Chapter 2
Tsuna was a smart child. Before he turned five and that man did whatever it was he did to him, this was a well acknowledged thing. The grass was green, the sky was blue, and little Sawada Tsunayoshi was smart.
Then whatever happened, happened, and everything was wrong. He couldn’t remember things well, his limbs didn’t listen to him, things looked closer than they were, and he didn’t have the want or energy to actually get out of bed and do anything.
He was still smart, when he was lucid. When he was aware of what was going on around him, and could pay attention to things for more than three seconds, he was still smart.
Which is why he knew something was wrong. With Namimori, with his father and his ‘boss’. With his Mama.
His Mama had the same glazed look in her eyes that he does on days when everything is too far to the left and making him remember anything is like asking him to fly.
But it’s getting better. It is. At the beginning, all of his days were gray and hazy and everything was too far away and too close at the same time. They were getting less and less frequent, though. He had more days when he was more him then he did whatever husk of a person he was walking around in when he was gray.
But he was still different, even when he was lucid and present and there, then before whatever they did to him.
He did not know if it was an effect of whatever happened, or naturally growing up, or trauma, or something else entirely, but something was different.
Before, he was sunshine and rainbows and made friends like one would collect pebbles. Easily. He stood up to bullies because it was the right thing to do, he protected anything from small animals to highschoolers because it was the right thing to do, because it made him feel warm and fuzzy, but he wasn’t violent at all.
Now, he was different. He was far more aggressive, felt no connection or need to connect with other people. If he stood up to bullies it was because he either had a personal issue with the bully, or he knew and liked the victim. He still liked small animals and plants, but if anyone harmed them? Well, let's just say that he was a helluva lot more violent than the weak five year old that couldn’t throw a punch to save his life.
But the first time he was sure, really sure, that he was different, not just as a side effect of growing up, was the first time an assassin showed up at his house.
He’d been about seven. He’d been in his fair share of fights and had the bloodied knuckles to show for it, but it was a whole nother level. He was woken up by his Mama’s scream, and his instincts had flared.
Someone else in his house. Someone else in his territory. There is a trespasser, trespasser, trespasser hurting what is his.
He ran faster than he’d ever run before in his life to his Mama’s room. There was a man in black, cliche really, standing over his Mama with a gun to her head, demanding to know where Iemetsu was, what he was doing, what the future plans for the Vongola were.
Something in him snapped, and he reached for something inside him. He didn’t know what, at the time, or what he’d just removed, but he reached for his flames and they came out as eye searing purple. The man standing over Mama was nothing more than a charred corpse. Mama passed out, right on her bed.
The second after he’d burned someone alive him he’d burned someone alive what the fuck, another man came through the window. This one had a sword, and he scrambled to pick up the gun that he knew could kill someone but he’d never held before, only seen in the fights he was too weak to intervene in and t.v.
As soon as the man, the new one, looked kind of familiar didn’t he? Saw him, the ash, the gun in his hand and the purple flames still in the room along with the passed out Mama, he dropped his sword and put his hands up.
He started talking nonsense, really.
“Sorry, I’m sorry Sawada-san, I had no idea this was a Cloud’s territory, you’re doing such a good job protecting what is yours, you don’t even need my help, ne? I’ll clean up and take my leave, don’t worry, I’m not encroaching, no need to worry about me, your mother’s still yours, no fears, no worries.”
He snapped out of whatever trance he was in, the purple fire disappearing, and he felt more there he’d felt since whatever happened, happened.
“You know what’s going on? Did I just burst into fire!? What’s happening? Why’d he want to know where Papa was? What’s the Vongola? Why’d he have a gun to Mama’s head? Did I just kill a guy!?”
The guy, is that Yamamoto Takeshi? From Takesushi?, looks at him again, and sighs. He looks much, much older than he is.
“Oh, Tsunayoshi-san. I’m so sorry for being late.”