Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The moon was huge tonight. It hung high in the sky, bathing Namimori in silver light. Streets touched by the moon looked almost ethereal, glowing faintly. Elsewhere, where the moon’s light couldn’t reach, darkness reigned supreme. An alley, absent of light, hid a young boy. He was tall for his age and stood up straight, patrolling the area with purpose. Kyoya was on the hunt tonight. He scanned the alley carefully, eyes taking in every shadowed detail; the spilled rubbish, the broken glass, and what seemed to be an illegal dumping of someone’s unwanted couch. Making a note of it, he turned on his heel. If the perpetrator was nearby, Kyoya would punish them.

Alas, this night was quiet and still. The perpetrator remained a mystery for another day, and the local yakuza had long since learned not to disturb Namimori’s peace lest they suffer the humiliation of being beaten by a eight year old  boy; they were little more than an illegal gambling club now, although they did host (equally illegal) fighting competitions. Kyoya would not take part in such activities. His desire to fight was always scratched by punishing herbivores who dared break his rules in his territory. Tonight, there were no such rulebreakers, so he was restless. He gripped his tonfa tightly, determined to remain on the prowl. It was a weekend, so Kyoya was free to hunt until daybreak if he wished without having to worry about his mother and father making a fuss about how he was going to fall asleep at school. Perhaps, if he found a good enough fight, his tonfa would become damaged; this pair were only wooden, because his parents thought it best that he didn’t carry metal tonfa in public. Parents were so restrictive. If his tonfa were to suffer damage, they would surely see sense.

Kyoya stopped behind a house, just to rest for a moment, and was startled when the door creaked open. Another boy, younger and far, far shorter than himself, stood in the doorway. As if in a daze, the boy stepped forward, shoeless. He walked like he had a concussion or had perhaps indulged in drinks he wasn’t old enough for, swaying from side to side precariously.

“Herbivore, stop. Go to bed or you will be bitten to death.” Kyoya warned.

The boy walked further still, giving no indication the Kyoya’s words were heard beyond a mumbled, “bitten?” He repeated the word, whispering it over and over with more and more surety, showing no sign of the fear Kyoya expected from a young herbivore. Eyes narrowed, Kyoya jumped over the garden’s wall. This only seemed to excite the boy, who smiled dreamily at him. His teeth caught the moonlight and shone brightly, longer and sharper than they ought to be. Kyoya did not know there was another carnivore within his age range in Namimori. Pleased by the prospect, he rushed forward, intending to strike first with his left and then with his right. Stumbling, the boy avoided the first strike, but took the second to his ribs without even seeming to notice. Strange. Kyoya knew he hit hard – grown men had cried and crumpled to the ground after being struck by him. Quicker than Kyoya’s own reflects, the boy’s hands shot out, grabbing his arm. The boy made no move to pry his tonfa from him, instead pulling Kyoya’s arm to his mouth even as he bore a blow to his shoulder. Teeth sank into the flesh of his wrist and all at once the fight fell away from Kyoya. Something was being pulled from him and the boy gulped it down eagerly, with all the greed of a starved dog. It was strange, the pulling. Kyoya didn’t know quite how to describe it. Almost like getting blood drawn at the hospital, but distinctly different in a way that make his insides roil, weary and wary yet pleased by the boy’s competence.

By the time the boy’s hunger was sated, Kyoya was the one who was swaying; his tonfa had fallen to the ground, because even just the task of holding things was exhausting at the moment. The boy pulled away from him, suddenly awake and aware, staring at him with wide terrified eyes. “Hibari-senpai!” He yelped, terrified of him as an herbivore ought to be, but this boy wasn’t an herbivore.

“What did you do to me, little carnivore?” He demanded, trying to no avail to stand up straight.

Something purple rolled down his wrist, escaping from the twin holes in his skin. The boy followed it with his eyes but seemed to have discovered reservations about taking from Kyoya. Scowling, he held up his wrist and the boy gaped. “What is this?”

“I, um… It’s fire, I think?” The boy stammered like the herbivore he pretended to be, entirely entrenched in his disguise.

It was a clever one. He mustn’t have found his strength yet, therefore he hid so that bigger predators did not eat him. Not all carnivores were born like Kyoya, rearing and ready to carve out territory with a swathe of blood. Some were born small and fluffy, slowly growing into ferocious beasts. An excited shiver ran down his spine. As much as Kyoya enjoyed crushing herbivores beneath his heel, he longed for better, more thrilling fights; his parents refused to fight him seriously, as did his infuriating uncle. If he helped this little carnivore gain strength, he could have his better fights. Perhaps the boy would be useful in enforcing Namimori’s peace, too. Taking this boy under his wing would serve him well in the long run and protect the herbivores; Kyoya doubted they would handle the boy’s feeding as well as he had. Besides, Kyoya’s gut instinct had been pleased by the boy’s strength sapping skill rather than threatened. His gut had yet to fail him; if it said the Little Carnivore was important to him, then so he was. “You will explain later, Little Carnivore.” Kyoya decided, then, “Do not waste the… ‘fire’.”

Nervously, watching him for any sign that he had changed his mind, the boy leaned up on his tiptoes to press his face against Kyoya’s wrist. His tongue darted out and the taste of the purple substance seemed to steal away his hesitance. When his skin was thoroughly cleaned of any sign of the substance, the boy turned to licking the bitemarks he had left behind. It was almost like being groomed by a kitten, Kyoya thought, not without amusement. Yes, he was keeping this Little Carnivore.

Tsuna drifted. He was warm and comfortable, safe in his blanket nest. Rubbing his cheek against his pillow, he breathed in deeply – Kaa-san must be up, because he could smell eggs and bacon sizzling – and stretched. A sharp pain shot through his torso and Tsuna’s eyes snapped open, his hands coming to rest against his ribs, which his shoulder protested about rather loudly. The skin was tender; the slightest touch made him tear up. Kicking his blankets away from him, he stumbled to his feet to get a look at his new bruise with the bathroom mirror (it felt like one of the purple ones, which always hurt the worst). Instead of his carpet, his feet touched something springy like a futon. He looked down.

The Hibari Kyoya, the demon of Namimori, was in his bedroom. Sleeping peacefully on what was, indeed, a futon. Squeezing his eyes shut, Tsuna counted to five, sure that when he opened his eyes reality would reassert itself and Hibari-senpai would not be in his bedroom anymore. His bruised ribs said otherwise; when Tsuna opened his eyes, Hibari-senpai was still there and, even worse, he was awake. Alarmed, Tsuna flailed, falling back into bed in an effort to get as far away from Hibari-senpai as possible.

“Little carnivore -” Tsuna squeaked “- you will explain.”

Tsuna had no idea how to explain this. Shouldn’t Hibari-senpai be explaining why he was in Tsuna’s room? Unbidden, it occurred to him that Hibari-senpai might have decided to expand his territory, starting with Tsuna’s bedroom, and he squeaked, falling further backwards to press his back against the wall. The softness of his blanket brushed against his flailing limbs and he grabbed onto it, pulling it over his head in effort to pretend Hibari-senpai was not in his bedroom. “Little carnivore.” Hibari-senpai warned.

A weight sank into the mattress beside him. Hands settled on top of his head for a moment, which was almost reassuring until suddenly his blanket was pried away from him, leaving him exposed. “You will explain last night.” Commanded Hibari-senpai.

“Last night?” Mumbled Tsuna, brow furrowed with confusion.

Had he met Hibari-senpai last night? Was that why Hibari-senpai was in his room? Everyone knew it was best to just do as told when it came to Hibari-senpai (unless you wanted to be bitten to death), so he tried his best to think. It took Tsuna ages to fall sleep last night; he kept tossing and turning, still unused to the omnipresent hunger pangs. His stomach felt as if it were trying to eat itself and it grumbled furiously even though it was full. Food didn’t satisfy Tsuna these days. Yet, when he fell asleep… He had been full in a different way, one that satisfied. He was still full now, for the first time in weeks. How did that happen? His eyes went wide, “I bit you!”

Hibari-senpai stared at him as if to say, obviously, now get on with it. “Um, Hibari-senpai has fire. L – like Papa and Nono…” He swallowed. “Tsu-kun had fire, too. But they stole it. And now I’m hungry all the time. But Hibari-senpai’s fire made me better!”

