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Hayato dies before his heart stops beating.
Hayato dies when Tsuna - his boss, comrade, friend, family - dies.
Hayato blames himself as he sits next to Tsuna, whose face was pale yet still so awe-inspiring. He remembers as Tsuna wistfully told him to “Stop stressing, Hayato, everything will be just fine. I know it. After all, you’re not my right hand for nothing, right? Poor Dame-Tsuna couldn’t have gotten even half as far as he did without you by his side.”
He remembers the shame he felt when he couldn’t even manage to try and help save him, so shook up that he couldn’t call upon his meager amount of sun flames.
He remembers Tsuna’s death. He can’t tell if it was painful or peaceful or anything. Reborn trained Tsuna well enough that he knew any sort of discomfort would harm every single one of his guardians.
Hayato breaks anyway.
He spends the next years doing what he knows what Tsuna would want. He keeps the Vongola running. He stops some hopeful famiglias from trying to take over.
He dies, really dies, when he’s careless. A bullet shoots through his head, stopping the pain almost immediately.
He’s in limbo for an indefinite amount of time. He hopes that he will finally be able to see Tsuna once more, to have Tsuna smile softly at him and reprimand him for being so reckless.
Instead, he wakes to a woman with pink hair taking off goggles.
And then he promptly pukes.
(It’s the start of something great.)
It takes Hayato precisely a week to accept his situation. It’s filled with puking every time the woman with pink hair comes close, anger at the fact that he can’t seem to control his own body, and trying to find out more about this world.
It takes him another to finally start paying attention.
The new family he’s been born into seems relatively more… normal than anything he had experienced previously in life.
(He supposes nothing can really top his original childhood.)
The woman with pink hair seems to be his mother. Hayato is extremely suspicious of becoming attached to her, seeing as nine out of ten mothers seem to die before their children turn ten (in his experience, anyway).
However, he can’t dispute the fact that she seems to care strongly for him, which isn’t something entirely new to Hayato (Tsuna’s mother seemed determined to be a mother for everyone), but it’s still new to him how she seems to instinctively know what Hayato needs.
Her name is Hatsume Sozo and she’s just as energetic as Ryohei. On a bad day. Her hair is bubblegum pink (blessedly not quite the same shade as Bianchi’s is. Or, was.). Sozo spends the majority of their days cooing at Hayato and working in a room that Hayato is fifty percent sure is a welding shop.
He also has an older sister, who seems to be three years older than him. Her name is Ito and she seems determined to poke Hayato’s cheeks every time she appears. Her hair is also pink, although it seems to hold a metallic shade to it. She also has the curiosity only a three-year-old can have, constantly babbling on about this-or-that.
The Hatsume house seems to always be in perpetual motion. Whether it be going somewhere, creating something, eating, sleeping (albeit scarcely), the Hatsumes seem to always be doing some form of action.
Hayato quickly falls in love.
(It’s the third time it’s happened. First Tsuna, then Takeshi, and now the Hatsume family.)
(He tries not to think about the holes in his heart that he feels every time he thinks about his old family for too long.)
The months pass by quickly. It’s interesting how different his upbringing is in comparison to his Previous Life. In his Previous Life most of his time was spent with servants, tutors, or nannies that, while kind, could never replace having his parents around.
In this new, strange world, Hayato rarely ever doesn’t see at least one of his relatives at a time. Sozo is the most comforting presence, bringing him into the workshop of theirs and allowing him to watch as she tinkers with (non-lethal) gadgetry. Ito is next, occasionally watching over him as she finishes her schoolwork or watches TV.
By the time he’s two he’s got a good grasp of what’s up.
That is, how insane this new world is. He’s slightly glad that it was him who had reincarnated, not Takeshi, because he’s ninety-nine percent sure that he’d just laugh and talk about “the fun quirk game”.
Yet, despite how strange it is to see people who he had originally assumed to be U.M.A.s just casually walking through the streets, he quickly becomes accustomed to it. The first couple of years passes quickly enough, and he is careful to act as close to a toddler as possible.
Until he hears a worried Sozo talk to the absentee father (go figure) about how she’s scared that he’s not developing fast enough.
(His first words are “I love you,” of course, because he never said it enough in his Previous Life.)
Life is as normal as life can be for a while. He manages to impress Sozo and Ito with his genius, “learning” things quickly. They even allow him to tinker with some of the metal parts, albeit only the ones that they’re sure he can’t choke on.
It’s… nice, not having to worry about things. To just be able to live. He gets a baby sister this time, too, and is determined to take care of her like how he knows Bianchi always tried to.
His life is calm and entirely different from everything he’d known before. There’s no crazy maniacs attempting to kill him or his family, just homemade meals and family game nights.
Until one day, when the TV show that Sozo, Ito, small Mei, and him are watching together over dessert gets interrupted.
“Breaking news: Endeavor was recently admitted to a hospital after his son, Todoroki Tsunayoshi, had awakened his quirk. According to eyewitnesses, Endeavor had raised a hand against his wife, Todoroki Rei, and young Tsunayoshi had jumped in front of his mother, wreathed in flames, and proceeded to… ”
The news reported continues to drone on, but Hayato’s not listening.
Because they’re showing a picture of the Todoroki family and…
That’s Tsuna. His Tsuna. His boss, comrade, friend, and brother in all but blood.
(He doesn’t realize he’s crying until Sozo and Ito try to console him. He doesn’t realize he’s smiling until Ito comments on it.
He doesn’t realize that he has bright red flames encasing his hands until the couch cushions begin to disintegrate.)
…
(Let’s rewind real quick.)
