Work Text:
Tsuna doesn’t know when exactly they started just that his dreams were... weird. Seriously, why were they all so random?
Cursed not-really-infants?!
Running around in nothing but his underwear?!
Tutoring using explosives?!
A time traveling bazooka?!
Weird multicolored flames?!
The mafia?!
Where did his subconscious even pull these crazy ideas from?! Not to mention the general awkwardness that came with not being able to look in Yamamoto’s and Hibari’s general direction because why was he even dreaming about them in the first place?!
Tsuna can maybe picture Hibari featuring in his nightmares but that doesn’t... quite fit his dreams. Even if they are sometimes scary and downright impossible “nightmare” doesn’t really seem accurate.
(Tsuna knows that most dreams are supposed to be hazy half-remembered things but his dreams had always been clear. Like flipping through a picture book.)
But in the end Tsuna supposes it doesn’t really matter. His dreams have little impact on his daily life, so what if they’re a little fantastical? They didn’t mean anything right?
... Right?
(Years later Tsuna will look back on his own naïveté and laugh and laugh and laugh before curling up in a ball and crying.)
“Ciaossu,” the baby from hell greets.
(A yellow pacifier matching yellow flames, a bringer of chaos, a hitman, a mentor-)
(Reborn.)
Tsuna can feel— feel —his eye twitch.
So perhaps he’d been a little suspicious when the flier for the tutoring position came in—eerily mirroring the start of one of his dreams—but Tsuna had been willing to write it off as nothing more than an odd coincidence.
But there was coincidences and then there was... whatever the hell this was.
So Tsuna does what any sane person would do and bangs his head against the wall.
(It doesn’t help.)
Tsuna then proceeds to curl up on the ground and have a mental breakdown.
(Reborn is kind of worried that he already broke his new student. And they haven’t even gotten to the torturing- ahem- tutoring sessions yet.)
Ignorance and denial are the way to go, Tsuna decides.
Everything is fine. Nothing weird happening here. Nope, not at all.
And then Reborn shoots him.
And that’s when things get really weird.
Goddamnit Reborn.
Standing in his underwear in the middle of the street after not quite confessing is just as humiliating in reality as it is in his dreams—if not more so.
Tsuna buries his face in his hands with a dying cat noise that turns into a sob, less out of the humiliation and more out of pure exasperation and resignation at this point.
The fact Reborn is actually concerned enough to give Tsuna clothes as a not-quite-apology for the whole incident is almost the worst part.
Almost. Tsuna will take what he can get.
“Isn’t it great?” Nana chirps over dinner. “I’m so glad you have a tutor to help you now!”
The fact said tutor is a baby is apparently a nonissue.
“More coffee please,” Reborn requests.
“Of course!” Nana says cheerily, faithfully oblivious to everything wrong with this picture.
Tsuna hits his head on the dining table.
It’s like watching a script play out, or a movie stuck on repeat. Tsuna wants to cry.
“I’m here to train you to become a mafia boss,” Reborn squeaks, his cute appearance a horrible, horrible lie.
“Uh-huh,” Tsuna says numbly.
“It’s called the Vongola Family,” Reborn adds.
Tsuna has a heard a variation of this same speech over 20 times in his sleep. His dreams were oddly intent on hammering this part home. Now he thinks he might know why.
“Uh-huh.”
“All the other eligible heirs are dead,” Reborn continues casually, with the same voice one might use to say they ran out of milk earlier. “You’re the only one left.”
“Uh-huh.”
Reborn frowns severely from under his hat, his baby face not at all taking away from the very real threat of it. “Are you even listening Dame-Tsuna?”
“I am,” Tsuna says on autopilot—because not responding appropriately to Reborn is an automatic death sentence.
Tsuna probably shouldn’t know that either.
“Can I ask a question?”
“Go ahead,” Reborn ever so graciously allows, cleaning his gun.
“Where do the multicolored flames come into play?”
Reborn looks like he’s contemplating shooting him.
Tsuna feels like he might have made a mistake.
“You’re a civilian,” Reborn says. It’s not a question. “How do you know about flames?”
“Uhhh...”
