Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

prologue | someone stole the sun

“YOU CAN STEAL THE SUN, BUT YOU CAN NEVER REPLICATE ITS WARMTH”

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“You’re a cold, cruel woman,” she says. “Uncaring to those around you. A callous and unsympathetic bitch.”

Though I am not looking at her as she tells me these things, I can still picture the way my mother’s rotten and wrinkled face scrunches in distaste as she says this. Like a child biting into a sour lemon, except the child is a sixty-something-year-old woman and the lemon is decades of bad choices that she chooses to blame on her accidental firstborn. 

"Those words are all synonyms. You're just repeating yourself," I point out, eyes still glued to the magazine in front of me. 

"A cold, vindictive and manipulative shrew." 

She continues, despite my words. I'd shrug if I could be bothered to. "So sue me," I reply, flicking through another page. 

“Aggravating, arrogant, ungrateful daughter-”

My eyes glaze over at the magazine article entitled 30 Summer Wedding Decorative Ideas.

“Soulless, resentful child-”

Bask in the warmth of the sun on your special day! The article says.

“You'll die alone-!”

In ancient times, the sun god was seen as the god of life; rebirth; and the energy of the universe returning to itself. A cycle of new life, a perfect symbol for a summer wedding! The birth of new love between soulmates, warm and passionate and full of energy! 

I thought the sun god was meant to be a dog-furry or whatever? Maybe the Egyptians got it wrong? 

Or was that Anubis? Fucked if I know.

Maybe I should have spent less time skipping ancient history to smoke under the bleachers. But that’s beside the point. Who the hell would want a dog furry, ruler of the underworld or some bullshit like that, nonetheless, looking after their marriage?

“When you die, you’ll be reincarnated as a toilet brush if there’s any justice in this world!” 

Was she still going on?

For a sixty-something-year-old woman with a bad hip, my mother could certainly talk shit like she wasn’t a day over twenty. 

“You’re a leach!” she shouts, snatching the magazine from my hands to get me to acknowledge her. “A black hole! You suck the life and light out of everyone who has the misfortune of meeting you!”

A leach? That’s the best she could come up with? That master’s degree in English really isn’t doing her any favours here, is it?

A bony finger is pointed at me. “If you felt any sort of gratitude to this family, you’d drop dead right now!”

“Put that finger down before you get arthritis,” I grumble at her, shooing her hand away from my face. “And unfortunately for you, mother dearest, I am not going anywhere-!”

It’s as I say this that I feel a sudden tightness in my chest, and it suddenly becomes much harder to breathe-

My first thought is that my mother has somehow cursed me, using some forbidden eldritch magic that she picked up by living out her days as a grumpy old woman -

But as the tightness in my chest becomes stronger, more restricting and unforgiving, it becomes abundantly clear what is happening to me.

I’m having a heart attack.

And I know this because I’d had one not even a year ago, and the sudden sweating of my body and nausea in my stomach was too familiar to be anything else -

My final words in this life were the same as my first words in the next:

“This is so fucked.”

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There’s a crying Japanese woman standing over me.

Well, I assume she’s Japanese judging by the kanji on the name tag. It’s times like this I’m thankful to have studied the language in highschool, as I squint my bleary eyes at the writing.

Visitor’s Pass - Namimori Central Hospital

My shrivelled hermit of a mother managed to get me to hospital after the heart attack it seems, good on her. I wouldn’t be surprised if she had decided to watch me die on our living room floor, but it seems she’s taken the high road this time.

God knows why she’s gotten a middle-aged Asian woman to cry at my bed for me, though.

Maybe she’s a hit-man? 

Perhaps death by heart attack was too good a death for me in my mother’s eyes, and she decided to save me, only to have someone else kill me.

Once again, it wouldn't surprise me.

And perhaps that’d be why we were in a hospital I’d never even heard of before, even though the name does sound vaguely familiar.

Sasagawa Ayaka, her name tag reads.

A pretty name, but a strange one for an assassin.

And I’d heard of hitmen praying before their kills before but to cry in front of their victim was just plain weird.

Was she trying to get me to sympathise with her? Lower my guard, perhaps?

My mother doesn’t know me as well as she thinks, in that case, because it takes a lot more than crocodile tears for me to give you my pity.

I narrow my eyes at this Sasagawa Ayaka, and it just so happens she wipes her eyes and looks at me at the same time I do this.

Her eyes are a golden brown, beautiful even though they are red and puffy from her crying, and they widen as they meet mine.

“Tomoko…!” she lets out a gasp before immediately leaping at me. My first thought is that she’s going in for the kill which is what makes it so surprising when she wraps her arms and holds me more tenderly than anyone in my life ever had before.

I have no idea who this Tomoko is, nor why this Japanese hitman is calling me that, but the allure of her soft and comfortable hug is too much, and I find myself moving my arms to return the gesture before I can hold myself back.

She sobs into my shoulder, covering my clothes is slobber, but I’m wearing a hospitable gown so it isn’t my problem. She buries her face into my shoulder. “You’re awake! You’re awake! Thank god!”

It’s at this moment the door opens and an almost familiar stranger pops their head through the door. “Kaasan, they were all out of blueberry muffins but the server offered me two banana instead-”

The aforementioned muffins are dropped when another set of golden-brown eyes land on me. This person is a lot younger, judging by the school uniform she wears, and the childish sparkle in her expression. “Tomoko!” she shouts, and suddenly she is hugging me as well, and I find myself wondering how strange of an assassination technique this is.

A nice feeling one, for sure, but weird as fuck.

Her short chestnut hair brushes against my nose and makes me want to sneeze, but she pulls away from me before I do. “Kaasan and I were so worried, Tomoko!”

She too is referring to me as “Tomoko” now. Was this some strange yakuza slang that I didn’t know?

I read her name tag - Sasagawa Kyoko.

The hitman’s daughter, I guess?

I mean mafias and yakuza were all about “family” and whatever so it wouldn't surprise me.

Having two crying Japanese women hugging me is strange, sure, but it pales in comparison to what would happen next.

As if on a constantly turning conveyor belt of strange Japanese people, the door is opened again and someone else enters my room.

While Sasagawa Kyoko seemed familiar in an “oh, I might’ve passed by you on the street today” kind of way, Sasagawa Ryohei is familiar in an “oh, you were one of my favourite characters from an anime show I used to watch as a kid and use as a coping mechanism” kind of way.

Sasagawa Ryohei enters my room, and I find my brain short-circuiting because there was absolutely no denying it. The face, the hair, even the last name, come to think of it - undeniably, Katekyo Hitman Reborn.

And it wasn’t even as if this was some bizarre cosplay panel, because cosplay could not replicate the scarily accurate contours on the Sasagawa’s siblings faces or the quiet hum of energy I can feel from Ryohei.

The feeling of bathing in the sun on a warm day when Ryohei enters is what confirms my suspicions. 