Hibari-senpai continued to stare him. His skin prickled, and he ducked his head so Hibari-senpai couldn’t see him cry. Had Tsuna stolen his senpai’s fire? Was Hibari-senpai going to feel cold and hungry all the time too? That was… Tsuna didn’t want that. Right now, he was warm, but when he was cold it was more like Cold with a capital C. It sank down past his skin and bones into his very soul, leaving him numb and slow. His fire was extinguished, and his body didn’t like it, didn’t respond like it was his. Some days, Tsuna thought, rather hysterically, that maybe someone else was controlling his body and that was why his movements were so jerky. Papa and Nono had ruined his life, and now he’d ruined Hibari-senpai’s!

“Little carnivore.”

Tsuna jumped, startled by the sound of Hibari-senpai’s voice. He looked up. Maybe his vision was just obscured by tears, but it almost looked like Hibari-senpai was angry. There was steel in his eyes, tension in his frame. “I will protect you from bigger carnivores. You will teach me about this fire.”

A sob escaped his throat. Overcome with emotion, tears streamed freely down his face; Tsuna could barely see as he latched onto his senpai, cheek pressed against his chest, and cried. Hibari-senpai was rigid, solid like a rock. Slowly, awkwardly, Hibari-senpai’s hand came to rest on his head.

Kaa-san was magic. It was a truth Tsuna had long since accepted, because there was no other explanation for how Kaa-san was the way she was. Once, a man moved into the neighbourhood and came to introduce himself; by the time Kaa-san was finished with him, she knew what kind of food he couldn’t eat, his favourite foods, his hated foods, and his dinner plans for the next fortnight. Despite this, he was surprised when he was shouted downstairs to discover the table was set for three and there was a gleam in her eyes. “Is Tsu-kun’s friend staying for breakfast?” Kaa-san asked, bouncing on her heels.

How did she know Hibari-senpai was present? Tsuna hadn’t even known until he almost tripped over him. Kaa-san was magic. Some sort of goddess. Probably a cooking goddess, or a goddess of knowing things about her son that he didn’t even know, like his apparent friendship with Hibari-senpai.  “Um,” Tsuna swallowed.

Kaa-san clapped her hands together. “Wonderful! Does he like eggs and bacon?”

Hibari-senpai, as it turned out, did not like eggs and bacon. He scowled at his plate as if it had personally offended him. While Tsuna sweated, Kaa-san asked calmly, “Is there something wrong, Hibari-kun?”

Hibari-senpai stabbed the egg’s yolk and watched it run. Tsuna had the most unfortunate impression that he wished it was blood. Suddenly terrified Hibari-senpai was about to demand the blood of his enemies for breakfast, Tsuna opened his mouth to say something – anything - but was cut off. “I don’t eat western style food.”

“Ara, how patriotic! So cute!” Kaa-san clapped her hands together again, clearly delighted to have an excuse to cook even more food. “Is omurice okay, Hibari-kun?”

Hibari-senpai grunted, which Tsuna supposed was Hibari-senpai-speak for acceptable, puny mortal and wondered if he ought to tell Hibari-senpai that Kaa-san was a goddess. No, probably not. Kaa-san got embarrassed when people complimented her, even though she deserved it because she was magic and also the best. Tsuna decided just to eat his rice and hope Hibari-senpai didn’t decide to bite them both to death.

Hibari-senpai wanted to know everything Tsuna knew about the fire, which wasn’t a lot. He told him, haltingly, about orange burning beneath his skin, about how it once obeyed his every whim with but a thought.

“Tsu-kun could make it dance across my hands!” He told Hibari-senpai proudly, holding out his hand with his palm facing up, as if his fire really would burst into existence.

It didn’t. His skin itched and a lump formed in his throat. There was supposed to be fire here, warm and homely and his, but it was gone. The reminder that it was gone was almost unbearable. Tsuna sniffled, opened his mouth to continue, except –

In the centre of Tsuna’s palm, so tiny and faint he could barely see it, a wisp of orange defied the odds with a gentle glow.

“Wao,” Hibari-senpai breathed, eyes zeroing in on Tsuna’s little ember with an intensity that ought to be terrifying.

Tsuna himself held his breath, worried that if he dared to so much as breathe the fire would dissipate and he would be Cold again. “Tsu-kun’s fire was brighter,” he told Hibari-senpai, “And bigger! Oranger! Is oranger a word?”

“More vibrant,” corrected Hibari-senpai, without taking his eyes off the fire.

Even though he was a demon, his presence was actually really reassuring. Tsuna was tempted to press against his side and leach his warmth like a clingy little brother, but if he did that he would definitely be bitten to death; Hibari-senpai’s hatred of crowding was infamous, after all. One of the boys in Tsuna’s class said that Hibari-senpai broke his older brother’s arm just for bumping into him! It was pretty scary, but Hibari-senpai had promised to protect him. Papa and Nono would be bitten to death if they dared to return, and Tsuna wasn’t going to visit them in the hospital until they said they were very sorry.

The fire liked that thought and it blazed, strengthened by his belief in Hibari-senpai, his faith that Hibari-senpai would protect him. His fire crackled, getting almost as big as it used to when Tsu-kun used it as a night light, then suddenly disappeared. Tsuna’s face fell and his knees shook, giving way beneath him. “You are tired?” Hibari-senpai questioned.

“Tired,” Tsuna agreed, relaxing into a heap on the carpet.

For just a single moment, he could have sworn he felt something. Something that felt sharp and cold but not Cold, endlessly determined, possessive and furious. A thirst for blood carefully hiding loneliness, the almost fully quashed longing for a flock or hunting pack. The feeling of mine-mine-mine and the obsessive drive to protect. It felt like Hibari-senpai, scary and nice all at once. Just as quickly as Tsuna felt it, it was gone, leaving him hollow and disappointed.

“It is nap time,” Hibari-senpai decided and Tsuna was too tired to remind him they’d only just eaten breakfast a couple of minutes ago, “Do not wake me, little carnivore, or I will bite you to death.”

When Kyoya woke, the sun’s position in the sky suggested it was past noon. Most likely, his parents were losing their minds at the moment. Rather vindictively, he hoped they believed him kidnapped; as much as the idea was a blow to his pride, it would aid him in convincing them to permit him to carry metal tonfa in public. Due to a history of smacking friendship candidates over the head with his tonfa during arranged playdates, it was unlikely they would believe he had stayed the night at someone else’s house. Was the Little Carnivore a friend? A pet project, he decided. Something to amuse himself with, until the Little Carnivore’s fangs and claws were sharp enough to threaten Kyoya. Maybe then they could be friends. Kyoya was fairly sure friends tried to kill each other. Haha-ue’s friends certainly tried to kill her. She was going to be so proud of him for finding someone with friendship potential. Maybe, as a treat, she would let him hunt in her own territory, where the herbivores were more dangerous and came closer to threatening Kyoya’s life. The idea made his blood sing.

Curiously, the mark on Kyoya’s wrist where the Little Carnivore had bit him had disappeared. Nothing remained to even suggest Kyoya had been bitten, not a single blemish. Neither was there any pain. This strength sapping skill was rather bizarre. If Kyoya were to ask Haha-ue about the Little Carnivore’s fire and its connection to the strength sapping skill, he had no doubts she would be able to explain it in depth and even teach him how control his own fire like the Little Carnivore. Kyoya refused to ask, because he was eight and that was far too old to be relying on his mother for everything. He and the Little Carnivore would puzzle this out together. Perhaps Kyoya ought to acquire some lab rats; the Little Carnivore was awfully distressed to have bitten him, but Kyoya wanted to conduct some tests. Someone needed to feed him, anyway, and it wasn’t like his herbivore mother was doing anything about his hunger. Kyoya suspected she hadn’t even noticed the hunger. Honestly, herbivores.

Departing the Little Carnivore’s den without comment, Kyoya began the journey home. It was a long walk; home was on the outermost edges of his territory, and most of the building was actually on Haha-ue’s territory instead. The long walk didn’t bother Kyoya. Although some fatigue lingered, his long rest in the Little Carnivore’s den had replenished his energy. This was a good opportunity to patrol his territory in the daylight and to make plans. A young cub’s first hunting trip was very important. A formative experience that the Little Carnivore had almost missed out on; the Little Carnivore was past the age when Haha-ue had taken Kyoya out to survey her territory, explained which herbivores were within his skill range and which posed a danger to him, like the ‘police’ who were meant to deal with rule breaking (they did so far less efficiently than Haha-ue, but their weapons were dangerous). There were no police in Kyoya’s territory, only yakuza and retired Mafiosi. Still, this was not an excuse to get sloppy. He had plans to make, and a cub to raise.

Now, where could Kyoya acquire adoption forms?