…
Takeshi dies four times before he really, truly dies.
The first time is his mother’s death. It took a toll on him that followed through for years, until Tsuna had pulled him out of it in a dramatic fashion, letting Takeshi see how truly wonderful life could be once more.
The second time is Tsuna’s death. Takeshi looks back on that day and then promptly forces himself to not think about it. Hayato had done enough mourning for the both of them.
The third time is his father’s death. Takeshi spent the whole funeral staring at the casket, so starkly similar to the one he had buried his best friend in just a few months ago.
The fourth time is when Hayato dies.
(The next time he’s at the top of a roof, no one’s there to stop him from jumping. )
Dying feels horrible. He’s constantly hurting everywhere. He wonders if this is repayment for all the bad he did in the world before.
But then he wakes up gasping for breath with a teary-eyed, black-haired man above him. He’s awake enough to register the white walls (a hospital), the mobile unit above him that depicts different weather patterns, and the fact that everything hurts.
(“Dad?” Takeshi tries to say, but nothing comes out.)
“Takeshi? Takeshi? Oh, thank God… ”
Takeshi wishes that the world would allow him to die in peace. Instead of that happening, it seems that he’s been reincarnated in some different universe. At first he thought he was going crazy, seeing doctors and nurses with extra appendages. But he adjusts quick enough, like he always has.
After all, he was never the type to overreact. That was always Hayato and Tsuna’s jobs.
(His new body, attuned to his emotions, can’t stop crying for over an hour after that thought.)
The first few months that he’s awake and aware of his surroundings he spends in a hospital, with the man who he finds out is Mirio Nen. A black-haired, always smiling presence. He soothes Takeshi when his body gets the best of him and he cries. He’s there when the various doctors come and go, doing tests and administering medicine.
Takeshi tries to not get attached, tries to not care, but it’s hard not to. It’s hard to not love the man who’s always there for him, always a pillar of love and strength even as Takeshi’s small baby body seems to be trying its best to kill him.
It’s a whole year into his new life that he finally gets better, healthy enough that he can finally, finally leave the hospital. Nen takes him and brings them back to his house. He watches the buildings outside as they pass, taking in this new world that he hadn’t been able to see in the hospital.
They arrive at a modern looking house, vastly different from the traditional house that he and his dad had before.
(Takeshi supposes that at least his new life is nice enough to give him that.)
But his happy mood quickly plummets when they cross through the front door and are greeted with the sight of a blond woman, beer bottle and cigarette in her hands, yelling at a crying baby as she watches TV.
Nen reacts appropriately. The woman is quickly divorced and their belongings distributed. (Nen gains guardianship of both him and his older brother, Mirio.)
Things quiet down, after that. He learns about the world he’s in more, about quirks and how his father has a quirk that allows him to permeate through solid objects. He watches as his brother awakens his quirk, and decides that he’ll become a hero.
He watches as his new father begins to spiral before Takeshi tries his hardest to bring him back up. Simple things like pretending to speak baby babble and smiling up innocently at him, always. It’s what he knows he’s good at, at least.
(“Da! Da!” Takeshi gurgles. He pretends to not see Nen’s tears as he replies.
“Yeah, Takeshi, I’m your Dada… ”)
Takeshi tries to hide his sorrow, his depression, but Nen and Mirio seem to notice anyway. They don’t understand, not really, but they do know that the new member of their family seems to carry a sense of sadness even as he smiles up at them.
The doctors try to write it off as residual mental pain from the illness that he suffered as a newborn, but Takeshi knows that’s not it.
It’s a good enough excuse, though.
And sometimes, sometimes Takeshi can’t help but yearn for Tsuna’s smile or one of his and Hayato’s arguments. Can’t help but crave for one of Kyoya’s fights, Ryohei’s intensity, Lambo’s crying, one of Chrome’s rare and fleeting smiles, or even Rokudo’s creepy laugh.
It’s at times like those that Nen and Mirio play with him more. It’s at times like those that Mirio’s determination to become a hero allows Takeshi to pretend like he’s just another baby, one that isn’t the reincarnation of a mafia member who couldn’t even protect those closest to him.
(Slowly but surely those times begin to drop off, going from daily to weekly to monthly.)
(Sometimes, Takeshi sees Dad in place of Nen. Sees Tsuna when Mirio smiles just right, or Ryohei when he’s exclaiming about wanting to be a hero, or, or, or….
Times like that it’s hard to look at them for a few minutes afterward.)
Altogether, it’s a nice life. No mother, but Takeshi’s used to that, and Nen and Mirio are great people. A great family.
It’s half a year after his fourth birthday (the year that he’s supposed to get his quirk) and Mirio and Nen are nervous over the fact that he might be quirkless. They try to hide it and while that might have worked for an actual baby, it doesn’t work on Takeshi. Nen and Mirio suggest that they grab some ice cream and head over to the park to go play to ignore the elephant in the room.
It’s while they’re walking to the park that he sees it.
“Breaking news: Endeavor was recently admitted to a hospital after his son, Todoroki Tsunayoshi, had awakened his quirk. According to eyewitnesses, Endeavor had raised a hand against his wife, Todoroki Rei, and young Tsunayoshi had jumped in front of his mother, wreathed in flames, and proceeded to… ”
Then Tsuna’s face arrives on the screen.
Takeshi drops his ice cream. Nen’s concerned question doesn’t register to him. Mirio, who’s holding his hand suddenly lets go, as though he’s been burned. The world around him starts to freak out, but he doesn’t know why.
Then Takeshi looks down and sees that his hands are encased in vividly familiar blue flames.
And he smiles.