Sasagawa Ryohei does not refer to me as ‘Tomoko’. Arguably, he calls me something a million times worse. 

Sasagawa fuckin Ryohei looks at me and shouts, “Imouto!”

He’s by my side in an instant, engulfing me in a bone-crushing hug. My mind has well and truly been fried at this point, so I don’t even bother to return the hug.

Instead, I look up the heavens (or, rather, my water-stained hospital room roof) and say out loud, “This is so fucked.”

Ryohei stiffens as I say this, and the other Sasagawas in the room seem far less relieved to see me then they did moments ago. They looked scandalised if anything.

Their mouths are wide open, and they stare at me as if I’ve just strung together the worst possible set of words in the history of the English (or rather, Japanese) language. 

Are they that shocked by a curse word? 

Well fuck, fuckity fuck bitch shit. I’m a 23-year-old woman, I’m not gonna have two assassins and their anime brother/son judge me. 

I prepare to say as much, but Sasagawa Ayaka moves before I can. She grabs Kyoko’s arm and begins crying again, shouting, “Get the doctor, get the doctor!”

Which, wow, ok, that was just being dramatic.

Kyoko, looking equally as shell-shocked, runs out the room on shaky feet.

Sasagawa Ayaka is looking at me again, and she’s holding me in her arms once more. She’s sobbing, far heavier than last time, and between her cries, I can hear what she’s saying. “Oh my god, she spoke! Tomoko spoke! Ryohei, it’s a medical miracle!”

Ryohei doesn’t say anything in response. He just stares for a few moments and then he’s crying too, grinning and shouting about how Extreme of a miracle this was. 

Kyoko enters the room again, hands on her knees and panting like she just ran a marathon. There’s an annoyed-looking nurse by her side, and she watches the crying family with distaste.

“The doctor is busy,” she says. “What’s going on here?”

“Tomoko spoke!” Sasagawa Ayaka shouts in astounded excitement.

The nurse gives her a blank stare. “Yes, her bruises weren’t bad. She was sure to wake up soon.”

“ You don’t get it!” Sasagawa Ayaka rebuts, standing up from her seat. “She spoke!” and now she’s pointing a finger at me like it’s an accusation.

“And?” the nurse asks.

“She was born mute!”

All the heads in the room are turned to me again and I feel as if I need to say something in retaliation to all these stares. 

"If you're going to kill me, please do it already." 

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Chapter Text

01 | i’d rather be a toilet brush, please

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There’s a Buddhist dancing on my grave. I can feel it.

So.

Reincarnation is, in fact, a real thing. 

Who knew? I guess I was right about my six years in Catholic school being ‘fucking bullshit’. And while I do feel quite vindicated knowing that all the times I told my mother “hell couldn’t exist, as there’s nothing worse in this world than living with you” there’s something extraordinarily… unsettling about this all.

Let’s examine the facts here.

I was arguing with my mother and had a heart attack. It was horrendously bad timing but it happened. 

I then woke up in a hospital bed sometime later. I did not know how much time had passed, but I assumed none.

A crying Japanese family enters and I assume them to be foreign assassins sent by my mother to finish the job my high cholesterol couldn't (I think it says a lot about my mother that the assassins theory made far more sense to me than this whole reincarnation bullshit, but I digress.) 

The assassin family also happens to be a fictitious family from the anime Katekyo Hitman Reborn. 

And while my mother hiring very dedicated weeaboos to kill me is something I always assumed would happen to me, we can cross that possibility out as the sun flames emanating from both the Sasagawa siblings promptly throws that, and many of my other assassin related theories, out of the window.

Okay, next fact.

I’ve stolen the body of a thirteen-year-old Japanese girl. A formerly mute Japanese girl who had been in a coma for the past three days.

This much I gleaned from my supposed mother's conversation with the nurse. After her outcry and the miracle that is me verbally wishing death from her, my doctor entered the room.

He asked me some questions and didn’t seem to like my answers all that much. I know there are no right or wrong answers to medical questions, but something about the way the doctor grimaced every time I replied told me something was off.

The questions started off fairly normal.

“How are you feeling?”

Pretty fucked, thanks for asking. 

(The Sasagawas also gasped at that.) 

“Do you remember why you’re here?”

One too many Big Macs. I had a heart attack.

(The Doctor and Sasagawa family frowned at that, but did not correct me).

“Do you know what year it is?”

2019.

(They frowned at that, too.)

“Do you recognise any of the people in the room?”

I certainly did, but not in the way the doctor expected, I imagine. I refrained against answering “Yes, from some weird-ass cartoon with Mafias, chameleons and hitmen toddlers.” Instead, I opted simply to shake my head.

The doctor sighed and Sasagawa Ayaka sobbed quietly into her daughter’s shoulder. Sasagawa Ryohei merely focused his gaze on me solemnly.

The doctor hesitated with his last question.

“Do you know your name?”

I blinked once, and told him my name.

I thought that was a question you couldn’t get wrong. But it was.

The doctor gave me a sombre look and then asked the Sasagawas to speak to him outside. They returned five minutes later and somehow their expressions looked even grimmer.

The doctor told me I had amnesia. 

He told me I didn’t have a heart attack, but instead I was brutally beaten up in an alleyway and been in a coma for the past three days.

He told me the year was 2004, and that we were in a rural (and fictitious!) Japanese town called Namimori. 

The others in the room were (as I rightly guessed) the Sasagawas, and they were supposedly my family.

He told me that my name wasn’t my name, and that I was Sasagawa Tomoko now. 

He told me that I was a thirteen-year-old Japanese girl who was born mute. Apparently, my crude introduction to the Sasagawas was the first time I spoke.

It was all… a lot, and to the saddened surprise of the Sasagawas I requested to be by myself for a while to process what happened.

Thus, bringing me to where I am now. Reincarnation. That was the only explanation I could come up with for it all.

After cursing my mother to hell and back, I dropped dead. Abruptly and anti-climatically, my life as a 23-year-old American ended and my life as an anime girl began?

I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again, this is so fucked.

No one told me the Buddhists were fucking weebs!

I can only imagine my mother’s (my ex-mother, I suppose?) disappointment if she found out I wasn’t reincarnated as a toilet brush as she hoped.

So, I died. Then, my soul fucked off and stole the body of some Japanese kid in a coma? As I understood it, reincarnations usually involved rebirth and not just body-snatching some preteen’s life.

Not to mention, a life in a fictitious world, as a character who didn’t even exist.

The anime and manga certainly made no mention of a Sasagawa Tomoko.

Unless… She wasn’t there when cannon began? 

My new ‘family’ had briefly introduced themselves to me, and I vaguely recalled Kyoko saying she’s 14. Being the same age as Tsuna, that would put me in the same year the show started.

So what if… Sasagawa Tomoko never woke up from her coma? 