Chapter Text

Sometimes, Tetsuya liked to pause and take a moment. He used that moment to breathe, to relax, to just ask himself, is this normal? Was it normal that every sensible adult he knew lived in fear of an eight-year-old boy? Was it normal for kids his age to dismantle the local organised crime with terrifying efficiency and re-organise it to suit themselves? Was anything in his life normal?

No, screamed the part of him that was an ordinary young boy, the part of him that had discovered he was the heir to a tiny yakuza clan ran by his uncle and despaired.

It is what it is, shrugged the rest of him, the parts of him that knew from the moment he laid eyes on him that he would follow Hibari Kyoya to his death. It was kind of terrifying, but the terror got easier and easier to squash every day. Every time Kyo-san did something inexplicable, he recovered just a little quicker than last time. However, his reason for pausing right now was more extreme than usual.

“Ah, Kyo-san,” He started, and Kyo-san grunted to show he was listening, “I don’t think you can adopt Sawada as a pet.”

Kyo-san stared at him, obviously unimpressed. One hand inched towards a tonfa and Tetsuya rushed to explain before he was bitten for his hubris, “I mean, I’m pretty sure it’s illegal to keep humans as pets, Kyo-san. Maybe you could adopt Sawada as something else?”

Kyo-san frowned at him and now both hands were inching towards tonfa. “The Little Carnivore is mine,” Kyo-san announced. “Anyone who gets in my way will be bitten to death.”

That was all fine and dandy, except Tetsuya had no idea how he was going to convince anyone to accept such paperwork. “I understand, Kyo-san.”

He really, really didn’t. From Tetsuya’s point of view, there was nothing about Sawada that could spark Kyo-san’s interest, except from maybe the way kids crowded around him to make sure he knew how much they disliked him. But that would earn him Kyo-san’s ire, and whatever interest Kyo-san had in Sawada definitely wasn’t an angry interest. Not when Kyo-san was trying to adopt him as his pet cat. Maybe it was Sawada’s fluffiness, Tetsuya decided. Unbelievable as it was, Kyo-san was incredibly fond of all things small and fuzzy. Sawada definitely fit the bill there; he was sure if they measured everyone in school, they would find that Sawada was indisputably the shortest, and his hair was more like tufts of fluff than actual hair. It was kind of horrifying to think about Kyo-san being fond of another human being but thinking of Sawada as a cat made it easier to handle. “His father is absent. Replace him,” Kyo-san instructed.

He was gone before Tetsuya could finish choking on air.

If one were to ask Tsuna for a list of reasons why school was the worst thing ever, his heart wouldn’t be in it today. Any other day, he could regale you with reasons why school was torturous and a punishment he didn’t wish on anyone except maybe his Papa. Today, though, he stared listlessly at the blackboard. Chalk dust tickled his nose; the room was thick with it because Sensei kept throwing the duster at everyone for not paying attention. Particularly him, because although he looked at the blackboard, he didn’t really see it and he didn’t really hear anything Sensei said beyond sounds he vaguely recognised were probably words. Right now, chalk squeaked across the board as Sensei drew out sums. Supposedly, the sums were simple, but just looking at them made his head spin. That might just be the hunger, though.

Last night, Tsuna went to bed hungry, thinking about light and airy purple fire. He thought about sinking his teeth into Hibari-senpai’s wrist, thought about challenging Hibari-senpai to a fight, and thought about how if he did any of those things he would definitely die. It wouldn’t be worth it. It wouldn’t be worth it, yet he was so, so tempted to try. That night, in his dreams, he stalked his senpai like an animal. Hid in shadows, crawled towards him slowly, pounced when the time was right. Hibari-senpai struggled, but he was like a bird with trapped wings; there was no escape. Eventually, he stilled, craned his neck, and Tsuna feasted on fire and blood alike. He woke as if from a nightmare, covered in sweat with a scream caught in his throat, and tried not to think about the tangy taste of blood in his mouth. That morning, Tsuna went to school hungry.

He was hungry now, too. Every now and again the siren sweetness of purple fire drew nearer until it became so overwhelming, he couldn’t even smell the chalk dust. Outside the classroom, Hibari-senpai walked past, footsteps echoing in the empty hallway. Tsuna wasn’t sure what it actually was Hibari-senpai did during his patrols, but he wished he could join in. Anything for a chance to be full again, to be warm again.

“Sawada-kun,” Sensei said, in the kind of voice he used when he was starting to feel really annoyed but didn’t want to shout, “Will you pay attention if I shut the windows?”

Tsuna jerked, looking about as if to ask who told Sensei he was shivering. “I’m sorry,” he said, “I’m always cold.”

Sensei shut the windows anyway. It didn’t help.

The Little Carnivore’s grade ate lunch at a different time from Kyoya’s grade, but that was a trivial obstacle for a carnivore such as himself. It was his fourth year at Namimori Elementary, and the staff were well trained by now; when Kyoya decreed it was his lunchtime, the herbivore stationed to watch the class merely nodded, and asked if he would be returning before class ended.

“No,” Kyoya said, and that was that.

He found the Little Carnivore seated in an empty classroom, hunched over a bento box which he picked at without much interest. Kyoya supposed the Little Carnivore’s human body couldn’t survive on stolen strength alone, but food wasn’t satisfying. No matter. Care of one’s pets was important and Kyoya endeavoured to be a good pet owner. “Little Carnivore,” he greeted, watching the way the Little Carnivore jumped to attention and cradled his bento possessively.

Did herbivores steal his food? Kyoya would need to look into that. “You aren’t supposed to be here.”

The Little Carnivore’s breathing quickened. “I know! I know. I, um, I’m supposed to be in the cafeteria. I know! But – but! Everyone laughs at me. And… stuff. It’s easier to eat here.”

Kyoya didn’t dignify that with a response. Instead, he grabbed the Little Carnivore by the arm, turned on his heel, and strode out of the classroom. As expected, the Little Carnivore followed behind with little fuss, although he did wail about how he was too young to die. Kyoya would soon train him out of that – it was rather undignified, and inappropriate behaviour for a carnivore. For now, he was Kyoya’s Little Carnivore and Kyoya would provide for him, but one day he would need to defend his own territory and find his own food.

Years one, two, and three were packed into the cafeteria with little space to spare. Young herbivores shrieked and screamed, for no discernible reason beyond the sheer joy of being loud. As they drew near, the Little Carnivore curled in on himself, eyes wide with panic. If not for the racket of herbivores, Kyoya suspected he would be able to heart his heart pounding in his chest. Something close to silence fell as they entered the room; although they were quiet and whispered in hushed voices, herbivores seemed incapable of complete silence. He directed the Little Carnivore to the centre of the cafeteria to make his announcement, as per Tetsuya’s suggestion. The ways of herbivores escaped Kyoya, but Tetsuya was an omnivore and could be relied on to deliver sound advice in herbivorous behaviour.

The Game was slow today, and Takeshi was bored. At least, he had been bored, right up until Namimori’s Great and Powerful God descended upon the cafeteria with one of his classmates in tow. Sometimes Hibari-senpai liked to make examples of the background characters during lunch to serve as a deterrent to other rulebreakers, but not often; the cafeteria was too crowded and full of ‘herbivores’ for his liking. His choice of example was strange, though. For all that Sawada-kun refused to sink into the background, he didn’t really do anything to stand out. He was just there, drifting along like a leaf caught in the breeze. As far as Takeshi could tell, his most noticeable feature was being off sick all the time. This didn’t matter to the background characters; they grinned, whispering to each other about how “no-good Tsuna” was really going to get it. Takeshi didn’t really understand that, but he smiled at them all the same. Sawada-kun was just easy to hate, apparently.

“The Little Carnivore is mine,” Hibari-senpai declared, and just about everyone blanched.

Takeshi continued smiling, and he thought it might even reach his eyes this time. A new development! The Rules of the Game were changing, which was more than exciting enough to make up for a boring day. “An attack on the Little Carnivore is an attack on me,” continued Hibari-senpai, staring at the room as if daring them to comment.

“I’m going to die,” groaned Ichikawa-kun from baseball club.

There was a chorus of agreements. Under this new Rule, it seemed an awful lot of people had inadvertently attacked Hibari-senpai. That ought to distract him for a few days. Maybe, if Takeshi was lucky, Hibari-senpai would be too distracted to notice when early morning baseball practice made him late to school. Takeshi had had enough bruised ribs to last a lifetime.

