posture in the comfortable leather armchair and kept his eyes on the Macchina Eighth. Maybe he wasn't in control and he wasn't sure how to handle the negotiations, but it was easy enough to stay relaxed if he took a few surreptitious deep breaths and remembered that Yamamoto and Gokudera were with him, even if they had to stand silently by the wall.

 

* * *

 

Tsuna wondered what he would have done if Macchina had betrayed him at the very first meeting he'd been in charge of. By now he'd almost got used to the pressure of saying the right thing at the right time and recognising verbal traps; he'd almost got the hang of the whole negotiating thing. This was his fifth meeting without Reborn by his side, and by now he was a lot less nervous, a lot less hesitant.

He swallowed a Dying Will Pill and felt his calmness deepen to death and back.

"Ha! Just like everyone says! You never fight without your back against the wall." Macchina crowed with laughter, his voice tinny from the speakers on his cyborg suit. Even if Tsuna had managed to make him an ally, he still wasn't a friend. "I thought you were a coward, but you're just a boy, aren't you, Vongola Tenth?"

"We have business," Tsuna said, weary and bitter.

"Indeed! Just like before!" The other man grinned and turned towards the sound of shouts and footsteps. "Well, those Todd bastards certainly aren't going to get happier if we keep them waiting." His voice lost its laughter. "And I bet you still want this to be over quickly."

"It will be," Tsuna swore with all his will, and launched himself forwards.

 

* * *

 

Tsuna fell back heavily onto the bed, slipping off Ryohei's shoulder even though he meant to hold on. Ryohei swore under his breath – which Tsuna still managed to find amazing, even in his current condition. "Sawada?" he said urgently, and behind him Kyoko fluted, "Tsuna-kun? What happened? Are you okay?"

"Okay," Tsuna said, hoping, and then said, "Reborn." He opened his eyes, and carefully turned his head to Ryohei, trying not to jog the pain in his skull. "Get Reborn."

"Right! I remember," said Ryohei. "I'll be back soon, Sawada. Kyoko will take great care of you 'til then!"

He wished she didn't have to. Tsuna closed his eyes and let time skip out on him until a sharp sting on his arm made him sit up. Try to sit up. That's right; they got him on the ribs.

"Are you going to be okay?" Kyoko said frantically, her face hovering above his.

"I think so," said Tsuna, though if he couldn't blush at Kyoko being this close to him, he might be too close to Heaven for comfort. "Good morning, Kyoko-chan."

She blinked at him. "You hit your head, didn't you?"

Tsuna winced. "Um, yeah. Hurts."

"I've got painkillers here." She turned and - Tsuna carefully moved his head to see - rummaged in a first aid box. He took a look at himself and saw that she'd cleaned him up and bandaged what she could. It would do until Reborn could tell Ryohei what hospital it was safe to take Tsuna to.

Kyoko helped him raise his head to take the pills and swallow some water with them, and he was only distantly aware of how she was soft and warm and the closest she'd ever been. Right now he was exhausted, but he swore he'd care later. He would care so much.

"What happened?" Kyoko asked, laying him down.

"Lots." Tsuna grimaced. "Ugh."

"Tsuna-kun..." She looked a little mad, but then she shook her head and that faded. "I guess I'll just go on patching you up."

"You shouldn't have to take care of me..."

"Then you shouldn't get hurt like this. Of course I can't leave you in this kind of shape, Tsuna-kun. As long as I can help..."

"At least you won't get any trouble," he reassured himself. He thought he should probably look away from her soon, but it seemed like such a waste of energy. She was growing her hair out. It looked really pretty. "They didn't follow us, and Gokudera and Yamamoto are taking care of the rest of them."

"Who are they?" Kyoko asked urgently.

"Ugh," Tsuna said, and Kyoko smiled in spite of herself.

"Tsuna-kun," she groaned, picking up a bottle of disinfectant and a roll of cotton wool. On the way over to the Sasagawa home, Ryohei had said she'd got used to helping him after boxing matches, and recently, after the assignments he had to do in the Vongola name. There really wasn't any getting away with it anymore, was there?

"I have to tell you something," Tsuna said.

Kyoko stilled, and then nodded. "Yes." She smiled wider and looked a little sadder.

The ends of her hair trailed over his hand as she leaned towards him, and he couldn't help but turn his hand so it ran over his fingers. "Your hair's nice long..." He squeezed his eyes shut. "That's not it."

"Thank you."

Tsuna tried to say it all, but the words made a lump in his mouth, and then he yawned it out. "Tired," he said, embarrassed.

"You can go to sleep. Brother said it doesn't look like you got concussed."

"Tell you later," he said. It would be harder when he was awake enough to remember all the problems with saying something, and when he wasn't feeling the last of the chastisement that came with the hyper dying will, but he couldn't do it now.

Kyoko fell silent, and he wondered if she was upset that he was giving up the same minute he'd agreed to say something. But she stayed where she was; as he fell asleep, he was still slipping his fingers through her hair.

 

* * *

 

Tsuna stuffed his hands in his pockets as he passed the Sasagawa house, making fists at the tactile memory of that time Kyoko had helped him out after a fight. He walked on, faster, in case Ryohei or Kyoko noticed him.

