Chapter Text
Chapter One : Take Responsibility
The Bovino family understands better than anyone in the world: the theory of time travel, and the theory of the multiverse. They know better than anyone that time does not pass the same in every version of the universe, that even the 'Ten year Bazooka' would more accurately be called the 'Sidestepping Bazooka'. There are infinite number of universes. Their Bazooka merely plucks a copy from the ones that are nearby.
The future is hardly immutable. But to play with it? To act with that knowledge? They aren't so foolish as that. It's a secret that only that boss in charge of the Family knows, and she holds it close and never whispers word one to that precious child of hers when she hands their most dangerous weapon over.
At a certain point, the members of the Bovino family come to understand that the future is their utmost responsibility. They see again and again and again, how it can/might/will play out, and carry those burdens in silence. It takes a special type of person to resist the insanity of making a choice -
After all, a million versions of you exist across the multiverse, created from small everyday decisions, a million by you and a hundred billion more by someone else: a butterfly flapping wings. It's exponential.
And if a million billion versions of you exist, then isn't there a million billion worlds were decisions went wrong and you - don't? A million billion times in every single universe where you die in a million billion different ways-
Or - don't.
A million billion ways the living version of you not only survives, but thrives. Excels.
In one world, through various circumstances, Sawada Tsunayoshi is selected to be the inheritor of a mafia throne at the young age of thirteen. In another world-
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'Tsunayoshi has power' - in the versions of the world where Sawada Tsunayoshi flourishes, that truth remains a constant. This power sometimes differs, because sometimes the world doesn't have the Vongola in a shape that is recognizable, and sometimes Tsunayoshi isn't Iemitsu's child - which makes the donning of the Vongola ring somewhat awkward with Xanxus, but that has less to do with blood and everything to do with the Will inside their hearts - and sometimes Tsunayoshi is blood-related to much stranger things that usually seen on heaven or earth.
In this world, this Sawada Tsunayoshi is a largely standard version of himself - he has Vongola blood in his veins and Sky flames in his heart and he knows he's 'no good' because he gets told that all the time.
This is a truth that Tsunayoshi acknowledges: the world does not give us what we want. It's unfair and ugly. Because it's unfair and ugly, and first hand, Tsunayoshi experiences this ugliness, he sees no problem in saying 'no way' when things are asked of him.
This becomes a truth because: Tsunayoshi, shy as he is, has a hard time saying 'no' at first. But where the heart is willing, the mind and body fall short, and so he gets told 'there was no point in asking it of you in the first place.'
The kids he goes to school with and his teachers start to say, 'don't bother to ask Sawada-kun, he'll say "yes" but it won't get done.'
'He's just no good.'
'Dame-Tsuna.'
(And ahh, ahh, but his heart starts to bruise, and darken, and grow callouses where the tender parts of it get damaged.)
'There's no point in granting favors in the first place, since there's no way I can fulfill them,' is what Tsunayoshi begins to think, and since he can't do anything to help others, Tsunayoshi begins to also think something like: 'what's the purpose of my existence?'
(The pure flame in his heart begins to gutter and dim.)
When the Tsunayoshi of this world with his dimming flames is thirteen, there is no flyer in the Sawada mailbox, and no tutor gets called for him and his failing grades. Anyway, isn't he just being rebellious? It's not like he's getting into fights - or drinking, or doing drugs, it's just a boy becoming a man-
(The always-gone parent who remained silent that day - who didn't exactly not know but didn't want to believe - forgets, a bit, that Italy is a very different place than Japan, and the teenagers he deals with are not middle-schoolers in quiet port towns-)
Tsunayoshi is thirteen, and he tells people without hesitation 'no way,' and he quickly learns when it looks as though others' frustrations will be taken out on him, so he learns to hide fast and run faster. He knows already 'I hate to fight' and 'I hate people being hurt' so he learns to avoid doing either in any manner with all his living will.
(There are no Sun flames to heal where bruises and callouses begin split and start to bleed - no Storm flames to soften where rough edges begin to calcify.)
Despite the fact that there are certain people looking out for Nana and Tsunayoshi out of consideration of the people whose family they are-
Ahh, ahh, well. Bad things are bound to happen, right? Wouldn't it be handy to have the family of the head of the CEDEF? Especially since the Vongola family is-
If it were Tsunayoshi on his own, he wouldn't have gotten caught. He wasn't caught, first, actually - it's not until he finds out they have their hands on Nana, on his mother, that Tsunayoshi himself is captured because Nana is all he has left -
('Tell him I became a star.')