Sawada-kun didn’t project his voice as well as Hibari-senpai, possibly because he looked scared witless and also wasn’t trying to, so Takeshi had to strain to hear him. The wails of the doomed souls around him didn’t help, either. “I, um… Hibari-senpai, can I go have lunch now?” Sawada-kun requested meekly.

Hibari-senpai grunted something in response and somehow, Sawada-kun’s eyes managed to get even wider. It was kind of impressive. “T – thank you, senpai!” Stammered Sawada-kun, looking at Hibari-senpai as if he hung the moon in the sky.

That wasn’t the generally accepted way to look at Hibari-senpai. Most people looked at him like he was an unholy terror that crawled out of their worst nightmare. To the background characters, this seemed to reinforce that fact that suffering was imminent. “A carnivore,” Tomita-kun (not from baseball club, although his batting was pretty good) whined, “Why is no-good-Tsuna a carnivore? I’m so dead!”

Despite his reputation as a merciless paragon of school discipline, Hibari-senpai didn’t force Tsuna to eat in the cafeteria. In fact, he anticipated that Tsuna wouldn’t want to eat there, and dragged him out of the room while his head was still spinning. Too overwhelmed to so much as think, Tsuna stumbled after him and was led into a mostly empty classroom. The only other person inside was Kusakabe Tetsuya, who didn’t stand out much but was renowned regardless as Hibari-senpai’s property. “Kyo-san!” Kusakabe-senpai jumped to attention at the sight of him, then acknowledged, “Oh, Sawada.”

Tsuna trembled. What kind of almighty being was Kusakabe-senpai, to refer to the demon Hibari Kyoya as Kyo-san and live to tell the tale? “Secretary,” Hibari-senpai returned coolly, “You tried to tell me what I can and cannot do today.”

Kusakabe-senpai’s face fell. His mouth opened and closed rapidly, like he was trying to think of something to say, something to save himself, but all that came out was, “I’m sorry, Kyo-san.”

This did not appease Hibari-senpai, because Hibari-senpai was a force of nature and could not pacified by normal human means. “Offer the Little Carnivore your wrist,” ordered Hibari-senpai, and Kusakabe-senpai did so at once.

Saliva pooled in Tsuna’s mouth. Unthinking, he took a step forward. “Can I…?” He trailed off, watching Kusakabe-senpai unbutton the cuff of his sleeve to expose skin.

He’d always thought it was weird that veins were blue. Kusakabe-senpai’s skin wasn’t as pale as Hibari-senpai’s, but his veins stood out all the same. If Tsuna were to bite him, would he taste blood, or fire? Kusakabe-senpai didn’t smell like purple fire. No-one but Hibari-senpai did. His scent was different, something that Tsuna couldn’t really pick out and describe without a hint. “Bite, Little Carnivore,” Hibari-senpai said, and Tsuna practically floated across the room to obey.

The muscles in Kusakabe-senpai’s arm tensed at his touch, but Kusakabe-senpai didn’t pull away, not even when Tsuna bit down. It wasn’t blood that rushed into his mouth, but something sharp and tingly. Sour, but not in a bad way, just enough to feel almost like Kusakabe-senpai was fighting back. He wasn’t, though; Kusakabe-senpai slumped against a desk, shaking ever so slightly, but didn’t try to pull away or push Tsuna off. That was good. The sweetness of the purple fire made it Tsuna’s favourite, but the sour fire was really tasty too. It made him feel sated in a way no amount of food could. By the time Hibari-senpai was pulling at his shoulder, telling him firmly, “That’s enough, Little Carnivore,” Tsuna felt as if he’d eaten a really big lunch. Even without Hibari-senpai’s interruption, he didn’t think he could eat much more.

Kusakabe-senpai smiled weakly, fingers fumbling with the button of his cuff. He looked kind of like the people on tv did, the ones who ran for miles and miles and had to be wrapped in shiny blankets afterwards. Guilt coiled in Tsuna’s stomach even as something within him beamed; if anyone was silly enough to attack him despite Hibari-senpai’s promise, he would be able to defend himself and chase away the Cold at the same time!

“Electricity,” mused Hibari-senpai, staring at Kusakabe-senpai with something like wonder in his eyes.

He was probably talking about Kusakabe-senpai’s own fire, which didn’t look like fire at all but like little sparks of green lightning. Small remnants bzzt’d around Kusakabe-senpai’s wrist, but Tsuna didn’t dare ask if he could eat them. He’d violated his senpai enough already. “Little Carnivore, you will research this.” Hibari-senpai commanded, and Tsuna was nodding in agreement before he could even stop to think.

“…How do I do that?” He asked, in a small voice, after a moment of silence.

Kusakabe-senpai smiled at him, which make his stomach tie itself into knots even more aggressively. “Have you ever been to a library, Sawada?”

The library wasn’t a pretty one. It resided in a squat, ugly grey building with tiny windows that seemed to trap light outside rather than let it in. Tsuna hadn’t been to a library before and didn’t even know what a library was until Hibari-senpai told him to research the fire, but he was fairly sure this library wasn’t a good one. The dinginess made it feel rather unwelcoming, and he was kind of worried that if he touched something, a sentient swarm of dust would eat him alive. Kaa-san had no such concerns; she waved him off cheerily, telling him to go explore while she talked to the librarian about getting him a library card. He didn’t want to let go of Kaa-san’s hand because by this point, he was a tiny bit convinced she was the only thing anchoring him to the human plane of existence but at her insistence he took a step away from her. It was terrifying and awful and Tsuna wanted to go home right now immediately please. The second step wasn’t better, nor was the third. By the fourth, he began to push past his panic into a kind of hysterical calm. Everything was fine. The world was ending and that was okay because the world had already been ending for weeks now. He was used to the world ending. It was just a regular occurrence. Like dying.

Remarkably, Tsuna didn’t die during his frenzied exploration of the library, and the library failed to come alive to devour him. He was tempted to call this a success and ask Kaa-san to take him home, but Hibari-senpai wanted information and although he apparently liked Tsuna to publicly claim him as his property, Tsuna was still rather terrified of him. He still couldn’t quite believe that Hibari-senpai had been in his room, that Hibari-senpai had been actually kind of nice to him, and that he had survived. If it weren’t for Kaa-san’s excitement over his first friend and the lingering taste of fire on his tongue, Tsuna wouldn’t have actually believed it. It was even more terrifying now than it had been when Hibari-senpai was actually present, because at the time he was so caught up in the promise to protect him he didn’t consider that Hibari-senpai was a demon and also probably wanted to eat his soul.

After his encounters with Hibari-senpai, talking to regular human beings should have been easy. It still made Tsuna’s heart race so fast he could hear it hammering around inside his head, desperate for him to just run away and stop making a fool of himself. Especially when the regular human beings were his age and also angry at him.

“Hahi, Haru-chan needs that book!” Insisted the most outlandishly dressed girl he had ever seen.

She was clad in a bright red bus costume, complete with spinning wheels and plastic windows. How on Earth did she navigate the library dressed like that? Tsuna was tiny and he had bumped into the shelves more than once, but the bus costume was long enough and wide enough that Haru-chan should have been stuck between the bookshelves! “Why are you a bus?” Tsuna asked weakly, tempted to just shove the book into her hands and run away to the safety of Kaa-san’s side.

He couldn’t do that. He needed this book; it was about yokai and magic, but it was from the section where all the true stuff was supposed to be, so that meant it was real. He was going to need Kaa-san’s help to read it, but it seemed like the only way to follow Hibari-senpai’s instructions to research the fire. “Haru-chan is cosplaying!” The girl informed him, temporarily mollified by the topic.

Her face even stopped resembling a red pufferfish, which was nice. The way her cheeks were all puffed out was weirdly intimidating. “Um, that’s nice?” Tsuna tried, too afraid to tell her that he didn’t know what cosplaying was.

Haru-chan nodded solemnly, as if she had shared something great and sacred with him, then set her eyes on the book again. “Haru-chan needs that book for cosplaying,” She told him.

Tsuna had even less of an idea as to what cosplaying was than before. “Tsuna-kun needs this book so Hibari-senpai doesn’t kill me,” He said, then slapped a hand over his mouth.

His face felt warm, which would have been nice a couple of days ago but was just embarrassing now that Hibari-senpai had made the Cold go away. Seemingly oblivious to his mortification, Haru-chan considered this, rolling the wheels of her costume slowly, kind of like a weird bus version of a wise man stroking his beard. “Hahi, killing you wouldn’t be very nice of him,” She said, “Have you told your Kaa-chan? That’s what Haru-chan would do!”

