Care and protection
Remembrance, for him, always centred on Kyouko. She wasn’t the only thing that mattered, not when there was also Sawada, and little Lambo, and the other guardians to look out for. Not when there was Hana who made his stomach twist in ways that were confusing but not necessarily bad. Kyouko wasn’t the only thing that mattered, and she wasn’t more important than everything else that he cared for, but she was the first. Kyouko was always the first thing he loved, the first thing he protected, the first time he knew his purpose in the world. He didn’t really understand what was going on, but that much he knew hadn’t changed, would never change.
And so it was Kyouko’s tears that reminded him, of the old life he’d forgotten, of the mafia, and flames, and Sawada who was home and little brother, and Sky, to him. It was when he saw Kyouko seven years old, crying after a fight she’d had no business being caught up in, that memory slammed into him with all the force of a fist to the jaw.
The memories changed everything and nothing. Kyouko was still his precious little sister, even if she was his twin now. After all, younger was younger and he’d been protecting Kyouko for more than one lifetime. He still loved to train, and fight, and move, he still found book lessons confusing, but people more simple than they liked to believe. He was still extreme friends with Hibari.
But now he could remember, and he could see a difference between the people he knew from before, and the ones who were entirely new, and it mattered, in ways he couldn’t put into words. And more than that, he could see the people that belonged to Tsuna like he did, could see the people that would belong to Kyouko if she awakened her flames, the people that were starting to belong to Naruto in the class above. He could see the lines being drawn and it seemed unimportant, even to the people who should have known better, but of all the guardians Ryouhei was probably the one who understood people best and he knew that one day, those lines of loyalty were going to come up against the existing structures of the village, and the village was going to lose. He worried about what would happen next sometimes.
Still it was unextreme to dwell too much on things that were too far into the future, not when there were so many wonderful, and exciting things about this new life. There was his cousin Sakura, who had slid neatly into the same category as Kyouko before he’d even relearned how to speak, nevermind that she was actually a year older. Ryouhei was an extremely good big brother and he’d always wanted more sisters.
If he hadn’t been Chromes cousin, Ryouhei might have had to do something about Uchiha Sasuke. No-one got to mess with his cousin’s innocence that way.
Then there was Hibari’s cousin Lee, who was extremely youthful, and always up for training, or sparring, or simple competition. Ryouhei liked Lee a lot, he was an extremely good influence on Hibari. He’d managed to break Hibari down far enough that he didn’t even argue when he was challenged to a spar. Lee claimed it was the effect of youth wearing down his cousin’s hip and cool attitude. It seemed like a pretty good explaination.
And the Ninja academy was good too, physically focused enough to play to Ryouhei’s strengths in a way that the education system in their past lives just hadn’t. Taijutsu wasn’t quite like boxing, but it was extremely fun in its own right, and he could practice with Lee which was always fun.
He probably wouldn’t be so happy about his new life if everything he loved hadn’t followed him into it. He remembered blood, and fighting, and losses that would have been far too much to bear, all of it mercifully blurred. If he’d had to build his new life alone he probably wouldn’t have been even close to ok.
But it was fine. Sawada was there, he was there, and he remembered, and he was wasting no time in drawing them all back together as they should be. It wasn’t quite the same as it was. The world was very different, more open in its violence, more blatant and he was extremely unsure whether that was a good or bad thing, half of them still didn’t remember, it hurt at first to spar with Hibari, who was so familiar and yet a stranger.
Kyouko was going active as well, he’d been mafia long enough to know the signs. She never had done it in their old lives and it would be a lie to say his protectiveness had nothing to do with it. His protectiveness and her own desire not to disrupt the fragile power balance of their family, because they’d all known she was a latent Sky. A power, and a target in her own right if she ever did draw on her flames, and so she hadn’t pushed for it. That hadn’t saved her in the end though, not if she was here with him, maybe she was right to be trying to activate her will. His way had failed, if she wanted to try something different he loved her enough to respect that. Besides, Hana was going active right alongside her, and if Hana backed up by Cloud flames couldn’t protect her it was probably because the world was ending.
Mukuro, and Gokudera-who-was-called-Nara-now, both said they should keep quiet about their flames and the past lives thing, and they were a lot smarter than him so he trusted to their judgement. He did wonder though just how long they thought they could hide it, when Lee, and Sakura, and a good dozen others in the class above were poised on the edge of activating their own flames. Still Sawada seemed to think it was a good idea to wait for a while and he trusted Sawada’s instincts so he kept his mouth shut, and did his best to keep an eye on their upperclassmen. If they did go active, he would be there to help handle the situation. He was after all a sun, helping with growth was instinct.