It’s a pretty fucking dark thought, but I guess the Sasagawas could have been harbouring the death of a mysterious third sibling who passed away before Reborn came to town.

But no… that would have surely been mentioned, right?

Then again, if Sasagawa Tomoko was destined to die today, then is it possible my “soul” snaked her body after her’s left?

Am I just a walking corpse?

Yet again, that’s so fuckled.

And what on earth am I to do now? Should I spend the rest of my life trying to blend in as mute? Or fumble my way through Japanese mannerisms and culture? No ones gonna believe me!

And worse of all, by dying half-way through, my mother totally won that argument!

I don’t have much time to dwell on this as there’s a light knock on my door. I didn’t really want to talk to my anime family all that much right now, but I suppose they’re probably just as confused as I am about this whole thing.

I rub my head. I think I’m getting an extreme headache. “Come in,” I reply, not looking up. 

The door opens and I hear a gentle laugh. “I’m still not used to that,” comes a silky voice. I look up. Sasagawa Ayaka, my new mother (I guess?), smiles softly at me. “Your voice, I mean. I never thought I’d be able to hear it.”

I’m still getting used to it, too, lady.

This voice, though I haven't used it for much else than swearing, was jarringly different from my last one. This voice was actually… nice for starters. Nowhere near as deep as it was before. It’s soft and feminine. I scrunch my nose thinking about it. It isn’t my voice.

Now that some of the haze has cleared and I’ve had some time to think, I take a moment to actually look at Sasagawa Ayaka. When you didn’t assume she was a Japanese assassin, she actually looked quite beautiful. 

She looked remarkably like Kyoko, all long soft hair and porcelain skin - I assume Ryohei must take after his dad, then. Or “our” dad, I guess? It’s strange to think about.

Sasagawa Ayaka was a beautiful woman. And unlike my previous mother, there was something… calming about her. I supposed if I had to describe it in a world I’d say homely. 

“You’re staring off into space again, Tomoko,” Ayaka says softly, sitting on my hospital bed next to me. Again, she said. I suppose the previous Tomoko was an airheaded dunce too, then.

I didn’t say anything in response to that but Ayaka doesn’t seem to mind. I suppose she’d be used to the silence by now. 

She’s quiet for a few moments. Then, softly, she asks, “How are you feeling?”

How am I feeling?

How the fuck are you meant to feel after stealing the body of a 13-year-old mute anime girl?

I narrow my eyes. I don’t really know how to respond, but something in those soft honey-brown eyes urges me to do so. “I’m… alright.”

I didn’t think it possible, but her smile became even more beaming after that. Her stare becomes softer too. It’s… strange, the way she looks at me.

It takes me a few moments to realise why that is.

Sasagawa Ayaka looks at me with affection. Real, genuine affection. She looks at me, and I know she loves me.

(Not me, I remind myself, she loves Sasagawa Tomoko.)

“I know this must be very confusing for you, Tomoko,” she begins after some moments, her hand reaching out to mine. “But I know that we can get through this.” Her other hand moves to cup my face, holding it gently between manicured fingers. “The Sasagawas are strong. And I know you’ll regain your memory in no time.”

I don’t say anything in response, largely because I doubt she wants to hear me tell her that I’m not a Sasagawa and that it was impossible for me to regain memories I never had. 

I merely give her a strained smile in response.

Why couldn't I have been reincarnated as a toilet brush instead?

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It turns out the worst part of reincarnation is spending five hours in hospital after waking up in another body and having foreign nurses and doctors probe you information.

Apparently, a mute girl speaking for the first time in over a decade is just a little bit intriguing for the doctors and family of said girl.

Since waking up I’ve also had the Sasagawa siblings come in and sheepishly reintroduce themselves for me, each as convinced as my ‘mother’ was about regaining my memories. 

And though all three of the Sasagawas were immensely excited about me waking up they all seemed to be holding themselves back. More than a few times I caught Ryohei going to hug me and then stopping half-way through.

Undoubtedly, they’d picked up on my panic of the whole situation. And while that could be explained by the plot convenient amnesia I still couldn’t help but feel guilty that I couldn’t replicate their sibling affections.

I was an only child before all this anime-life bullshit and I think it shows. 

Despite the complexity of the situation, Kyoko was still just as bubbly as she was in the show, chatting my ear off in the car about how we could go through photo albums when we all got home to jog my memories again. Likewise, Ryohei was convinced I could ‘defeat’ amnesia through vigorous exercise, and it took all my self control not to curse him out just for suggesting it.

Kyoko, amidst her excited babbling, mentioned that our father had just been told the news and was returning later tonight. Apparently, he worked as a high level financial director for an overseas company. 

It occurred to me then how little is really known about the Sasagawa family in Katekyo Hitman Reborn. The characters before me (because really, that’s all I could see them as) lived far deeper lives than I ever imagined.

And now I would have to become a part of that.

The idea that I would know far less than I thought I did coming into this universe is a sobering thought. I try not to think about it.

Once we arrive at the house - my house, I suppose - Ayaka seems to sense my discomfort from juggling with my excited siblings and politely waves them off, saying I needed more bedrest.

She dismisses me to go to my room, telling me with a dazzling smile that she’ll bring up some food in the next couple hours.

I stand in the entryway for a moment after that, awkwardly shuffling my feet.

She stares at me with confusion before it occurs to her. “Oh! I suppose you wouldn’t know where your room is! Come, come, follow me!”

She excitedly leads me upstairs. I pass by two rooms on the way there, each with the name tiles “Ryohei” and “Kyoko” on them. Their doors are covered in various sports stickers or cute animal decals but the one Ayaka stops in front of..

“Tomoko” in plain kanji on a white door. Nothing else. Compared to my “siblings” I can’t help but notice how…. Depressing my door seems. 

This idea is only reinforced when Ayaka opens the door and presents the room to me with a flourish. She looks at me with eager anticipation as I take in the room. A plain bed with white covers in the corner with a tidy desk next to it. Further examination shows various plain stationery and looking into the drawers I see small notebooks with innocuous school notes taken in them.

A large white dresser sits on the other side of the room and a school uniform hangs off one of its handles. The Namimori Middle uniform, I notice with mild alarm, but I find nothing else of interest in the room.

I turn back to Ayaka and she’s still looking at me with excitement in her eyes. Abruptly, I realise she’s waiting for me to remember something. 

But I don’t. How am I meant to gain my memories from a room with literally zero personality? 

I cough quietly into my hand and tell her thanks for bringing me to my room.

Though she does seem disappointed that I do not remember anything, she takes my thanks with a warm smile and leaves me to my thoughts.

I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding when she leaves. I then look around my new “room” with an exasperated sigh.

It seems I’d not only stolen a thirteen year-old’s body, but I’d also stolen the body of the most boring teenager in the entire planet.