Frantically, Tsuna shook his head. “Hibari-senpai is a demon,” He told her emphatically, and Haru-chan’s eyes lit up.

“A real yokai? Hahi, if Haru-chan lets Tsuna-kun have the book, can Haru-chan meet Hibari-san?”

That was an absolutely terrible idea. It was the worst idea anyone had ever suggested in the history of bad ideas. Hibari-senpai would definitely bite him to death if he tried to make him “crowd with herbivores”. Somehow, for reasons that made Tsuna feel like the ground was about to open up and swallow him whole, he had been deemed acceptable company, but he doubted that kindness would extend to Haru-chan. “He’d kill me,” Tsuna reiterated gravely, trying to convey the depth of how terrible Haru-chan’s idea was.

She paused. Frowned, for just a moment, at the floor. Then she looked up, grabbed Tsuna by the shoulders (“Hiee!”), and said, incredibly seriously, “Then Haru-chan will run him over!”

This was the second person today who promised to harm others for Tsuna’s sake and although Haru-chan was nowhere near as tall and imposing as Hibari-senpai, somehow, he just knew that if she deemed it necessary, she would make good on that promise. Alarmed, Tsuna squirmed out of her grasp, which was more difficult than anticipated. Haru-chan was actually pretty strong, which made her promise even worse. “Please don’t,” Tsuna pleaded, “You’d make him angry and then he’d bite you to death.”

Haru-chan huffed, throwing her hands up in the air as if Tsuna had said something unreasonable. “Yokai can’t just hurt anyone they want, Tsuna-kun! Hahi, you should call an exorcist!”

Tsuna had a horrifying mental image of a poor, innocent, misguided person suffering Hibari-senpai’s wrath for daring to talk him in an attempt to pray him away. His ribcage and shoulder ached sympathetically. That was the second terrible idea Haru-chan had had in the one conversation; she must have a talent for it. “Can we share? The book. Um, can we share the book?” He offered, since the more he talked about Hibari-senpai the less sure he was that Haru-chan was a regular human being, and he preferred not to think about how terrifying everyone around him was.

“Hahi?” She tilted her head, “Will Tsuna-kun come to Haru-chan’s house and read with her?”

Tsuna swallowed and forced a smile. It was okay. The world was ending, and it was okay. “That sounds nice, Haru-chan.”

Chapter Text

Although Tsuna had become increasingly convinced over the past few days that Haru-chan was, in fact, insane and thus not eligible for status as a regular human being, she was really nice now that she’d decided they were book buddies. Much like Tsuna, she didn’t have any other friends. Unlike Tsuna, she didn’t have any other friends because she was so good at ‘cosplaying’ that it scared people. He didn’t really understand that. Sure, it was pretty alarming to be suddenly confronted by an angry girl dressed as a bus, and it did kind of freak him out when she appeared outside his house in an Eiffel tower costume the next day, but it wasn’t that scary. Not once he got over the weirdness of it all, anyway. It was weird, but nowhere near as weird as people not liking Haru-chan just because she was good at something. People didn’t like Tsuna because he wasn’t good at anything. Did they just expect everyone to be average at everything, and get really disappointed when reality fell short? Maybe Hibari-senpai was right, and people really were stupid herbivores.

Horrified by his train of thought, Tsuna froze midstep, eyes wide. Did he really just think that? That was the way to madness!

“Tsuna-kun?” Haru-chan said, noticing that he wasn’t right beside her while she explained the many benefits of an emergency sewing kit (which apparently included improvisational weaponry, if the emergency was dire enough), “Are you okay?”

Raising his head skywards, Tsuna swallowed. He watched the clouds drift, in hopes of instilling some calm into himself, and answered, “I’m having a midlife crisis, Haru-chan.”

“Hahi, isn’t that for old men?”

Tsuna wondered if he ought to explain that he had made a deal with a demon, which probably meant he wasn’t going to live very long. In fact, saying that he was in the middle of his life was pretty generous. There was no way Tsuna was going to survive for another six years. To think otherwise was just arrogant. One day, perhaps in a few months’ time, Hibari-senpai was going to consume his soul. That was okay. Maybe, if Tsuna was lucky, he would die being just as terrifying as the people around him. After all, his previous train of thought suggested that being terrifying was contagious.

Between his usual patrols, punishing the young herbivores who dared to harm what was his, acquiring lab rats for his experiments, and threatening adult herbivores into accepting his legal claim to the Little Carnivore, Kyoya’s schedule was tightly packed. That was how he preferred things; boredom was a constant itch always looming on the horizon, but when Kyoya was kept busy he could almost forget about the monotonous drudgery of everyday life. His acquisition of the Little Carnivore had certainly brought some interest into his life, at least. He presented quite the conundrum.

The Little Carnivore was rather firmly stuck in his herbivorous camouflage, and reluctant to shed it. It was convincing, but Kyoya could not forget the hunger in those otherwise innocent eyes. It was the same hunger he saw reflected in the mirror, although his own hunger was for the rush of adrenaline and the thrill of conquest. The Little Carnivore’s hunger was strange, almost otherworldly, but it was a carnivore’s hunger all the same, so Kyoya would turn him into a respectable carnivore.

He began with the question Haha-ue had once began with, when Kyoya himself was very young and could barely string words together into coherent sentences. “What do you have that is yours?” He said, taking care to emphasise yours the way Haha-ue had.

The Little Carnivore considered this, chewing his lip nervously as his mind worked. Kyoya’s presence agitated him. It made the hunger spark to life – warm brown eyes ablaze with want-want-want – but at the same time frightened him, because the Little Carnivore was fragile and innately aware of his helplessness, especially when faced with someone as powerful as Kyoya. “Um, my bedroom?” The Little Carnivore asked more than he answered, then, “Maybe Kaa-san? But I, um, think she’s more Papa’s. She loves him more than me, I think.”

Talking about his father made the Little Carnivore’s face twist into something resembling a scowl. He was far too fluffy for it to be effective, but it did serve to remind Kyoya of the predators he had promised to protect the Little Carnivore from. His legal claim to the Little Carnivore would help with that; the Little Carnivore was now legally Hibari Tsunayoshi and, as Chichi-ue so loved to remind him (during his raving about the glory of studying history and how it must be fate that his greatest passion had led him to the love of his life), that name held weight. The rest, Kyoya supposed, would be reliant on his own strength. It was an exciting prospect. “Hn,” Kyoya grunted, because he was getting rather fed up of talking and the Little Carnivore seemed to be able to parse the meaning of his grunts anyway; it’s a start.

In this, they were similar. His bedroom was the core of Kyoya’s Territory, the place where it all began. In his first few years of life, Haha-ue gifted him more, little bits and pieces of their home and garden. His Territory grew as he grew; at first it was handed to him, and now it was hard fought for. Given his misfortune of having an herbivore for a mother, the Little Carnivore was far behind Kyoya. He suspected it would be many, many years before he had to point the Little Carnivore elsewhere and tell him to claim his own territory for himself. That was okay. Although Tetsuya insisted it wasn’t feasible to have the Little Carnivore legally adopted into the Hibari clan as a cat instead of a human, Kyoya preferred to think of him as a clumsy kitten rather than a human child. A housecat had an average lifespan of sixteen years, so Kyoya was prepared to care for him for a long time.

Elsewhere, so many hundreds of thousands of miles away that it was an entirely different continent, there was an office. If one were so inclined, it was a very pleasant office, luxuriously decorated and complete with an elaborately carved mahogany desk. Scattered across the desk were an array of paper files, although by tomorrow morning they would either be destroyed or sorted away into cabinets. Which cabinets, Iemitsu didn’t know, because paperwork was boring, and he resolved to make it someone else’s job to deal with it as much as possible. If he had been forewarned that leadership meant paperwork and offices and filing cabinets, he would he said no thank you. Alas, it seemed paperwork was his destiny. In his blood, one might say.

Groaning, he sank down into his chair with his cup of coffee and tried to bring his spirits up by reminding himself he was overdue the monthly report on his son. Those were infinitely more interesting than reports about x Family doing this, y Family doing that, and how they really ought to deal with z Family. True, there wasn’t much substance to the reports on Iemitsu’s son – primarily because he was six and six-year-old civilians didn’t generally do anything of interest – but they brightened his month. Sipping his coffee, he riffled through the files until he found the one marked Tuna Fish in bold letters. Iemitsu’s lips twitched, the corners of his eyes crinkling. His agents always knew how to cheer him up. Setting his cup down (on a coaster like Lal demanded, or else she’d call him a brainless barbarian and threaten to shoot him in the foot so he had no choice but to focus on paperwork over field work), he settled down to read about how his Tsuna-fishie held up after he left.

