Drama and acceptance
When Hayato was four he met Sawada Tsunayoshi, and the whole world shifted. He remembered. Years of life spent following, fighting for, protecting, the man in front of him, the best man he'd ever met, the only man he'd ever follow. Who… wasn’t actually a man at that point in time. Was in fact an adorably fluffy four year old boy. That was ok though because his eyes were the same, and when he saw Hayato they lit up with delighted recognition. Juudaime looked like a little kid, but clearly he remembered their past life just fine, they could pick up right where they left off. Hayato wouldn’t have to make friends with him all over again or anything like that.
That whole realisation took place in the space of a few moments after they first entered the gate of the ninja academy. Which was a little inconvenient. It had proved nearly impossible to focus on his lessons with the new memories of a life already lived buzzing around in his head. It was lucky no-one expected a Nara to pay much attention in class. Although he did get some odd looks about the enthusiasm with which he attached himself to Tsuna. Hayato didn’t particularly care what they thought though, so he paid no attention.
Tsuna was a bright spot in a life that was shaping up to be… uncomfortably like his old one to be perfectly honest. His mother had been a civilian, from some no-name village out in the sticks, his father had been the ninja she nursed back to health after finding him injured in the woods, all very cliché. One thing led to another, and his father had fucked off back to Konoha, unwittingly leaving his mother pregnant. Fast forward three years, and his mother had got sick, and sent a message to Konoha telling his father to come and get him.
That must have been a fun revelation. For one thing, the man in question was married and his wife was understandably upset to realise he’d been fucking some random civilian woman on the side. For another thing the man in question was a clan ninja, a Nara to be precise, and ninja clans had very strict rules about leaving bastard children scattered around the countryside, most of which boiled down to don’t. So his father had gotten in trouble, with his wife, and his clan, and apparently the Hokage had given him a very disappointed look when he asked for a leave of absence to pick up the child he didn’t know he had.
Little Hayato hadn’t been too pleased about being packed up and sent to a new home to live with a father he’d never met. He might have harboured some… entirely understandable resentment at the whole situation.
The Nara called him the demon beast from the abyss. His father still got dirty looks from the rest of the clan for spawning him. Hayato felt a certain level of petty satisfaction about that. Fucker had it coming, leave his mother alone and pregnant would he?
Still Hayato wasn’t exactly the most popular of clan members. The Nara were pretty easy going, but they really didn’t know what to do with a child that flew into a homicidal rage whenever anyone irritated him, and consistently interrupted other people’s naps with his screaming temper tantrums. (He was three, he had issues, it was entirely reasonable under the circumstances.)
He suspected they sent him to the academy in the vague hope that it would settle him down or at least tire him out enough that he stopped being a menace. It kind of worked, for a given value of worked, at least in Tsuna’s presence, sort of. He was less angry and more obsessive at least. The memory of his past life had at least given him some perspective. As family went the Nara really weren’t that bad, he didn’t hate them. The clan wasn’t in much of a mood to appreciate this fact though because going to the academy, had also led to Hayato discovering explosive tags.
It didn’t matter what they did, they hid the tags and within a day Hayato had figured out how to make his own that were even bigger and better, they locked up the calligraphy supplies, and he picked the locks, they got better locks, and he stole the stuff from the academy. It was a nightmare, explosions, at all hours of the day and night, flashy, destructive, loud, explosions. Hayato would feel bad for them, but really it was their own fault for being such lazy bastards anyway. He was the one being conscientious and working hard to improve his skills, they were just sleeping, they got no sympathy from him.
Tsuna did sigh a bit when he explained that to him, so Hayato cut back on his training on clan grounds, at least in the early morning and during midday siesta time. He didn’t want to make Tsuna sad after all and there were always the academy training grounds. (Half the clan spontaneously built Tsuna a shrine when they realised he was responsible for the reduction in interruptions of their nap time.)
Bianchi, still his older sister, was probably the only one of his clanmates who really understood him, he wasn’t sure if she remembered, or just happened to be a bit less… apathetic than most Nara, but either way she didn’t look at him like he was a punishment from the heavens for her sins in a past life. She actually rather liked him in a distant, “cute stroppy kid I’m related to and can therefore torment”, way. She was mostly busy with her own ninja career so they didn’t spend a lot of time together, but apparently reincarnation had hit a reset button and he could now be in her presence without collapsing, so they did sometimes train together. It was nice. (Even if he was still careful to avoid her cooking. Some lessons lasted more than one lifetime, and his sister was still training as a poison specialist).
Still his clan might find him troublesome, but they really were remarkably easygoing. Possibly the best family he could have hoped to be reincarnated into. They didn’t understand him, they didn’t really know what to do with him and they deeply resented the way he interfered with their sleep schedule, but they made no effort to interfere with his life choices. They were fully supportive of his friendship with Tsuna, who they saw as a good influence, as well as his newfound habit of training away from the clan compound, which they considered a relief. Life was good. And then the baseball idiot showed up. Hayato was not pleased to see him. Not in the slightest. At all. He hadn’t missed his stupid face, or his stupid laugh or his stupid sword skills. No that was unfair, he could admit the sword skills were useful. But the idiot was still annoying, and Hayato was still irritated that he’d showed up.
Yamamoto hadn’t actually started attending the ninja academy until he’d woken up, had been headed for a civilian career before he ran into Tsuna in an incident that reminded Hayato uncomfortably of that time on the school roof, and had ended in him remembering the life all of them had shared. After that there had been no question of staying in civilian school, and Yamamoto had transferred to the ninja academy to be with Tsuna, and Hayato, and Mukuro who had somehow inserted himself into the class without anyone realising he hadn’t been there all along. If there was a part of Hayato that felt warm and fuzzy at the thought of all of them being back together he would take it to his grave, the idiot didn’t need the encouragement.