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Despite my firm theory that the former resident of this body has the personality of a praying mantis I still turned the room upside down looking for some sort of clue as to this new life I was living. Going though all my draws revealed more school work and looking under my mattress revealed a floor far too clean to be normal. 

I only stopped my mad search when I happened upon a small vanity mirror by my bedside table. Also innocuous, as far as things for a thirteen-year old goes, but it is the reflection that causes pause. 

I’m not sure what I was expecting, but bright white hair that reaches my shoulders and tanned dark skin was not it. In a daze, I moved my hand to grab a lock of it, and felt sick to my stomach.

No longer did I have my unruly mess of black curls that absorbed combs like there was no tomorrow. I had hair I had envied others for now. Silky smooth and perfectly straight. Despite this, it doesn’t make me any happier. 

Large dark-brown eyes stare me down, nowhere near as dazzling as the rest of the Sasagawas, but still far more beautiful than my last ones. Round and doelike, like they could do no harm. 

I miss my old eyes. Eyes that were always narrowed in distrust and screamed mischief. 

The girl who looks back at me is dainty. And she is nothing like me.

Despite the minor identity crisis this causes me, I shake my head and try not to think about it. Realistically, I knew I wouldn’t look the same but… If I started to fixate on my appearance now then I would never stop obsessing over it.

I shake my head and continue my search. 

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Just as I think my searching is futile, I discover a small black notebook cleverly hidden away amongst Tomoko’s other school work. There is no title on the cover, and when I flip open the first page I am stunned to find the words all in English.

This English is not like that in Tomoko’s schoolbooks, with awkward phrasings and Japanese mannerisms. It’s fluent and entirely informal, a diary of some sorts. 

I flick to the middle (noting the hundreds of passages hastily scrawled in the book) and begin reading.

“K says my dodging is sloppy and unrefined,” it reads. Who the hell is K? I think. “I told him he could suck my dick.” 

My eyes widen at the language used. Not only did the phrasing strike me as odd for the Japanese culture, but the wording “I told him” must be a translation error, right? It wasn’t as if she could actually say that, after all.

I skip a few pages forward. “Tsuna almost drowned in the school pool again,” comes the next line. “It was fucking hilarious to watch, and I could only imagine what R would think were he here to witness it. I watched him flail for a couple minutes before a DC member fished him out. I should remind K to stop teaching them to be such stick-in-the-muds.”

With increasing suspicions about who, exactly, K was, I flip to the back of the book and read the most recent entry.

The last page only has one line. “If this goes wrong I’m gonna come back and haunt all these assholes.”

I reread it over again as the gears in my heads start to turn. I lick my lips. “Tomoko knew she was going to die,” I say out loud, furrowing my eyebrows in confusion. But how? Did she plan this? Why?  What was the point-

A voice breaks me out of my thoughts. “Sasagawa-san,” someone calls. I feel my blood go cold. 

My muscles stiffen and I crane my head behind me.

Dark, narrowed eyes meet mine in the darkness of my room. He’s perched on my window-sill, crouched like a predator before they attack, and he stares me down with such intensity that I think I forget how to breathe for a moment.

“I trust the plan went smoothly,” he says cooly, as if there was nothing wrong with what exactly was going on here.

Kyoya Hibari had never looked more terrifying.

Chapter Text

02 | and on the seventh day, god said, “let there be mayhem.”

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Consider these words a public service announcement.

Kyoya Hibari is a scary bastard and should be avoided at all costs.

When I was younger (or, I suppose, when I was older and living in a different dimension?) I was a fool. A bigger fool than I was now, anyway. And foolish, foolish, thirsty me use to consider the Skylark demon something of a stud.

Now, having Kyoya Hibari break into my room in the middle of the night like a crazed serial killer, I can admit that much of his attractiveness is hindered by how fucking terrifying he was.

(a small voice in the back of my mind says that makes him even hotter and that voice is promptly caught and shot dead).

Kyoya continues to stare at me, feline-like dark eyes narrowing in distrust. I open my mouth to speak and then decide against it, knowing that a) Kyoya doesn’t know I’m an interdimensional body thief and therefore thinks I’m still mute and b) There’s no way in hell I am letting my hormonal brain cells produce words in front of this man (beast?) - who knows what those thirsty bastards would say.

When I don’t reply Kyoya raises a perfectly shaped eyebrow at me (almost too perfectly shaped??? Kyoya, I s2g please share with us your self-care routines) and cocks his head at me. He hasn’t said anything too incriminating yet but his entire posture screams predator. 

The intimidating tonfa held in his hand doesn’t escape my notice, either.

He gives me a level glance, assessing, and then to my horror begins climbing into my bedroom.

Once inside he looks around at the mess I’d created, ravaging through Tomoko’s things before coming across her book. Which, he notices in my hands after a pause, causing his eyes to narrow considerably. 

He looks to the book, back to my lovestruck / deer in headlights expression and then sighs. “You don’t remember,” he says after a moment, straightening his back to move out of his initial crouching position. 

Though I have no idea how the Skylark got this idea, it seems easier just to go with the flow lest I be bitten to death as he always warned of on the show (not that I’d mind his biting-).

I nod at him shakily. He gives me an annoyed stare and then turns back towards the window. “We have no business in that case,” he says, preparing to climb back out.

I watch in confused silence for a moment before my mouth moves, seemingly of its own free will. “Wait, Kyoya!”

He stops and turns to me with another assessing stare. Strangely, he doesn’t seem surprised that I’m speaking, nor that I know his name despite me “not remembering” as he believed. 

Now that I had his attention, I could hardly back out … If Tomoko was conspiring with people like the Skylark, then I needed to know what else to expect in this stolen life of mine. And if Tomoko was someone dangerous, then I had the right to know.

I pause, biting my lip. I try to put it in a way I hope Kyoya will understand best. “Was Tomoko a herbivore or a carnivore?” I ask wearily. 

It was hard to forget his character quirk in the show of referring to everyone as such. So really, in Skylark speak, I was asking Was Tomoko a dangerous person? Absurd to think about, really, considering how utterly boring she seemed, disregarding the journal. But I figured I should ask anyway.

Kyoya stares at me flatly. Then, with a small quirk of his lips that has my heart reeling, he answers, “She was an idiot.” And then he jumps out the window.

Well. That was certainly one of the most useless conversations I’ve had since being reborn. What the hell kind of answer was that?!

I drop the journal in my hands onto the floor and sigh. 

Feeling oddly drained from dealing with the Skylark (however briefly) I move to my boring, boring bed and scream into my pillow.

Who the fuck are you, Tomoko Sasagawa?!

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True to her word, Ayaka does indeed wake me up in a couple hours time with food being shoved unceremoniously in my face. 

“Tomoko-chan, I got your favourite!” my ‘mother’ says, beaming as she holds out what appears to be… egg on rice with no sauces or seasoning. 