Tsuna doesn’t really have an answer for that that doesn’t make it sound like he’s out of his mind or like some kind of bad pick-up line.
“Uhhhhhhh...”
I saw it in a dream? What kind of an answer is that?!
But Reborn is staring at Tsuna like he’s starting to think he might be some kind of imposter. Which is Bad. Capital necessary.
“... I just do?”
Tsuna is surprised he isn’t already dead on the ground.
Reborn stares at Tsuna with beady eyes which is almost even more unnerving.
“I expect you to tell me someday,” Reborn says matter-of-factly, like it’s a foregone conclusion, before moving on to cheerfully describing the deaths of the Ninth’s sons with far too much detail. Probably as revenge for hiding something from him.
(He never could hide anything from Reborn.)
“Class this Gokudera Hayato,” his teacher introduces—a familiar face standing at the front of the classroom that Tsuna has never actually met before now.
(Bombs and smoke, a hurricane, a storm, loyalty that rivals puppies-)
Tsuna repeatedly slams his head down against his desk and whimpers pathetically into the hard wood.
And possibly cries.
He deserves that much at least.
Gokudera actually looks concerned for a moment there.
Tsuna had been hoping, however misguidedly, that recent events had just been a- a fluke of some kind. Something that’s beginning to seem less and less likely everday.
(He misses when weird dreams had just been that and something easily written off.
Tsuna doesn’t want his dreams to come true.)
Tsuna doesn’t want to fight Gokudera either.
(What he wants never seems to matter.)
He does anyway.
And it’s- it’s- it’s all so stupid. The only reason Tsuna is even being considered for Vongola Decimo is because he has the bloodline. If it was that easy for Tsuna to get out of it Tsuna would have done it a long time ago. Gokudera couldn’t become Vongola Decimo even if he wins and-
( “Juudaime!” )
Tsuna doesn’t want to fight.
But as Reborn cocks his gun, dynamite raining around them, Tsuna doesn’t want Gokudera to die either.
“SAVE GOKUDERA WITH MY DYING WILL!”
“Not bad Dame-Tsuna,” Reborn allows. The closest Reborn gets to praise. “Good job getting your first subordinate.”
“He’s not my-“ Tsuna cuts off with a sigh, giving up because he already knows how this script will end.
Reborn will win.
Reborn always wins.
“We might be able to increase your training soon,” Reborn adds, casually delivering the death sentence.
“M-more?” Tsuna squeaks- I mean- no, squeaks is accurate.
There’s a terrifying glint in Reborn’s eyes.
Fuck it.
Tsuna flees.
(It doesn’t work because Reborn is Reborn but it was worth a shot.)
(A calming rain, bright (fake) smiles, the sharp edge of a blade-)
“What do you think Tsuna?” Yamamoto Takeshi asks, all friendly cheer and a smile that doesn’t quite make it to his eyes.
“Um,” Tsuna says intelligently because it’s not everyday one of the school idols talks to him.
When he’s awake anyway. In his dreams he talks to Yamamoto all the time.
“I think...” Tsuna bites his lip.
(A figure on the edge of a building, eyes dead, and a long way to the ground.)
Tsuna smiles and it’s about as real as Yamamoto’s. “I think you should get some rest Yamamoto,” Tsuna says and the concern, at least, doesn’t need to be faked. “You work so hard already, sometimes things come easier after you rest for bit.”
“Haha, you think so?” Yamamoto says, scratching his cheek.
Tsuna still isn’t sold on his dreams, just wants to be normal, but-
“I do.”
If this can change that outcome, even just slightly, Tsuna will try it.
They end up on the rooftop anyway.
(Why can’t Tsuna do anything right? Why can’t he help even one person?)
“Hahaha,” Yamamoto laughs like they hadn’t just fallen off the roof and survived only because Reborn’s presence comes with magical bullets. “You’re amazing Tsuna,” he says.
“Ah...” It was mostly thanks to Reborn though. “Thanks?”
(At least now Yamamoto’s smile doesn’t look quite so pinched.)
“Want a drink boy?” Bianchi asks smoothly, holding out the can.