As he read, Iemitsu’s eyebrows rose higher and higher, until it seemed as if the only way to go higher was to become one with the clouds. How topical, given that this month there was substance to the report on Tsuna because he’d attracted a Cloud. Iemitsu and Nono’s visit had likely interrupted their courting and, feeling his Sky slip away from him, the Cloud had done something rather drastic. The ramifications were hilarious, or they would be if it weren’t for that fact that he’d been usurped by an eight-year-old as Tsuna’s legal father. Still, it was kind of cute, for his Tsuna-fishie’s Cloud to be so possessive already. It said good things about the future, if the future were to go to Hell in a handbasket and his son needed to learn about Flames before he was ready. That was terrifyingly likely; the world was a cruel place.

If only the world weren’t so cruel, Iemitsu would be still Tsuna’s legal father, and Tsuna’s name wouldn’t be Hibari Tsunayoshi. But the world was cruel, so this was the lesser of two evils. It was better, Iemitsu reminded himself, for Tsuna’s Flames to be buried beneath ice in his very soul, and this was just part of the fallout. One day, he would understand the implications of being a Sky, of why Iemitsu was never home, of why it was more than crucial that he stayed hidden, and he would understand why they did what they did. When that day came, he wouldn’t need to hide quite so thoroughly. For now, he was six, and it was Iemitsu’s job to protect the little boy who was so afraid of everything he had burst into tears because he was licked by a puppy. Tiny, precious, weak Tsuna-fishie needed to stay hidden. His life and innocence depended on it.

Herbivores were weak and most often useless. Most unfortunately, the Little Carnivore’s mother was an herbivore and, much to Kyoya’s disgust, this meant the Little Carnivore hadn’t even undergone extremely basic conditioning. This was disappointing and raised questions. If the Little Carnivore hadn’t undergone conditioning, how did he withstand Kyoya’s attacks when they met under moonlight?

“I, um, don’t know? My head was really fuzzy,” confessed the Little Carnivore, shrinking beneath the weight of having disappointed an authority figure.

Kyoya didn’t bother to explain it was the herbivore mother he was disappointed in and instead noted that the Little Carnivore showed signs of losing cognitive control when exceedingly hungry. “That was, um, the first time I’d ever…” Little Carnivore trailed off, looking sideways in embarrassment.

More foolishness that Kyoya needed to train him out of. Even if it was only by virtue of surprise, one upping Kyoya in a fight was something to be proud of. Especially at the Little Carnivore’s dismally lacking level of training. “The fire?” Kyoya prompted.

Somehow, the Little Carnivore managed to exude even more misery than previously. He squeezed his eyes shut for several moments too long, trying to stave off tears. When he opened them, they were suspiciously damp around the corners.  “Tsu-kun used the fire all the time. Um, I’m really afraid of the dark, and one night was r - really, um… Tsu-kun was so afraid the fire appeared,” he admitted, skin flushed right up to the tips of his ears. “Then Papa and Nono visited and made Tsu-kun really cold and the fire was gone, and I was so hungry, all the time. And eating fire made the fire come back, like I showed you! But the fire made me really tired and really, really hungry. It didn’t do that to Tsu-kun.”

From that, Kyoya surmised that the Little Carnivore needed to be well fed to use his fire. Since he was hoping to have the Little Carnivore use it in combat – it would be a really interesting weapon to fight against – they were going to need a lot of lab rats. Of course, before he fed the Little Carnivore, there were other tests to run. He could feed later when he was tired and hungry, which ought to provide more natural results.

By Japanese standards, Namimori was a young town, only a handful of centuries old. The infrastructure mostly reflected this youthfulness; none of it was particularly old or important, so it was replaced as needed by more modern buildings. Tsuna’s house was a fairly new western style build, as was much of Namimori. They were something of a retirement town, but not for elderly Japanese people; for some reason, Namimori was really popular with Italians. A staggeringly large number of their population was Italian or of Italian descent compared to the rest of Japan, so a large number of their buildings were westernised, too. This characteristic was in decline the further away one got from the heart of Namimori, at least in the direction of the Hibari estate. As they moved outwards, the buildings became a little less modern and then a lot less modern so gradually Tsuna wouldn’t have noticed even if he were able to pay attention. Tsuna didn’t realise what was so unfamiliar about his surroundings until he was smacked in the face with the traditional grandeur of the Hibari estate. It was a huge walled off area of land settled at the base of one of the mountains which cut off this part of Namimori from the nearby city. Inside the walls was the biggest garden Tsuna had ever seen, with a large pond full of glittering koi. Twisty trees and shrubbery emanated out from the pond in spirals loose enough to pass for organic if it weren’t for the barrier of small, round rocks caging the plants in. A steppingstone path led around the koi pond and the plants in elegant loops, diverging off to the main building and another smaller building from multiple points.

Limbs trembling from exertion, chest burning, and with his face pressed against a thick blanket of moss, Tsuna watched the koi swim in lazy circles and envied them. It seemed such a simple life, to be a koi fish, swimming around the Hibari family’s beautifully maintained pond. Tsuna bet it didn’t involve running all the way to the Hibari estate while being chased by Hibari-senpai dual wielding tonfa, because fish didn’t have legs and he didn’t think Hibari-senpai would threaten to bite the fish to death for not being fast enough, or goad them by telling them that this was leisurely walk. In this point in time, Tsuna was so very, very jealous of the blissfully simple life of a koi.

“Lack stamina,” Hibari-senpai said, so unscathed from their leisurely walk that he didn’t have so much as a strand of hair out of place.

The more he talked to Tsuna, the less he actually said. It was almost as if he had some sort of daily word limit that he refused to step over and now that he was approaching it, he was cutting out unnecessary words. Tsuna wished he could do that. He said lots of words when he talked, but they were meaningless filler words because human interaction moved too fast for his head to keep up and it left him saying strange things that didn’t make much sense, or repeating words over and over as he stalled for time.

Tsuna spent at least five minutes becoming one with the moss, struggling to draw in breaths that made him feel as if his lungs were aflame. By the time his breathing evened out, he had ascended to planthood. He was the moss. It was him. They had a mutual understanding; life was awful and perpetually ending but right here, right now, feeling like his body was made of jelly, everything was okay, because plants didn’t worry about things like life and the end of the world. Plants also didn’t move very much, or even do very much, which meant it was okay for Tsuna to sink into oblivion.

“Little carnivore.”

The edge of a boot prodded his side and Tsuna groaned, rolling over so he could pretend it wasn’t happening. “Up. You’ve recovered.”

Tsuna hadn’t recovered from anything in his entire life. Everything just sort of haunted him, flitting about in the back of his mind and coming to the forefront when it was bedtime, or when he was in the shower. He hated showers. If he weren’t moss, he would need a shower after this. That would be awful.

“What is yours?” Hibari-senpai asked him, prodding him again.

“Bedroom,” mumbled Tsuna, “Kaa-san.”

“You’re too weak to protect them.”

Tsuna groaned again, louder than before. It was a long-suffering groan, fuelled by the realisation that moss couldn’t protect anything at all, never mind his Kaa-san from his Papa. Muscles twitched and spasmed as he forced himself to his feet, only maintaining his balance because Hibari-senpai grabbed him by the arm to drag him off to the smaller building.

“Fight,” Hibari-senpai commanded once their shoes had been dealt with.

This was Tsuna’s only warning before he was rushed at. One arm snapped out and sharp pain blossomed in his ribcage, which had only just stopped hurting the day before. The force of impact sent him sprawling onto the floor, collapsing back into a tired tangle. Just standing took tremendous effort, but Hibari-senpai made him do it again and again and again, always watching with eagle eyes. Desperate for his torment to end, he tried to be the one rushing this time and crashed into Hibari-senpai awkwardly. He was smacked with tonfa for his efforts, much lighter than before, like it was some kind of reward for daring to attack. Emboldened, but mostly just too exhausted to care about how scared he was, he turned his head, trying to sink his teeth into Hibari-senpai. He didn’t care where – anywhere was good, as long as it worked.

Abruptly, Tsuna was pushed to the floor. “Feeding time,” said Hibari-senpai, while the world was still spinning.

Stepping into Hibari-senpai’s house was like stepping into a history book. Hibari-senpai glided through the corridors without so much as a “I’m home” and Tsuna stumbled after him. Their route was too complex for Tsuna to remember and he didn’t think it was just because he was falling asleep standing up. When they stopped at an arched doorway, Hibari-senpai produced a set of keys. Three locks later, Tsuna peered inside. All he could see was a set of stairs leading down, down, down into the dark.