I was never really a picky eater in my last life (in fact, I was a glutton more than anything if my cholesterol was anything to go by) but something tells me that there is something seriously wrong here.

“This…” I manage after a moment, groggily sitting up in my bed, “was my favourite meal? Like, out of anything in the whole wide world?” 

Ayaka nods enthusiastically at me. “Oh, you loved it! I added no flavouring too, just how you like it!”

Oh, Tomoko, you utter fool. Had this chick never had Ben & Jerry’s ice cream?? Or even, a pork rib burger???? Or the little chocolate doughnut balls you can get at Mickey Ds?!

You poor, poor dumb bitch mute girl. Rest in peace, you bland bastard.

“I…” I glance at Ayaka, and reluctantly take the tray set she offers me. “Thank you, I’ll, uh, I’ll treasure every last bite.”

Despite how incredibly insincere my words sound, even to me, Ayaka smiles. She pats me on the head and then tells me Otou-san would be arriving in a few hours and that my siblings were downstairs with a surprise for me whenever I was ready.

She leaves my room after that, humming as she heads down the stairs. I inhale my egg on rice with a speed that would put MetroVacs and Kirby to shame and then (reluctantly) begin to make my way downstairs. 

To my surprise and horror, the Sasagawas are not the only ones there. Beneath a sloppily made banner that reads Welcome Home Tomoko is a head of impossibly fluffy brown hair that I would recognize anywhere.

Tsunayoshi Sawada himself, the tenth Vongola boss, stands on top one of our dining room chairs while hanging a welcome banner for me.

I make it down the stairs just in time for Ryohei to hear my steps, get excited, let go of the chair he was holding for our shounen protagonist, and watch Tsuna wobble and then fall helplessly to the floor. 

I probably would have laughed in his face about it if the implications of him being here weren’t so terrifying. 

“Imouto!” cries Ryohei, ignorant (or perhaps uncaring?) to the groaning brown haired boy on the floor as he bounces towards me, sun flames in full force. He lifts me from the stairs and twirls me around in his arms. “Surprise!” he shouts, presenting the (poorly) decorated living room to me.

Various balloons and poorly crafted signs scatter the room with streamers half haphazardly hanging from the ceiling. I was supposedly in the hospital only for three days but I guess successfully (and accidentally) pulling off reincarnation is a feat to be celebrated, after all.

Kyoko, from her kneeling position examining Tsuna’s injuries, looks up and smiles warmly at me. “We got all your closest friends together to see if we could get you to remember something!”

There are,,,, two other people in this room aside from myself and the Sasagawa siblings. Kyoko must be pulling a fast one on me, because no way in hell were Sasagawa Tomoko’s closest friends some nondescript boy with brown hair and shitty frosted tips and Tsunayoshi Sawada.

No, I simply will not allow it.

The non-descript boy (also the only other non-canon character in the room) gives me a haughty grin as his eyes meet mine and I seriously begin to question whether another chance at life was really worth this. 

I don’t have time to lament for long, as Ryohei begins pushing me further into the room, excitedly telling me of all the plans they had for the night.

It is around this point that Tsuna recovers from his Humpty-Dumpty inspired fall and comes face to face to me. It really is uncanny, how similar he looks to the characters I’d grown up with. All soft brown hair and big anime eyes. 

“T-T-Tomoko-chan!” he ‘greets’, his voice getting higher with each nervous stutter, up until the point that only dogs and the Hibaris would be able to hear him.

He smiles at me nervously and begins throwing up some gang signs, it seems. 

Ah, wait, I reflect, watching his twitchy hands. He’s using ASL.

Despite the body I now reside in, I could say with confidence that I know jack-shit about sign language. In fact, the only phrases I can recall are “ugly slut,” and “stay the night with me.” Both of which would probably bring Tsuna to an early grave if I signed them to him.

It is surprising however to see him so adept in it, especially considering that Tomoko wasn’t even deaf from what I gathered. Just mute.

I stare at him blankly and it is only when Kyoko grabs his sleeve that he stops. “Sawada-san,” she begins, “ Tomoko doesn’t know how to sign anymore.”

And then Tsunayoshi turns even redder as if suddenly remembering. “Ah! Right! I didn’t think about that...” He frowns, and then nervously turns to my ‘sister’. “How should we talk to her?”

“Well,” I begin, vaguely annoyed. “You could start by asking the person you’re talking about, instead of asking my family.”

Family still sounds strange to say, and even stranger knowing I’m referring to fictitious characters as such. If anyone catches me calling them my Nakama, you have permission to shoot me.

Tsuna looks back to me, momentarily stunned, but then a grin breaks out on his face. “You can talk!” 

It is at this point the non-descript boy from before shuffles towards us, puffing out his scrawny chest in pride. “Hah! Of course! Did you expect anything else from our fearless leader?!”

Fearless… who?

Come again, homie?

I narrow my eyes at the boy, with his shitty frosted tips on dark brown hair and his large Harry Potter glasses that obscure most of his face. 

“Who the hell is this kid?” I ask, pointing a finger in his direction while turning to Kyoko. In my confusion I momentarily forget to censor myself, and then decide to hell with it and continue to be my usual tactless self. “Did he lose his parents in the grocery store or something and now he's here?”

The glasses-boy holds a hand to his chest dramatically at my question. “Fearless leader! How could it be? That you don’t remember your beloved right hand man?”

He begins ranting after that, talking about his boundless loyalty and oh! what horror is this! before I decide to put an end to his theatrics. “Listen here, frosty, you gotta can it or you’ll be demoted to right foot man and that right foot will be going where the sun don’t shine.”

A moment of stunned silence falls between us all before Kyoko, ever the saviour of awkward situations, clears her throat nervously. “Don’t take it personally, Yori-kun,” she tells him. “She doesn’t remember any of us,” Kyoko adds, her tone more wistful then it was before.

I feel guilt festering in my gut even though it’s something completely out of my hands, but Yori speaks before I can think about it too long. “Yes, but I’m far more important than you nobodies to Tomoko!”

(nice try bud but you ain’t even canon)

From where I am standing I am able to hear the quiet snap of Kyoko’s patience for the scrawny boy. She bristles at him. “We’re her family-”

“And I’m her right hand-”

Tsuna, caught in between the argument, shrinks helplessly into himself. I prepare to intervene but Ryohei beats me to it. “No arguing today!” he interrupts, standing between them. “We’re all here because we care about Tomoko, right?”

Both parties nod earnestly at that.

“She’s my sister, of course-”

“I would follow my Fearless Leader to the depths of hell itself-!”

“Then stop raising your voices.” He warns them. “It’s Extreme in the worst way, and you know that Tomoko hates confrontation.”

I did? I appreciate the faith, big bro, but last I checked I was an argumentative little shit. 