Tsuna accepts it only because he’s too terrified to see what she’d try if he didn’t. He drops the can. “Accidentally” of course. The concrete melts.
“Oops,” Tsuna says dryly.
It’s not the last murder attempt on his life that day.
His dreams had not been exaggerating Reborn’s tutoring methods. If anything they’d been underselling them, which is a horrifying thought.
It likely has something to do with the fact Tsuna couldn’t feel pain or exhaustion in his dreams. Reality is much less kind.
“Answer question seven,” Reborn commands, pointing at the problem in his homework.
There’s bombs involved.
Tsuna fears for his life.
But running away was never an option with Reborn.
“Uhhh, fourteen?” Tsuna answers frantically.
“Correct,” Reborn says. “You live for now.”
Tsuna breathes a sigh of relief.
“Now answer question nine.”
“Hiiieeeeee!”
It’s awful.
It’s horrible.
It’s almost nostalgic at this point.
And most of all it’s effective.
Reborn might be a sadist and chaos incarnate but fuck if his methods aren’t as effective as they are terrifying. Tsuna actually gets more than half the questions right on his next test.
Reborn’s efficiency is to be feared.
(And of course that’s when a five year old comes through the window.)
The time traveling bazooka is real.
The time traveling bazooka is real.
Tsuna gives up.
(What even is his life?)
(A shock of lightning, sweets and childish tantrums hiding a will made of steel-)
(Lambo.)
The five year old stays.
Reborn is the devil.
Somehow Tsuna is the only one that seems to realize this. Everyone else seems to live under the mistaken delusion that Reborn is an innocent child that can do no wrong.
Hah!
Take a moment to laugh at the mere thought.
Still, this somehow translates into everything Reborn does being Tsuna’s fault as the dubiously responsible adult between the two of them.
At least that’s what Tsuna gathers when Miura Haru smacks him.
“Why?!” Tsuna yells plaintively at the sky, Reborn smirking at his suffering.
Hibari Kyoya can’t possibly be human. It defies the laws of nature.
(A cloud that drifts along at his own pace, bloodlust and strength personified, a force of nature given human form-)
“H-hi Hibari-san,” Tsuna tries weakly, offering a tiny wave.
It doesn’t help much.
“Herbivore,” Hibari says, all predatory deadliness. “I’m going to bite you to death.”
“HIIIEEEEEE!”
When I-pin finally shows up Tsuna just gives up and curls up on the ground and cries.
There’s no escape.
“Juudaime?!” Gokudera yells in concern.
“Ahaha, what are you doing Tsuna? Some kind of new game? It looks like fun,” Yamamoto says cheerily.
“It’s not fun!” Gokudera protests vehemently. “The Juudaime is crying!”
Sasagawa Ryohei is, um, Extreme. In every way possible.
(Enough energy to rival the sun, a protective big brother, the most extreme person to ever live-)
Which is about all Tsuna has to say about that particular experience.
“This never happened,” Tsuna says, dead inside.
“But Juudaime-“
“Never happened!” Tsuna repeats desperately.
“How pathetic Dame-Tsuna,” Reborn comments.
“Leave me alone!” Tsuna cries.
As someone that also survived Reborn’s definition of tutoring Tsuna feels a spiritual connection with Dino. The shared clumsiness might also help.
“You weren’t surprised to meet him,” Reborn comments later, after Dino leaves.
“I wasn’t,” Tsuna agrees.
His dreams don’t come in any particular order Tsuna can pick out but things that strongly impact Tsuna seem to replay the most. Tsuna has met Dino is his dreams over ten times by now.
“Hm,” Reborn says.
The Skull Disease is apparently also real and Tsuna hates his life.
“Why?!” Tsuna wails, hitting his head against the wall.
Smack.
“WHY?!”
Smack.
“WHY?!”
Smack.
“Is... he okay?” Shamal asks dryly, pointing at Tsuna.
“He’ll be fine,” Reborn says indifferently, sipping on some tea, already used to his student’s antics.
It’s crazy. All of it. Tsuna still can’t believe any of this is actually real.
Tsuna quietly despairs for his sanity.
Tsuna stares blankly at Futa de la Stella.
