Chapter Text
When the day that Tsuna's completely normal, ordinary life was brought to a sudden and irrevocable end, it came as no surprise to the boy. Oh sure, he was despairing, horrified, and on the verge of hysterical, but nowhere in his mind was there any surprise, even if only as a pretense. The day was, quite simply, a train wreck. Tsuna had stubbornly dug in his heels and refused to move from the metaphorical train tracks, insisting that there was no train coming even though he had seen it coming for years. No denial of its existence would stop a train going at full speed from hitting anyone stupid enough to linger on the tracks, and this train completely ploughed down the scrawny eleven year old Tsuna.
The world was a strange, strange place, oftentimes bordering on nonsensical. This was a fact Tsuna came to understand at the young age of four when he had seen the news broadcast his mother had avidly been watching, and promptly decided that, no, he was not interested in a life like that, thank you very much. That being a life that was in anyway like the very intense fight between a teen in a robot suit and an actual alien in the middle of the open sky above a crowded city.
So when Tsuna began his first year of school, while the other kids were excited and eager to learn and speak about anything magical in the world, the five year old boy began his personal mission to study the common traits of those who have been blessed, been chosen, and find ways to circumvent the common plots and tropes just in case the universe might set its eyes on him. Tsuna, even as a small child, was a bit of a coward, and was only barely ashamed of the fact. After all, in his mind, it was just self-preservation, just common sense. Who would want to put their life on the line for some silly quest to save the world?
(Except the answer was apparently everyone but Tsuna, as he was forced to listen to the other children as they giggled and gossiped and played pretend that they were one of those special ones and suddenly the boy was an outsider looking in as he floundered without any friends or companions in one of the most crucial social-learning periods of his life.)
Thankfully Tsuna's appearance was pretty normal. Sure, his gravity defying hair was kind of unique, but at least it and his eyes were both a neutral brown, no bright rainbow colors or even his father's blonde and blue. Besides, if he had a too normal appearance, his chances to be chosen would be higher (the everyman-hero type). Tsuna thanked whatever force cared to listen that he was born with such average yet individual looks instead of the alternatives. For example, the older brother of the cute girl in his class, Kyoko, was born with white hair, and even the thought that he could have been like him keeps him up at night. (Everyone knows that white hair is an omen, that a person with with hair is always special, and usually in the most tragic of ways.)
Tsuna's also quite lucky in that Namimori, the place he was born and raised and looked like he was never leaving (which was good, because even being a new kid in town could start something) was a small town, and filled with people who generally kept their nose out of things that had nothing to do with them. Sure, small town heroes were a thing, but they were much rarer than if he were to live in a bustling city. And besides that, Namimori already had a magical protector, The Phantom, who was quick to beat any notion of disturbing the peace of Namimori out of any magical threat (or non-magical really, Tsuna doesn't understand how absolutely no one else has figured out that The Phantom and Namimori Middle's Demon Prefect are one and the same, especially when they use the same distinctive weapons and have the same terrifying animal growls).
So Namimori is safe and protected and there was no need for someone like Tsuna to be stopped by Destiny or Fate or anyone else out there to save it. Tsuna was not fit to be a savior in any way. That was at least something his classmates agreed with. Yes, there was always something that was currently threatening the world at large and the universe was known to pick some kid, teen, or even adult to fight the 'forces of evil', but in reality it was an extremely rare thing to be chosen for those situations. There were billions of people in the world and only a small handful are important enough to have the fate of the world in their hands. By that reasoning, it seemed ridiculous that Tsuna, clumsy, paranoid, forgetful Tsuna who always flunked his tests and didn't have a single true friend would be chosen.
But Tsuna could ignore his peers' disdain and sneers about his adamant refusal of all things magical because he knew something they didn't. Something that was the reason why he was filled with absolutely no surprise when the day finally came. Something that he had tried to deny ever happened even though he had seen the evidence every day for years.
Look, it began like this. A few months after school began, close to his first summer break, Tsuna's father came home with a strange old man. This was a big thing, for even at five Tsuna knew that his father cared more about work than he did his family (the boy had been unhappy he had the absentee parent trait of many main characters). And that little niggling in the back of his head that would warn him not to forget his umbrella on days it would rain and to step over cracks in the sidewalk so that he didn't trip was insistent that he should stay away from the old man (it was nowhere near as worried about his father, though it tellingly still was).
Tsuna had been perfectly happy to leave the both of them downstairs while he hid in his room reading his already then quite substantial shounen and shoujo manga collection (it was for research, honest) but his mother had apparently not been as she physically dragged him to the backyard and told him to play. Tsuna can remember standing there and just staring blankly at the ball his mother had handed him, wishing she could hear the warning bells as clearly as he could. And of course that's just about the time that the devil dog from next door had managed to get into his yard and chase him up a tree (the thing was evil incarnate and Tsuna wouldn't be surprised if it was actually some form of hellhound or possessed by a demon).
Now, a five year old Tsuna could not usually climb very high up the (admittedly rather short) tree, but fear, adrenaline, and a burst of determination can overcome any obstacle. And so it was that little Tsuna had clung to the tree like his very life depended on it until his wonderful mother had shooed the demon dog back to its home. It was only once the immediate danger was gone that Tsuna had noticed just how high he really was. His mother and father both tried to coax him down, but the height was intimidating and Tsuna had been sure that the drop would entail certain death. It was only the fact that the branch that he had chosen to lean on broke that he came down at all.
And come down he did. He was scratched and scraped by the many limbs of the tree on his descent and he had been positive that that would be his death. But then, with the warmth of a million suns burning inside him, Tsuna erupted in flames.
The thought that came immediately after he hit the ground painlessly in a way that could only be magical, was 'oh no, I'm a hero'.
Everything afterward came in a whirlwind for Tsuna. One minute he is mourning his dream of being an ordinary background character and then the next the old man was in front of him with a finger on fire and a grim expression. The little thing that usually only whispered impressions into his mind had screamed. And then all Tsuna knew was cold.
It had taken over a month for Tsuna to recover from that day, most of it spent shivering and in a fugue state. Whenever he (rarely) came out of it, he had clung to his manga for comfort. Reading obsessively of various heroes as he searched for answers. Because five year old Tsuna knew he had been a hero, if only for a few minutes. And then it, whatever had made him special, made him one of the chosen, was stolen from him by a villain (a villain, his father worked for a villain). And while Tsuna never wanted to be a hero, he never wanted to be broken either.
So yes, Tsuna knew he was, or at the very least had once been, one of those chosen few to wield arcane powers that the universe deigned to offer its favorites. But he had hoped (prayed, dreamed) that the universe had given up its claim on him as he tried his best to live a life of a side character even while he was cold, cold, cold. But life never went Tsuna's way, so it still came as no surprise when his normal life was shattered.
The bullet was a surprise. And so was the baby who shot it.