They both look away guiltily at that, and Ryohei seems pleased. “Now,” he begins quietly (or as quiet as the boxer could manage) “Let’s get out the slides and recover some Extreme memories!”

What followed was a painful two hours sandwiched on the couch between Kyoko and Frosty while Ryohei put on a slide show presentation of photos of Tomoko throughout her childhood.

From a red-faced newborn being proudly held by Ryohei, to cute tea parties in Kyoko’s room, I am subjected to two hours of family memories. While it is with a detached sense of numbness that I realise how frighteningly close the Sasagawa siblings are, my mind is more preoccupied on the realisation that Tomoko isn’t smiling in a single one of these photos.

She wears the same neutral expression in each picture, no matter the activity. At the park, at the beach, even while on a rollercoaster does she keep the stoic look. It’s honestly unnerving, but no one in the room seems to think it strange. 

After a plethora of photos and home videos with the Sasagawas, it is when Tomoko is around ten years old that Tsuna begins to show up in the photos. In each one he wears the same sheepish grin, and he and Tomoko can be seen playing in the sand together or walking from school.

Interestingly enough, neither Ryohei or Kyoko have any pictures with him, despite how often he seems to be appearing in our house, and he and Kyoko being in the same year. And there are no photos of Frosty the Snowman at all, strangely.

Not only was the show incredibly boring, it told me surprisingly little about Tomoko’s life. From these photos she just seemed like a normal, if not a little apathetic, teenage girl. 

Hardly anything that explained what Kyoya Hibari was doing in her room, or why I was chosen to live out the rest of her life. 

The normality of it all and lack of explanation has me frowning by the time my “party” comes to an end. Yori is the first to leave, with a passionate speech that he’ll stop by tomorrow to see me and receive his “orders”, whatever that meant.

I desperately hoped that Tomoko wasn’t involved in some elaborate 24/7 LARPing society.

Tsuna got up to leave shortly after that, politely declining Ayaka’s insistence to stay for dessert and making a beeline for the doorway. I barely take note of his nervous goodbyes until he tells Ayaka that his new stay-at-home tutor was arriving tomorrow morning, and that he shouldn’t stay out late tonight because of it. 

The words go in one ear and out the other until they finally register. Tutor?

As in, Mafia Tutor? As in, Cursed Toddlers that moonlight as Hitmen?

It seems foolish now that I assumed I had more time before Reborn came to town, but I suppose I should have expected as much as soon as I recognised Ryohei’s face in that hospital room. 

Tomorrow is the day the world ends.

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Chapter Text

03 | flames were a mistake and here's why 

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My new father is… disappointingly normal. 

I don’t know what I expected, but after all this anime-reincarnation madness, getting a father that looks like every other generic salaryman in Japan feels a little lacklustre.

I feel like I’ve been cheated, just a little bit. 

But that’s beside the point. He, like Ayaka, was extremely happy to have heard of my “miraculous” recovery but since hearing of the whole “magically not a mute now btw” BS he insisted we return to the doctors for a more thorough examination.

Which led to my second day in my new, exciting shonen lifestyle mainly being spent in waiting rooms and doctor’s offices. Kyoko and Ryohei had (reluctantly) left for school that morning, so it was just my pseudo-parents and me at the hospital.  

My siblings had vehemently denied returning to school and wanted to go with me, but considering today was the pilot, I didn’t want to derail the plot by having Kyoko not at school, and thus insisted she go for the sake of the ‘pursuit of education’. After all, if she wasn’t there, then who would Tsuna strip for? It would throw the world to anarchy.

Admittedly, it did make me feel uneasy, knowing that somewhere across the other half of town was a midget hitman going “Ciaossu” and shooting nervous teenage boys.

But that feeling pales in comparison to the tension in my stomach when the doctor calls me into his office after all my testing is complete. As we wait for the Doctor to arrive, my ‘father’ places his hand around my shoulder reassuringly and proudly claims he got the best professional money could buy.

Which makes it all the more disheartening when Trident Shamal kicks down the office door in a huffing mess. He shuts the door behind him and lefts out a sigh of relief.

“Man-” he begins shakily, running a hand through his gelled-up hair. “Those nurses can’t take a compliment well, can they?” He asks himself incredulously. 

With my context of the show, I presume compliment is akin to something more like sexual harassment. 

His eyes meet ours and he offers us all a hearty grin as he casually begins to stroll to his desk. As soon as he sits there is a loud banging on the door, followed by a woman’s indignant screeching. 

“Shamal, you bastard, you’re going to fucking pay for what you said about me!”

My mother gives him a nervous look. He brushes off her concern with a smile that is far too friendly for my liking. “No need for concern, Ayaka, it’s just a disgruntled former patient of mine.”

My father puts a comforting (or, perhaps, possessive?) hand on my mother’s. “Dr Shamal is a renowned surgeon from Italy. He’s dedicated his life to treating disadvantaged women.” He tells her with a prideful sparkle in his eye.

Father dearest, I hate to break it to you, but you’ve just hired an expensive and perverted assassin.

Dr Shamal nods along, looking far too proud of his ‘achievements’. “What can I say?” he replies, leaning back in his chair. “I’m a benevolent soul.”

I snort at him before I can censor myself. “And I’m Mother Teresa,” I reply sarcastically.

Dr Shamal narrows his eyes at me before he breaks out into a wide grin. “So it’s true! You can speak now, Tomoko-chan! ♡” He crinkles his eyes at me before adding jubilantly, “I think I preferred you when you were quiet, though.”

I merely narrow my eyes at him in response.

Disregarding how rude that comment is, his phrasing implies that this isn’t a one-off thing and that Tomoko had seen him before. But that begs even more questions. What on Earth was he doing in Japan already? It was far too early for his anime debut, and how the hell did my father convince a world-renowned assassin to treat me?

Reborn was only able to bring him to Japan by pulling some strings and calling in favours, but that was Reborn. His clout in the criminal underground was off the charts. 

I glance at my father curiously but don’t have time to ponder long. Shamal clears his throat and begins speaking. “Anyway, I’ve looked over at all her test results, but…” He trails off and looks to the side nervously.

Oh God, I’ve gotten a verbal STD just from looking at him, haven’t I? I’m doomed.

His gaze meets my father’s and it almost seems sympathetic. “There’s nothing that indicates how Tomoko recovered her voice. And the amnesia is probably from the minor head trauma - so her memories could come back next week or… never.”

My mother stands from her seat. “She might never get her memories back?! How could that be?!”

My father, though not nearly as indignant, tightens his jaw and asks, “So we don’t know what made her mute in the first place?”

Shamal lets out a heavy sigh, which makes him appear years older than he ever did in the anime. He addresses my mother first. “There’s a chance she might not ever get them back. There’s also a larger chance that she will.”

My mother huffs and sits back down in her seat. Shamal turns to my father next. “Well, there is one reason why she was mute and why she now isn’t, but I don’t think you’ll like it.”