And then - and then - and then, well. It's three days, Tsunayoshi finds out later, but at the time it's just darkness and confusion and some water and not enough food, and his mom holding onto him so tight her fingernails leave red crescents, and her voice calmly singing him lullabies. And then comes the men, and Nana refuses to call Iemitsu's number.
One of the men holds Tsunayoshi back, and Nana is knocked to the floor. Nana cries. Nana says, "I refuse" and Nana says "Do whatever you like to me," and the man says, "What about your son?" She cries. She cries. She says, "leave Tsunayoshi out of this!" Some kind of ferocity comes over Nana when the man approaches Tsunayoshi with the phone in his hand, saying, "Call your old man, okay, kid?"
It spills out of Tsunayoshi's mouth on pure reflex: "No way."
Tsunayoshi sees white and red and black and tastes blood and he hears his mother make some kind of horrible wild-animal sound, and a crack, and a thud, and when he can see again: his mother is on the floor and shaking, shaking, shaking. There's blood on her lip and tear tracks down her face, and she's shaking and her eyes are wide and wild, and Tsunayoshi knows this: something terrible happens inside his heart and inside his head.
Something terrible happens there. Some kind of snapping, crackling sound, like shattering ice or popping embers. The hiss and pop of firecrackers.
Inside, something ignites, and outside a terrible sort of calm descends upon him, and ahh, ahh, it's bad.
It's bad.
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It's kind of good that the men in police uniforms come. Tsunayoshi is covered in blood, and so is Nana, but she holds him so, so, so tight and tells the men that a disagreement broke out between their captors. "I slipped in the blood," Nana says lightly, chuckling it off. "I accidentally got Tsu-kun dirty, too." She giggles, and giggles, and giggles and holds Tsunayoshi so very tight.
Tsunayoshi doesn't know if the men in the police uniforms believe it or not, but he holds onto his mother and they don't question him. There's so much blood. It's a good thing the men in the police uniforms came, because there's no way Tsunayoshi could have killed all the men in the building.
Five was tough enough as it was, and he's so, so, so very tired. His heart and his head hurt so much, and feel weirdly hollowed out, like they'd been burned and burned and burned until there was nothing left to feed the fire that ignited inside him.
A fire in his heart and the cool, clinical burn of his brain that laid out endless possibilities before him. In that moment where his thoughts flew by so much faster than the man standing over Nana could reach down to grab her - he realizes if he does not retaliate, only worse will come.
His only option is 'stop them' and since he doesn't have another option (isn't big enough, isn't strong enough, isn't enough), 'stop' means 'kill.'
How does one go from being a middle-schooler to being a killer? It's not a nice, neat, even transition, this he knows. It's a scary feeling that settles over him, smothering him, and then like riding a bike: he knows how.
It starts with the man holding him, and the gun in his belt. After that is always blood.
If there is no blood, then no one will think twice about sending more: this is what the fire burning in Sawada Tsunayoshi knows. If more are sent, then that's another chance that Nana will be hurt. And it says: we do not tolerate harm falling upon the family.
Distantly, he remembers an adult saying, 'My, Tsuna, you're getting big. I guess with your father gone, that makes you man of the house. Look after your Mama, okay?' And at the time he'd just 'ah-ha'd because he still hadn't mastered telling adults 'no way' - but that's what he'd thought. He'd thought it. Part of him now cries that he's just a kid, still, that Nana has taken care of him this long and how is he supposed to match that?
(By taking responsibility and spilling blood. The part of him that is ignition and burn says: yes.)
Somehow their alibi never gets questioned. Of course it was a fight, the men in police uniforms say. Of course they slipped and fell in the blood (so much blood). They get sent back home, and there are broken dishes to clean up and the clothes to dispose of, and Tsunayoshi needs new shoes but -
(It turns out that his dad isn't dead after all. He shows up a few days later and hugs Nana tight and tousles Tsunayoshi's hair like he's a little kid, and tells him 'you did well, Tsuna.'
Ahh. Ahh.
Is that so.)
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In any case, killing people has a way of changing the one doing the killing, unless they're a natural-born killer. And Tsunayoshi isn't that. He was never that. In other worlds-
But in this world, little Tsunayoshi sits in his bed at night with his knees to his chest and tries to make sense of what happened. He tries, and tries, and tries.
If he'd waited twenty minutes - but no. The thought of the men setting another hand on Nana was -
And so, he slowly begins to rationalize: those men had given up their right to live as human beings at that moment. At that moment. That was the time. That man had hit his mother and sent her crashing to the ground. His mother. Nana, who couldn't even raise a hand in her own defense -
And Iemitsu, voice warm, hand rough and heavy on his head: You did well, Tsuna.
Ahh, what is Tsunayoshi supposed to think?
(His bruised and calloused and bleeding heart cracks.)