There was an immediate temperature difference; it was cold inside these new, hidden away corridors. His and Hibari-senpai’s footsteps echoed as they walked, with Tsuna standing as close to Hibari-senpai as he dared. He didn’t want to bump into Hibari-senpai when he inevitably tripped, but it was dark down here. No matter how firmly he tried to keep his eyes fixed on Hibari-senpai’s back, he kept finding himself looking around, watching shadows bob and wave like the darkness was mocking him.

They weren’t alone, insisted Tsuna’s brain. Danger, danger.

Hibari-senpai would protect him. Hibari-senpai would protect him. Hibari-senpai would protect him. It was his mantra, words he clung onto desperately, because as much as he wished to Tsuna didn’t dare to grab hold of Hibari-senpai’s hand and squeeze it for comfort.

They stopped again by another door, though this one had a barred window. Tsuna stood on his very tiptoes, trying his best to see inside while Hibari-senpai unlocked the door. His mouth fell open and blood rushed in his ears, heart thumping like a drum. Inside were the shadowed figures of two men, their arms and feet bound with tape over their mouths.

Chapter Text

Growing up as the baby of the family with seven older siblings, Hachiro had felt stifled. No matter what he said or did to stop it, there was always someone watching him, trying to keep wittle baby Hacchan out of trouble. Some days, it felt as if he couldn’t even go to the restroom without a nosy big brother asking what he was up to. That was why Hachiro had jumped on a train to another city at the very first opportunity and never looked back. He still had to send home letters about how college was going every now and again to prevent an armada of older brothers invading to check up on him, but other than that he was free.

Freedom came with a price. A very heavy price. On paper, crime was essentially non-existent in his new city. This was technically true, depending on one’s definition of crime. According to Hibari-sama, the yakuza were perfectly acceptable as long as they followed her rules and didn’t overstep. Illegal gambling? Sure, that’s fine. Prostitution? As long as the girls weren’t being coerced and were treated well, whatever. Underground cage fighting that often ended in fatalities? How quaint!

Apparently, drug running did not fall under crimes Hibari-sama deemed acceptable, which Hachiro really would have liked to know before he agreed to the job so he could afford the luxury of paying his rent and eating this month instead of picking one or the other. Growing up with an overbearing family had taught him to be thankful for small mercies, so Hachiro praised all the kami that would listen for the gift of Hibari-sama believing him when he said he didn’t know drugs were against her rules. Ignorance was not an excuse, she had told him very seriously, but she wouldn’t punish him too harshly. She had the perfect punishment in mind, because her son was looking for some playthings, and she couldn’t deny her super cute son something so simple, could she?

Hachiro would like it to be known that Hibari-sama’s son was not cute in the least. He had the same bloodthirst in his eyes, and the same predatory smile that made Hachiro feel like something hunted. He attacked with the same inhuman strength and speed, hitting Hachiro upside the head so hard his vision blurred into nothingness.

He woke in the dark, tied to a chair beside one other captive, and suffering the worst headache he’d ever had in his life. His hands and feet were bound uncomfortably tight, and he couldn’t even share his misery with his cellmate because his mouth was taped shut. In what world was this not a harsh punishment? If this was Hibari-sama’s idea of kindness, he shuddered to think of what she was going to do to the person actually making the drugs. Since Hachiro had always had an awful, morbid sense of curiosity and he was feeling pretty vindictive right now, he passed the time by imagining exactly what kind of punishments she would inflict upon the bastards that got him into this mess.

He'd heard - from a sort of a friend of a friend said such and such situation - that when people broke rules Hibari-sama really cared about, bodies were burrowed in shallow graves. Compared to death, Hachiro supposed this punishment might count as kindness. Then again, he would surely think otherwise during exam season.

In the silence, the wooden creaking from the other captive's uneasy shifting was excruciatingly loud. Each little creeeak burrowed into Hachiro's temple like a handheld drill trying to break through his skull; slowly, and all the more painful for it.

How long had he been sitting here? His legs were numb, and his hands were made of static.

Maybe none of this was real.

Footsteps. After what felt like an eternity of nothing but the pain and his imagination to distract him, the echo of footsteps was as much as a relief as it was nerve-racking. As the footsteps grew nearer, it dawned on Hachiro that there were too many footsteps for there to be just one person. Unless that person was using crutches, that is, which he doubted. Was Hibari-sama coming to alongside her son to free him, to tell him that imprisoning college students in his creepy basement was a strange hobby and maybe he should look into model planes instead?

The footsteps stopped outside the door. Just as quickly as silence descended, it was broken by a shriek. “Calm, little carnivore,” hissed the wrong Hibari-sama.

 A key turned in a lock. Click.

Tsuna could hear his own heartbeat. This, in itself, was not uncommon. When one was as afraid of existence as Tsuna was, hearing your own heartbeat was an everyday occurrence. He could feel it too, beating relentlessly inside his chest as if that would somehow change the situation. Really, his heartbeat was rather inconvenient. All it did was make him feel unwell when things got scary.

“Um, Hibari-senpai?” He tried and was proud of himself for only wavering a little.

Hibari-senpai looked at him, which he realised was his cue to continue when Hibari-senpai raised an eyebrow. “Why… why are there men in your, uh, basement?”

Tsuna was pretty sure they were in a basement. A creepy stone basement that was cold and dark and did he mention the tied-up men imprisoned inside? Hibari-senpai blinked slowly, staring at him as if Tsuna had said something strange. Maybe it was a Hibari family tradition to keep men imprisoned in the basement? Had he just said something really insensitive? What if he’d offended Hibari-senpai and now Hibari-senpai wouldn’t protect him and the next time Papa came to visit he died?

“You’re hungry,” Hibari-senpai said, smoothly interrupting Tsuna’s train wreck stream of consciousness.

He gestured at the men. “Bite.”

Tsuna gulped. He felt bad enough for biting Kusakabe-senpai, who hadn’t even minded! These men very clearly did mind; Hibari-senpai’s words flicked a switch and now they were struggling against the ropes and zip ties, a familiar desperation in their eyes. “I – I don’t think…” He trailed off, trying to think of a way to explain that this wasn’t right.

A way that a demon like Hibari-senpai would understand. Exhaustion weighed too heavy on him to think clearly. “You’ll let them go?” Tsuna asked instead, giving up.

“They’re Haha-ue’s herbivores,” said Hibari-senpai, by way of agreement.

If Hibari-senpai’s Okaa-sama was anything like her son then he hoped dearly that he never needed to meet her. Tsuna was suddenly glad that, despite Kaa-san’s belief, they weren’t actually friends. “Bite,” repeated Hibari-senpai, more insistently than last time.

Drifting across the room as if stuck in a bad dream, he did as he was told. His victim wore a tank top, exposing his arms as if he was offering freely, but Tsuna couldn't block out the frightened noises coming from him. They were muffled but filled the basement's quiet easily. Briefly, Tsuna touched the man's bicep with his fingertips. His skin was frozen to touch like the stone beneath their feet, but unlike stone the muscle tensed immediately. "I'm sorry," he mumbled, lips brushing against skin as he spoke, but the apology couldn't be sincere when there was saliva already pooling in his mouth.

Teeth sank down in mockery of an injection, to guzzle rather than give. His victim tasted like honey, but instead of being a smooth liquid his energy crackled like popping candy on Tsuna's tongue. Ravenous, he swallowed mouthful after greedy mouthful. Warmth travelled down his throat into his belly, where it spread out to permeate the entirety of Tsuna's body, chasing away shivers.

“Yellow,” Hibari-senpai observed.

Tsuna swallowed once more, wishing it didn’t feel so good to be warm, that it didn't hurt his heart to stop. He stepped away from the man with the yellow energy on legs that didn’t wobble anymore, although he did stumble when Hibari-senpai said, abruptly, “Show me the fire, Little Carnivore.”

With a sinking feeling, Tsuna realised that there were two men imprisoned for a reason.