My father meets his gaze with challenge. “And what would that be?”

“Your daughter chose not to speak,” Shamal begins. “She could do so from birth, but never did so around you. And now that she has amnesia, she no longer has a reason to feign muteness.”

My father immediately tenses at this and leans forward to point an angered finger at him “What kind of accusation-”

Mother begins speaking at the same time. “ Why wouldn’t Tomoko want to speak to us? We’re her family-”

Shamal interrupts before either of them can get too worked up. He sighs and looks at me. “You’ll have to ask her,” he points a bony finger at me.

Tomoko, meet bus. You’ve just been thrown under it. 

All three adults in the room turn to me, and I can feel myself hunching into myself. Don’t look at me! It’s not like I know what was going on through your wack job daughter’s head! I’m just a tenant, not the owner of this body!

“How am I meant to know?” I mutter nervously. 

The three faces soften considerably as I say this. My mother looks away from me. “Ah, I suppose Tomoko is just as out of the loop as we are...”

My mother stands from her seat and begins grabbing her bag. “Thank you for seeing us, Doctor,” she says as she begins to go towards the door in a hurry. My father stands up after her and he and Shamal nod at each other.

“Thank you for this, Shamal.”

Shamal gives him a playful salute in response. I stand to follow them before Shamal calls out to me before I get far. “Tomoko,” he says, making me pause in my tracks. 

“If you do end up remembering,” he begins quietly, quiet enough that my parents cannot hear us which is alarming in itself. “Then don’t mention to anyone our little… training sessions.”

I feel my stomach plummet to the floor. What the hell was that meant to mean?!

What fucking canon characters doesn’t Tomoko have a shady fucking past with? Jesus Christ!

My mother pulls on my arm and urges me to hurry up before I can ask any follow-up questions.

“This is still so fucked,” I mutter as she pulls me through the door. 

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True to his word, my self appointed ‘right-hand man’ Yori is waiting by our front door when we arrive home. 

“Fearless Leader!” He shouts, immediately jumping to his feet when he sees us in the driveway. He bounds over to me like an excited puppy dog. Unfortunately for him, I was allergic to dogs in my past life. 

He leaps forward, presumably to hug me, but I sidestep out of the way before he can. He lands head on our pavement with a satisfying crack. The ridiculousness of it all makes me laugh, but my parents seem to be indifferent to this kind of behaviour.

My mother stands next to his fallen corpse and smiles. “I didn’t know you were coming over so early, Yori-kun.”

Yori lifts his face from the pavement and gives her an excited grin. Incredibly, there are no dents in his face at all. Classic shounen. 

“There’s no time to waste! Fearless leader has been gone for three days! Our gang has been in anarchy!”

I’m sorry,,,, did this himbo say “gang”??

My parents see no issue with his either, apparently, and my mother gives him a reassuring pat on the head. “There, there, Yori-kun. Tomo is back from her appointment so you guys can play again now!”

My father chuckles as he walks past him and into the house. “I’m sure your gang is fine, kids.”

Holy shit. Either the Sasagawas were very chill when it comes to lawbreaking or they simply didn’t believe him. Judging by the endeared smile on my mother’s face, I guessed it was the latter. 

So. Tomoko’s best friends in this world were No-Good Tsuna and some kid with a seriously bad mafia Chunnibyo? And Tomoko just went along with it?

I’m going to punch this kid in the face by the end of the day, I can feel it.

With the approval of my parents, Yori is back on his feet in seconds and already tugging my arm. “Come on, Fearless Leader, the gang awaits!”

Oh boy.

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Even though I’m masquerading as a thirteen-year-old right now, I can’t help how utterly ridiculous and childish I feel at the moment. Currently, Yori and I were en route to our supposed “secret hideout” with the occasional stop at the pop-up convenience store for snacks. 

Yori loudly eats some strawberry pocky next to me as he walks us through the more industrial and abandoned side of town. “Everyone will be so glad to hear you recovered, Fearless Leader,” he tells me in-between mouthfuls.

I grimace at him. “Who’s everybody?” I ask wearily. “And stop calling me that,” I add on.

Yori laughs as if I’d just told a joke. “Oh, you know,” he replies casually. No, I did not know. “The whole gang will be there! And stop calling you what, Fearless Leader?”

Well, that told me absolutely nothing. I narrow my eyes at him. “That! ‘Fearless Leader’ or whatever! It makes me feel like I’m a North Korean dictator!”

Yori pauses in his tracks and looks at me, agape, mid pocky bite. “But it’s so fitting!” he protests.

I kick him in the shin. “It’s a mouthful and it’s weird!”

Yori doubles over from my kick but continues arguing regardless. “But what other title could so aptly describe you, Fearless Leader?!”

“Just call me-” I pause, stopping myself as I realise I was about to say a name that no longer belonged to me. “Tomoko. Call me Tomoko. I’m not a leader.”

He gets up and gives me a disbelieving stare. He lets out a noise of offence and replies, “I know you’re no Sky, but give yourself some credit, Fearless Leader!”

“I’m not your fucking Fearless-” I stop mid-response as his words finally begin to register. “What did you just say?” 

“I said to give yourself some credit! Suns make equally good, if not better, leaders than those arrogant Skies!”

“I-” I’m too stunned to form words, let alone rationally think about how the hell Yori got this information. “How the fuck do you know that?” I manage after a moment. My mouth feels dry and my heart is beating so hard I think it might leap out my throat.

“It’s obvious!” Yori says with a huff and an eye roll. It’s really not. And if I recall correctly, flames wouldn’t even be widely utilised until ten years in the future. “Just look at you and Sawada for example! You’re a much better leader than that dunce! You could harmonise much better than that sorry sod!”

I can hardly believe my ears. Not only does Yori know about flames but he knows them intimately enough to understand their attributes. Not to mention that he knows Tsunayoshi is a sky, even though his flames would have only been awakened this morning.

I examine Yori in an entirely new light. Just who the fuck is this kid?

I lick my lips nervously. “Who told you all this?” I ask, desperately trying to make sure my voice didn’t shake.

Yori blinks as if I’ve asked him why the grass is green and why the sky is blue. He looks at me as if I’ve just asked the obvious. After a confused pause, he answers, “You did, Tomoko.”

My absolute confusion must show on my face as Yori’s eyes widen and then narrow at me. “You really have amnesia, don’t you?”

Annoyed, I reply, “Why the hell would I lie about that?” 

Granted, I still knew a lot more than I was supposed to, but I knew jack-shit about the life Tomoko lived. 

“I- I don’t know,” Yori admits nervously. “I thought it was part of the plan, and that we were just fooling your family last night.”

I put my hands to my face and scream into them in frustration. Yori makes a yelping noise and quickly moves them. “Well you should have said something then!” he shouts. 

