Chapter Text
When Reborn first arrived at Namimori, he didn’t expect much. A no-good student to train up to become a suitable heir to Vongola, a cheerfully oblivious wife and mother who wouldn’t question Reborn’s presence- nothing more. Sawada Nana fit his expectations; there was nothing strange or unusual about the woman beyond her seemingly endless capacity to not care about or notice the odd things happening around her.
It was her son that… didn’t quite match what Reborn had been told about him.
A boy who knew far more than he was supposed to, a Sky with unusually strong and bright flames for someone who was supposedly sealed, who looked at Reborn like he’d been anticipating his arrival.
(What the hitman had no way of knowing was that all of this was because Tsuna already had a Lightning. Had one since long before his becoming a mafia boss was even a possibility.)
Tsuna didn’t remember his first meeting with the one who would become his Lightning well. He was only a child then after all and the details slipped away from him quickly.
Only three things ended up sticking in Tsuna’s mind.
One; finding a passed out man in his front yard and noticing how beat up and worn out he looked.
Two; the man’s eyes snapping open as soon Tsuna tried to run to get his mother.
Three; a flare of bright green something, a snapping sound and a sudden inexplicable feeling that a piece of him he hadn’t realised was missing had now slotted back into place.
Sawada Tsunayoshi recognised him instantly, which by itself was alarming. Because why exactly would Iemitsu’s supposedly civilian son have any reason to even know who Reborn was, let alone recognise him on sight?
When Reborn began his explanation that he was there to train him into becoming a good mafia boss, Tsuna didn’t even blink. He only cheerfully stated that Reborn was welcome to try, in the same tone people used when they heard a child say something particularly amusing. Reborn would’ve thought that the boy had inherited his mother’s ability to deny reality and wasn’t taking him seriously, if it weren’t for the fact that Tsuna treated him with the exact same amount of wariness that he was used to receiving from people.
(Which, again, should not have been possible unless Tsuna was in the know about the mafia somehow.)
(That was pretty obvious; what had Reborn stumped was the how and the why.)
However, despite all the things that didn’t quite add up about Tsuna, Reborn still had a reason for being here and it had nothing to do with a sudden ardent desire to teach. He wasn’t about to give people reason to say that Reborn couldn’t do his job, even if tutoring was slightly out of his usual field of expertise.
Tsuna did not remember much of his first meeting with his Lightning.
Lambo, on the other hand, remembered this meeting very well indeed. Every single moment of it was precious, a memory to be treasured. He’d learned his painful lesson now- never again would he take happiness for granted. Lambo had watched his precious family die, saw his entire world go up in flames and burn.
He was the only one that survived.
Despite the soul-deep tear in him, Lambo resolved not let their sacrifices go to waste and survive no matter what, because that was their last wish for him. He knew that his family wouldn’t want him to join them in death too quickly, but every day since then had been a struggle.
He’d had no way of being sure that his crazy attempt to rip through the fabric of reality would even work, but it was his only option.
And now, Lambo was face to face with his Sky again. Despite attempting to reign his Flames in, they were far too eager, far too starved to hold back now that the one he’d missed so badly was right in front of him. Before Lambo had the chance to calm down, his flames hit a stone wall instead of warm-welcoming-home Sky.
It was at that moment that things changed irreversibly.
Because the sheer dissonance between seeing Tsuna and yet not feeling his Sky was enough to push Lambo into a state of panic himself. He pushed harder against the block and cracked the seal.
(It was only a single crack, but it was more than enough.)
Reborn first learned about his student’s mysteriously absent older brother from casual conversation with Nana and Tsuna.
Nana sighed that the house felt much emptier now that “he” was gone.
Tsuna grumbled that getting through school sucked without “him” there.
Neither seemed to think much of talking about it in front of Reborn, occasionally referencing that there was in fact, a third resident of the Sawada household, currently absent for work-related reasons.
Funny, Reborn hadn’t known that Iemitsu had an older son.
Because he didn’t. If that were the case, there would have been no need to hire Reborn to turn a teenage civilian boy into a passable mafia boss.
So what exactly was going on here?
The answer to the hitman’s unspoken question arrived without warning one day, already sitting at the table by time both Tsuna and Reborn came to breakfast.
‘Look who’s finally come home!’ Nana said cheerfully as they entered, a beaming smile on her face.
Tsuna froze, eyes wide and riveted on the man in front of them.
(Reborn tensed and stared as well, albeit for a very different reason.)
Almost a full minute of silent staring went by before an amused voice asked:
‘Aren’t you going to greet me?’
It was like the words broke an invisible tension in the air, because Tsuna dove at his brother, first to hug him, then to demand indignantly why he hadn’t been heard from at all in almost two months now.
Reborn did not hear any of that, too busy internally cursing out both Iemitsu for somehow missing that a Lightning now infamous in the mafia world lived with his wife and son and himself for not running a background check the instant he heard about Tsuna’s mysterious brother.
(What was someone like Raiden doing in Namimori?)