[KHR] Becoming Primo's Son

Chapter 4: From Decimo to Primo

Tsuna had no idea what just happened. He was sitting there, thinking about nothing, when suddenly something exploded, everything was on fire, and someone that looked exactly like his ancestor just picked him up and started frantically asking him if he was alright.

Uh.

Yeah?

Actually, no!

Vongola Primo??

For a horrified moment, Tsuna wondered if he had misunderstood his situation. Maybe this wasn't reincarnation, maybe this was hell, and that's why Giotto is here. All the dead people are here. That made sense.

But he looked up at Vongola Primo and— he just needed a moment to just be wholly and utterly confused.

Because Primo looked a little younger than he remembered his ghostly visage to be— maybe it was the lack of cape, gloves, and flames at his forehead, as well as the sheer amount of emotional turmoil the man was going through with a dying child in his arms. He just didn't look like the stoic and composed Primo he knew. X

He looked... real. And human. And so, so human.

He wasn't the leader, the boss, the authority he looked up to, he aspired to be— this Vongola Primo was just a man, just a man with a hurt child in his arms that didn't know what to do.

So, what the hell?

"Dami! Dami, oh, god, you need to help me, I don't know what to do!"

Giotto's voice was soothing.

But even more than that, the new presence— his friend, perhaps? No, Tsuna is familiar with the way they look at each other. He must be Primo's most trusted aide in the Vongola Mansion. His personal attendant.

But why did Dami burn with the warmth of a light so similar to Giotto? It was impossible for another human being, even siblings, to shine so identical.

Giotto panicked while Dami was composed.

Their souls gleamed the same orange.

Ah, Tsuna realized. Dami felt like Natsu.

He missed his little lion.

Dami felt a little different— more like if Giotto had a Natsu of his own... Dami would be that. But Dami was a human, not a flame-created partner beast... right?

-

The orphanage was up in flames when he looked back again, but he couldn't find it in himself to be worried. All he could think about, looking through the carriage window— a carriage, can you believe? Horse-drawn and everything— was that the flames were neither red, nor orange— but something between it and yellow.

Those were real flames.

Not Dying Will Flames.

And he thought they were beautiful.

"That should do it for now..." Giotto had draped him with his coat— his long coat that had been fending off the early spring chill, he pulled it around Tsuna's figure and dwarfed him immensely, but he then cradled Tsuna to his lap. "Does it still hurt? Can you bear with the pain a little longer? I'm so sorry."

Pain was good. Pain was good— it meant he was alive, that his nerves were not so numb from Rain they could no longer feel, not reactivated to death by the Sun, and not disintegrated by the Storm— oh.

Tsuna had to take a moment to remember why Giotto sounded so concerned.

That's right. Pain wasn't good.

"I'm okay."

His voice didn't sound like himself. Of course it didn't— he'd never heard his own voice before. It sounded strange and shrill, young and weak. Like the Dame-Tsuna he hadn't had the liberty to be in too long.

He sounded pathetic and miserable, fragile.

Oh, what a privilege that was. He liked it. He liked it— being weak, being protected... being in the arms of someone stronger, pampered for doing nothing but enduring and surviving. He liked not having to constantly think of the future and how much worse things were going to get.

He liked being able to think of how things were going to get better.

"I'm okay," he said, and he loved how he believed it. "Because you came to save me, Vongola Primo. Thank you."

-

There was something weird going on. The way Primo's eyes narrowed when Tsuna called him by his title was more confused than relieved.

And that was answered soon enough.

"Can you tell me your name?"

Primo didn't know who he was. So either his ghostly visage in the ring was just his remnant will and his real soul never actually met Tsuna— or this was back to the reincarnation theory all over again.

Now, what did Mukuro last say about his past lives? Ah, yes, that no one ever remembered anything except him, and that was because he was crazy.

(Now Tsuna's sad that he called Mukuro crazy too. That guy was just so used to it the insult didn't even bother him anymore.)

"Tsuna."

Giotto blinked at that.

"Well..." he faltered, and Tsuna might understand.

For Italian names, names ending with 'na' are usually feminine, after all. So he's a little confused if that's his real name. He'll figure out it's not Italian soon, maybe.

"It's nice to meet you, Tsuna," Giotto said. "But can you tell me one thing?"

Tsuna blinked up at him.

"Who asked you to call me 'Vongola Primo'? And do you know who they are?"

Tsuna wondered if there was some enemy famiglia out for Giotto that he was wary of. Tsuna's origins are unknown, so it's a reasonable conclusion to make. Tsuna was always called Decimo in his mansion, but judging by how Damiano called him just now, it seemed like Giotto went by Lord Vongola.

As Tsuna continued to stare up in confusion at Giotto, Giotto gave up.

"Yeah, nevermind," Giotto patted him on the head. "You don't have to answer that. Let's go get you clean and patched up, alright? And then... and then, I guess we'll have to arrange to have you adopted."

Tsuna's brain froze at that.

Adopted? Like, legally?

Why? Sure, it made sense, but... ah,

Tsuna realized, as they left the forest into the city, where carriages field the streets, markets were old-fashioned, and peasants roamed. The houses were made of brick and wood, and lamps were lit with oil. There wasn't any of the modern technology and smell of modern artillery in sight.

Ah, Tsuna realized.

It now finally registered in him that he was going to have to stay here forever. Because there was no way he could go back (he didn't want to, there was nothing there—) and there was nowhere else for him to be.

Now, he's going to become Primo's son, and he'll just have to live like that from now on.

It certainly wasn't what he expected the afterlife to be like.