With a sigh, he sits down and grabs my wrist so I sit with him. I’m thankful that there’s no one around to see me so openly frustrated, nor to overhear Yori babbling about flames, of all things. The path he leads me on is derelict, and where we sit is covered in grass and overgrown shrubbery, with no one else in sight.

He puts my hands down on the grass and stares at me earnestly. “What do you want to know, Fearless Leader?”

Everything.

Nothing. 

“I don’t even know where to start,” I admit. Then, after a thought, I begin. “When and what did I tell you about flames?”

Yori gives me a reassuring grin that doesn’t make me feel all that much better about this utterly confusing situation. He thinks for a moment. “It was… early last year I believe. You had just turned twelve.”

“I had come over to hang out, and you’d told me that you had…. Finally done something.”

I scrunch my nose. “I told you? With words?” 

He nods. “The mute thing was something you did around the Sasagawas, but you’d always talk to me when no one else was around.”

Annoyingly, it seems Shamal was actually right and Tomoko was never really “mute” in the first place. I frown. “But why?” I ask him. “Why wouldn’t I speak around them?”

Yori gives me a helpless shrug. “I never asked you. It seemed… personal. You asked me not to say anything so I never did.”

And questions lead to more questions.

I furrow my brow but don’t say anything else, so Yori continues his previous story. “I asked what you had done and you just gave me an excited smile. I remember thinking how different it was to your usual smile, and reflecting on how truly blessed I was to be able to witness it-”

I give him a pointed look, silently urging him to get back on track. 

He clears his throat and does so. “You said you were going to show me and then you closed your eyes and produced a tiny flame from your hands.”

Tomoko unlocked her flames. 

I look down to my dainty hands, not noting anything particularly special. I couldn’t feel anything extraordinary in my body either.

Yori continues. “You explained that they were flames. An energy all people possess, but very few can harness and be aware of. You explained that you could do miraculous things with these flames, like causing lightning strikes and healing wounds. I thought you had finally gone mad. You then picked up some scissors from your desk and put a long gash in your hands. I freaked out but you just gave me a knowing look and began to apply the flames to the wound. It healed instantly.”

A sun flame, then. Not surprising. Flames were genetic after all and Ryohei was undoubtedly a sun. But still… The incredulousness of it all almost makes me laugh.

Not only did I have flames, but they were sun flames. 

Sun flames for kindness and protection. Sun flames for me, the biggest asshole I know. 

How ironic.

If Yori notices how amused I suddenly seem, then he doesn't comment on it. “You told me that there were different types of flames and helped me unlock mine.”

Yori was a flame user? This Chuunibyou dud that face-planted into our driveway mere hours ago?

When I give him a dubious look he grins at me and then holds his hand out. A light green light appears above his arm, cackling with sparks like electricity. 

“Lightning flames,” I breathe out, incredulously, as I watch the flame spark. I look back up to Yori and he looks incredibly proud of himself. 

“Of course,” he begins again. “My flames aren’t nearly as strong as yours or that handsy creep-”

Handsy creep? There’s only one person who’d be called that in this town.

“Shamal?” I ask in disbelief.

Yori grimaces as if the mere mention of his name was enough to annoy him. “Yeah, the seedy pervert who you enlisted as our teacher.” 

Teacher? No, no, that didn’t make any sense- 

My body stills as I recall the conversation I’d had with said creep just this morning. Of course. The training Shamal mentioned! He was teaching us how to use our flames!

But that just begs more questions. I know Shamal would do almost anything for a woman, but teaching two snot-nosed kids how to fight with their flames was well and truly pushing it. 

“Why was Shamal teaching us?”

Yori bristles. “Who knows, who cares,” he mutters with distaste. I assume from his tone that he and the doctor must not get along well.

Frowning, I continue with my next question. “How did Tomoko - I mean, how did I know about the flames in the first place?”

Yori seems more than happy to change conversation topics. “You said that it was an instinctual thing. That you always knew there was something there, you just didn’t know what.”

That… made sense I suppose. There are plenty of users who use their flames primarily through instinct alone. But that didn’t explain how Tomoko knew the types or knew to seek out Dr Shamal.

Had she done her own research into it?

But even then… any information regarding flames is typically ridiculously hoarded by powerful mafia families…

Curiouser and curiouser. 

“And I was the one who told you about Tsuna’s flames?”

Yori nods. “Yeah, I think it was an accident though. You kind of just blurted it out. It was one of the games we used to play, where we’d try to guess the flames of everyone around us.”

“I … see,” I answer after a pause. Tsunayoshi certainly didn’t act like a Sky, so I could only wonder if Shamal had let it slip to Tomoko one day that he was one.

Well, at the very least, that somewhat explained what Tomoko and Shamal had in common. But there were still so many things that didn’t make sense.

Like… where we were going, for example. “We don’t really have a gang, do we?”

Yori looks away sheepishly. “It’s more a group then a gang, but the four of us are a force to be reckoned with!” 

“The four of us?” I repeat, hoping for clarification. Having one Frosty around was enough, I certainly didn’t need two more Yori(s) following me around like lost ducklings.

“Yeah!” Repeats Yori excitedly. The “group” must be a point of pride for him because he brightens considerably as he begins talking about them. “It’s you, me, Chikusa and Ken!”

Oh no.

Please say sike right now, Yori.

“Chikusa and Ken..?” I repeat wearily, desperately hoping this is just some elaborate coincidence. 

“Yep. They’re very loyal guys, don’t you worry! They go to Kokuyo Middle, though, so they miss our lunchtime meetings.”

Shit. 

“And I’m…. in an organised gang with you all?” 

“Well, organised is a stretch. We mainly just hang out in this sweet abandoned building and play video games,” Yori says with a smile. Then something else seemingly occurs to him as he opens his mouth, closes it, and then opens it again. “We can’t play video games there right now though.”

Trust me, Yori, that is the least of my concerns right now. 

Then, with a forlorn sigh, he adds. “That stupid Mukuro stabbed the ps2 so it’s busted now. Ken and Chikusa say that they got a guy that can get us another one, but it might take a while.”

Putting aside the question of why they had a shady console dealer, I can’t help but think the name Mukuro is too uncommon to be a coincidence.

Even though I feel as if I know the answer to what I’m about to ask, I let out a heavy sigh and repeat, “Mukuro?”

“Yeah, it’s this weird dude Chikusa and Ken bring sometimes. He’s an absolute beast with Mist flames, which is the only reason he’s allowed to see the base, I think.”

Ah. Lovely. Great. Fantastic.

Not only does Tomoko have a weird history with every canon character in the Katekyo Hitman Reborn universe (apparently) but she’s also the "Fearless Leader" of what seems to be a rudimentary version of Kokuyo Junior Middle Gang from the arc of the first antagonist.

Isn’t that just amazing?

Why couldn’t I have been reincarnated into Ouran Highschool Host Club instead?

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