He covered most of Namimori that day, walking to the places he'd been over the years like he was looking for something. He brought up memories of swimming lessons, cherry blossom festivals, blind dates, until he started to feel like he was acting like an old geezer. He was close to the new mall (a few years old now, but still 'the new mall') so he bought a milkshake and sat at a table in the food court, watching people go by and ignoring the tight, panicky feeling in his chest.

He was being ridiculous. It wasn't like he'd never come back from Italy.

But there was so much he was leaving behind. All the tiny bits of places where memories had been stored could barely fit in his head, and his legs were sore from all the places he'd revisited.

And what was he going to?

 

* * *

 

The mansion was beautiful. That was Tsuna's main impression, and it was freaking him out a little because the Ninth had greeted him, and then said, "This is yours."

He wasn't even being sworn in as boss yet. It was only a series of formal introductions to other major players in the family. And this entire mansion and its grounds and, apparently, half the town was his already. He looked up and further up at the tall building and felt his skin prickling with nervous sweat.

It would have been nice if Yamamoto were there to give a cheerfully incredulous laugh, but the Ninth had requested to show him around alone; no bodyguards for either of them.

"For one thing," Reborn had said, "it would help to establish that there was no animosity between the branches of the Vongola." He had not mentioned what other reasons there might be, and Tsuna had rolled his eyes in irritation at the dramatics and refused to ask. Now he resolved to keep a level head by himself until he was with his friends again.

The Ninth made pleasant enough small talk as he took Tsuna through the rest of the house, showing him where he'd sleep, where to go to eat, and so forth. Tsuna began to feel guilty over the niggling sense he had that he would never uncomplicatedly like the Ninth, even though he'd risked his life partly to avenge the man during the scramble matches against the Varia.

And then, at last, the Ninth said they had a final stop to make before Tsuna could do as he saw fit. He led the way so far down a wing of the mansion that Tsuna started to think the place might be bigger on the inside than it was on the outside, and was foolishly relieved when they stopped. The big, carved double doors in front of them were almost ordinary in this mansion, but Tsuna still wondered if there was something like treasure behind them.

"Tsunayoshi, I'm sorry," said the Ninth. "This is yours too."

Tsuna saw the pity and compassion in his face and then fixed his eyes on anything but that; it scared him. He watched the Ninth turn the doorknob and push open the door. The Ninth stood still, so Tsuna hesitatingly stepped into the room first.

The light was dimmer than the rest of what he'd seen of the mansion; the windows here were as large as in the reception hall, but paned with stained glass that took away some of the sun's brightness. It made the room look a bit like a church.

From how far down the windows went, the room had to take up space in the storey below as well as on this on. Tsuna stood on a platform, with a steep staircase leading down to the rest of the room. He stepped forwards, and then stopped, feeling the space beside him where his friends should have been standing, where they had been through his other trials.

The room was almost empty. Though it had depth, it wasn't very big, and the walls with the stained glass windows went outward in a half-circle. There stood arranged seven coffins, with one of the familiar symbols of the Vongola rings carved on the lid of each one.

It was his.

Tsuna never remembered properly what he did then. When the static roaring in his ears faded he stopped – he'd been walking – and looked around blankly to find that he was somewhere near the back of the mansion, the part that looked out over the gardens.

It was all his, almost. The Ninth would go into partial retirement soon, and then all this would be his...

Tsuna's fingers found the ring hanging against his chest. He'd wear this on his finger, then.

There was plenty of light in the mansion, but it seemed that the walls kept all the heat out; he was chilled to the bone.

He kept getting passed by people wearing suits and preoccupied expressions, and he felt like pretty soon someone would snap at him and ask what he was doing. Instead they started when they saw him, and then some of them looked at him in assessment, and some smiled or nodded a polite greeting. They'd be his, too.

It couldn't be getting colder.

He walked faster, wishing he could find a door. If he could just get out a minute... And at last he gave up and opened a window, and then realised he was on the second floor.

Well, that explained the lack of doors going outside. Tsuna leaned out, catching sun on his face, and breathed in deeply. Suddenly he felt shaky, and he gripped the windowsill hard. Then he peered down at the ground – took a look around the corridor – and went to sit on the sill, getting dust on his black suit. He caught more sun like this, and gradually the shaky feeling passed.

He knocked his heels gently against the walls. Someone came down the hall and as he looked over his shoulder, did that double take that meant they knew who he was. She looked taken aback. Tsuna smiled an acknowledgment, knowing he was acting childish but enjoying the warmth too much to stop.

His. All of it. He'd known that. It was all he'd been thinking about before he left on this trip. It was still tough to be faced with the concrete reality of it.

Tsuna's hands clamped tighter on the windowsill as his cellphone rang, and then he carefully dug it out of his pocket. "Hello?"

"Tenth! How are you? How was it? They said we'll be setting out to meet you any minute now!" said Gokudera. There was a distant, cheerful "Hi, Tsuna!" from Yamamoto.

"Get away, baseball idiot—" and after a few yells and crashes (and was that Lambo?), Gokudera repeated a little anxiously, "Tenth?"

"Aa? Well, it was..." Tsuna shifted to the right so he could get a little more sun. The word fine wasn't coming out, and he chewed his lip a second. "...Better than I expected."