There was that feeling again. Warmth welling up inside him, a similar sensation to the fuzziness of being wrapped in a fluffy blanket, but from head to toe, inside and out. Beneath the warmth, there was an undercurrent of fear and uncertainty; am I doing this right? and what if he abandons me? and I shouldn’t have done that it was wrong-wrong-wrong. All the while, the orange flame spluttered and wavered, growing fainter and fainter until the Little Carnivore was on his knees, panting and sweating from the effort of maintaining it. In the dark, Kyoya witnessed an unsettling flash of orange in the Little Carnivore's eyes - the only warning before suddenly he stood, movements erratic and jerky, like a marionette with tangled strings. This time, there was no hesitation. Little Carnivore went for the kill, diving on his prey's arm like a lion would tear apart a hapless antelope. For one strange, long moment where Kyoya nearly drew his tonfa, he expected the Little Carnivore to rip open the lab rat's soft stomach with naught but his teeth. Despite the tape, the lab rat howled as if the Little Carnivore had ripped into him and was feasting on his entrails. Vibrant red energy exploded out of him, a mockery of blood. Unlike before, the Little Carnivore was pushed away by the force of it, falling onto his back as the captive lab rat struggled free. Kyoya really did draw his tonfa then, instantly ready to beat the rat back into submission.

Kyoya knew not to expect much from herbivores, but the lab rat collapsing into a heap as soon as he stood was truly disappointing. "Tch," he grumbled, sheathing his fangs, and moved to maneuverer the rat back into his chair. Interestingly, the chair had suffered from the explosion. It wasn't singed. Rather, it was more like pieces of it had simply dissolved, like meat in an acid. Forcing the lab rat to sit on it would only make break the chair further, so he made do with simply tying the limp body's wrists to the ankles, then turned his attention to the Little Carnivore. He hadn't gotten up yet, which was a bit pathetic. Kitten or not, he could do better. "Up," Kyoya ordered, nudging the Little Carnivore's tender ribs with his foot.

When the Little Carnivore failed to move, he nudged harder. "Hiee!" shrieked the Little Carnivore, arms moving to guard his bruised side, "I'm getting up, I'm getting up, senpai, I promise!"

Kyoya watched him scramble to his feet, noting that he seemed to have snapped out of his earlier feeding frenzy. They were done for today, he supposed.

Later, when he interrogated the lab rats for more information, the yellow one admitted to feeling the warmth, while the red one gathered a mouthful of spit. “Warmth? Warmth? Are you off your fucking nut? That was the most painful thing I’ve ever fucking experienced!” He spat in the direction of Kyoya's face, “It was like that kid was tearing my heart out and fucking eating it right in front of me!”

Interesting. Kyoya, Kusakabe, and the yellow lab rat had experienced fatigue and a pinprick pain no worse than getting vaccinated. Why had the red one experienced such pain? Why had his energy exploded? Was that a feature unique to all humans with red energy, or unique to this particular lab rat?

They needed a larger sample size.

The library was running out of books about yokai that they hadn’t read yet. Haru-chan didn’t really mind – she’d already learned enough to start working on some spooky cosplays to scare away bullies – but Tsuna-kun seemed disappointed.

“Hahi, is there something wrong, Tsuna-kun?” She asked, watching him stare at their latest book despondently.

He’d been staring at it for a long time now, as if it might reveal the secrets of the universe as long as he didn’t let it out of his sight. “Is that it?” He asked, still staring at the book. “Um, I mean, not that your Kaa-san’s bad at reading or anything, but there wasn’t anything about the, um…”

About what? Did Tsuna-kun have some kind of secret knowledge about yokai? Haru-chan found herself wiggling with excitement. She knew it was important for the library to be old and dusty! Kaa-chan had originally taken her to a completely spotless library, which admittedly had nicer books, but at the old and dusty library she met Tsuna-kun and now she was going to become some sort of fairy tale character! She couldn’t wait to tell Kaa-chan. Oh, but what if it was a secret and she couldn’t tell anyone, or they’d lose their magical powers? That would be so sad! “About what?” She asked, “Hahi, is Tsuna-kun secretly a yokai?”

That would make sense, Haru-chan thought. Didn’t he have a demon as a senpai? Wow, she was friends with a real live yokai! “No, no, no!” Tsuna-kun shook his head vigorously, arms flailing, “About the fire!”

Disappointment was cold and heavy like a block of ice in her gut. Fire was so… ordinary. “Hahi, why would a yokai book be about fire? That’s silly, Tsuna-kun!” She told him, miffed that he’d gotten her hopes up for no reason.

“Cause I can control it but only sometimes and it’s really exhausting, Haru-chan, but Hibari-senpai keeps making me try and when I get too tired to continue he makes me hu-“ Tsuna-kun burst out, then abruptly trailed off.

“Hahi, you can control fire?”

Yes. Haru-chan knew it. She was going to become the coolest magical girl and Tsuna-kun would be her nervous sidekick! He looked off to the side, hands trembling, and nodded slowly. “It used to be so easy,” he said hoarsely, voice crackling like his throat was sticking to itself, “then Papa brought Nono home and they – they did something. Now I can only use the fire when I… When Hibari-senpai makes me bite, fire comes out of people’s skin and I eat it and it tastes so good, Haru-chan, it’s like everything is okay again, but it’s horrible! It hurts people!”

Oh, Haru-chan realised, feeling rather like she’d previously seen the world in grayscale and now all of a sudden colour had been revealed to her. Tsuna-kun wasn’t the sidekick at all, even if he shared books and snacks with her. He was the cursed prince! She’d known back in the library, when he’d been so frightened of needing to tell his Hibari-san that he’d failed, that she would need to protect him, because he was small and fluffy like the kittens Tama-chan gave birth to in Baa-chan’s sock drawer. Five cats was too many cats for Baa-chan so when the kittens grew up they all had to be given away and Haru-chan had been so, so sad. It wasn’t fair to Tama-chan or the kittens (especially not the cutest little ginger tabby, the runt of the litter who she’d promised to look after for forever because he was going to be her familiar when she became a magical girl). She’d felt so helpless then, because Otou-san shouted when she hugged him around the shin and cried that she wanted to keep Tama-chan’s babies, then grounded her for a whole week when she tried to smuggle them home under her t-shirt. “You can bite me, Tsuna-kun!” She offered, making sure to smile super extra big so he knew she didn’t mind that he was cursed.

A thought rushed into her head, and she gasped, “Hahi, will Haru-chan be able to make fire too? Maybe Haru-chan can learn to control it and then Tsuna-kun won’t need to bite, cause it’ll be at the surface!”

From the way Tsuna-kun jumped, Haru-chan didn’t think he’d considered that. "Hiee, Haru-chan!" He shrieked, "You can't - you'll get hurt!"

Try as she might, there was nothing Haru-chan could do to convince the poor cursed prince. It felt a lot like having Tama-chan's babies ripped away from her, a similar shame settling in between her shoulder blades. Tsuna-kun didn't think he could rely on Haru-chan to protect him. How could he, after all, when Haru-chan's own father -

Later that night, curled under blankets, she clenched her fists tight and swore to herself she would work hard and grow super strong for Tsuna-kun's sake. She'd become the strongest magical girl in all of Japan and then the world, and then she would beat Tsuna-kun's stupid Papa up!

At the front of the classroom, Sensei sweated. It was subtle, but his hands trembled like the hands of the men who came to Tou-san's dojo under the cover of night. The ones who didn't bring a sword, but a gun instead, whose mouths gaped like they were hoping to catch flies when a blue glow made their guns stall. The ones who dropped their guns and their confidence all at once, begging Tou-san for mercy as if they hadn't been threatening him only moments before.

The ones fertilising the pretty flowers in Kaa-chan's garden.

Takeshi smiled wider and Tomita-kun (still not from baseball club, but Takeshi was wearing him down) sat up straighter, smile becoming strained. Extras tended to do that when Takeshi smiled at things he found interesting, pleased that he seemed to be smiling at them, but unable to dismiss the primal part of their brains insisting danger. From the corner of his eye he watched Sensei sigh, clear his throat, and begin rollcall. All the while, Sensei's hands shook, getting more and more noticeable until, "H - Hibari Tsunayoshi?"

Hibari-kun choked, a strangled sound that seemed deafening in their otherwise stunned silent classroom. Everyone turned and looked at him as he stood slowly, hands braced against his desk, and said quietly yet firmly, "Sensei, I need to talk to Hibari-senpai."

Sensei grew pale, all but bending over backwards as he yelped, "That's fine! You're excused! I'll mark you present!"

All eyes followed Hibari-kun as he stalked towards the door, a strange glimmer in his eye. For one brief moment, Takeshi met his gaze, and swore he saw a flash of orange. Danger, whispered the broken part of Takeshi's brain gleefully, acknowledging a new player on the field. The classroom door scraped shut behind Hibari-kun and the silence boiled over into pandemonium.