He sighs and sends a look to the sky.
“How does ice cream sound?” Tsuna asks.
Futa beams.
And then Mukuro Rokudo comes to town.
Tsuna feels like his smile might be cut out of granite.
“Tsuna?” Yamamoto asks, definitely concerned.
“I want orchids at my funeral,” Tsuna says.
“Wha- Juudaime?!” Gokudera yells, alarmed.
“And my dad isn’t invited to it,” Tsuna continues, still smiling.
Reborn is Not Amused. “Shut up Dame-Tsuna. We need to come up with a plan.”
“But my plan is dying.”
Reborn hits him for that.
The thought of facing Mukuro is terrifying in the same way that facing Hibari is.
But-
(As elusive as mist, mismatched eyes, an eerie laugh-)
It looks like Tsuna doesn’t have a choice in this either.
It’s a running pattern.
Lancia is the one that meets them and-
Tsuna doesn’t want to fight him either.
“Where’s the real Mukuro?” Tsuna asks.
Reborn sends him a calculating look. Like he’s adding this to his mental file of ‘Weird Things About Dame-Tsuna That I’m Going To Torture Him For Answers About Later’.
Which is terrifying. And a problem for Future Tsuna. Sucks to be that guy.
(They fight anyway.)
The Vindice are just as terrifying as Tsuna remembers when they come.
“Wait-“ Tsuna says, stepping in front of Mukuro.
What is he doing?! Tsuna internally screams at himself.
(An isolated chamber where Mukuro spends the rest of his days in, Chrome his only connection to the outside-)
“Tsuna,” Reborn says calmly. It rings like a warning.
It’s not like Tsuna wants to be doing this either!
“I want to make a deal,” Tsuna says anyway because he can’t not.
There’s a pit in his chest and knot in his throat.
“The Vindice don’t make deals,” they say.
“You will,” Tsuna says, jutting his jaw out. There’s a fire raging in his eyes. “Otherwise how will you get your revenge?”
There’s a long, heavy silence that drags on for far too long. “You have our attention,” the Vindice say.
Oh god Tsuna regrets everything.
Why had he even opened his mouth?!
He should have let Reborn’s crazy training kill him.
Oh god, what if his dreams are lying to him?! Tsuna will be so dead.
“You said you knew how we could get revenge,” Jaeger leads with, intimidating and eery.
Kind of like Mukuro actually.
“Um. Maybe?” Tsuna says.
Tsuna can’t even see his face but Jaeger’s judgement is acute.
Reborn is a silent statue behind him, finger resting on the trigger of his gun.
“I know where Checker Face is,” Tsuna blurts like he can’t get the words out fast enough. “And how to break the Arcobaleno Curse.”
It feels like all the air has been sucked out of the room.
“I’m listening,” Jaeger says.
(Tsuna is pretty sure Mukuro is gaping.)
They survive. Somehow.
“Ohmygod,” Tsuna says, his legs giving out beneath him. “That was scarier then facing Hibari!”
Yamamoto laughs, throwing an arm over Tsuna’s shoulders. “There’s no such thing!”
Tsuna manages a weak smile at that.
“That was unnecessary Vongola,” Mukuro says, smile all teeth and sharp edges. “You’ve only put yourself in danger. Now I’ll have an easier time to try possessing your body.”
“Maybe,” Tsuna says noncommittally. He smiles then. “You should come over for dinner some time. My mom loves having people over.”
Mukuro’s face in that moment is absolutely worth it.
Reborn waits until they’re home.
“Tsuna,” Reborn says gravely.
Tsuna turns to meet his mentor’s gaze.
“We need to talk,” Reborn says.
“Okay,” Tsuna agrees.
(Making excuses was never really an option with Reborn either.)
“Can you really break the curse?” Reborn leads with, tone deceptively nuetral.
Tsuna bites his lip. “Maybe. I know of a way it can be broken anyway.”
“How?” Reborn asks simply.
“I don’t really know when exactly it started,” Tsuna says, “just that my dreams are... weird. And prophetic apparently.”
(Reborn is the first person he tells about his dreams. It feels right.)