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The young heir to the Vongola has been skulking around the manor for a week now. Xanxus is sick of the sight of him—too scrawny shoulders, a nervous smile, and a face that seems perpetually bowed. He has a head of brown hair that sticks out from his head like he had been electrocuted once as a child, and his hairstyle had never recovered. He won't look anyone in the eye.
It's unbecoming of the one who will become Death.
Xanxus hates it. Here in the manor, shadows stretch long in his father's wake. Anyone who knows who resides here toes the line of that darkness like they would a cliff. They know they have to keep their heads high. As for Xanxus himself—
He knows how the story goes.
Here is the story, as it was passed to your ears and your fathers ears and his mothers ears. Here is the story, care-worn, told over and over until the edges are warm and soft as creased parchment, and so familiar that you can smell the sweet, acrid tobacco your father preferred to smoke whenever you hear another telling.
Once, a very long time ago, a boy saw the shadow of death. The darkness of that shadow was so deep that it cut an edge into the world, like you could step into it and fall for a thousand years. He could hear the fluttering of its cloak in the wind, like the sound of snow settling on ice.
Death walked ever closer to the boy, who did not wish to die yet. And so the boy tried to make a bargain.
"Elder sibling, the night is still too young to welcome guests. Let me give you wine and bread and bid you on your way."
And Death, who could not resist a game, saw within the boy's soul a glow it had never taken before. And so it sat on the boy's stoop, and ate the bread and drank the wine, though both were poor offerings indeed, and turned to leave.
But the boy knew he would not be safe for long, for Death comes for everyone. So as it left his doorstep, he fled into town and ran to the blacksmith.
"Sister," he said. "Death has come to my doorstep and I fear that it will take me soon. Can you craft me a blade that is sharp enough to cut its cloak from its shoulders?"
And the blacksmith, who loved the boy dearly, said, "It will take all night and all day, but I will make this for you."
And so she hammered a piece of starlight flat, and sharpened its edge until it glowed, and when the sun sank low on the horizon the next day, she handed it to him, and said, "Be careful, for this blade is sharp enough to split a second in two."
Here, you had stopped your father, and asked why the boy did not run.
But your father had not answered. He only looked very tired. A wisp of smoke escaped the corner of his mouth, and circled the ceiling like a ghost.
The young heir had been found in Japan, the whispers said. The son of the Young Lion.
Xanxus stops in the training hall and watches him struggle to pick up a sword. The young heir's hair is slick to his skull with sweat. He's wearing a t-shirt and exercise pants, with no shoes, like he's about to step into a kendo studio.
Beside him, the witch Reborn lounges on a small chair while his reptile familiar flicks a tongue at the air. Tasting what, Xanxus doesn't know. Some say that Leon tastes the future on the wind, that Reborn can breathe in and catch the threads of fortune on his teeth. Reborn is a shadow in the underground, killing anyone he wishes with an ease that makes people whisper that Death owes him favors.
Death had asked Reborn to train the heir and perhaps Reborn was the one who owed a favor, because he had agreed. But it seems even the legendary witch's skill has limits. The heir fumbles the sword and it clatters to the floor, the sound echoing around the room.
The training hall of Death's manor is made of smooth wooden walls and windows set high enough that all they show is the tops of the trees outside. The light pouring in is a cold grey. Outside, storm clouds prowl towards the manor and the trees whip in the wind.
"What the fuck are you teaching him?" Xanxus asks. His tongue is stiff in his mouth, but disdain pries open his jaw.
Reborn barely flicks him a glance, more concerned with the heir's grip on the sword. He might live in the shape of a baby, but he holds himself like a man used to getting what he wants.
The boy, however, startles. No situational awareness at all. The sword goes clattering to the ground.
"Who?" he starts, and then yelps when he sees Xanxus by the door. "Hello?"
It's an implied question Xanxus doesn't care to answer.
Xanxus catches the way he stares at his scars, glancing at the scar tissue covering half his body and away again. Irritation itches beneath his skin. He knows the way he looks, and scowls anyway, feeling the stretch of the scar over his cheek.
"What hole did they dig him up from?" he asks Reborn, not sparing a look at the flush that stains the heir's neck.
"A town named Namimori," Reborn answers. He lowers the brim of his hat and stares, his eyes steely. "Why are you here Xanxus?"
So the witch didn't want him near the heir yet after all. Typical.
"What, don't want Death to meet his future knife?" Xanxus sneers, even though the question is acid in his mouth.
Above them, the clouds pour in faster, roiling like the sky had been damascus-forged. Rain begins to tap on the roof. In the looming shadow, Reborn's eyes look like black pits. Xanxus stands his ground, even as a shiver works its way up his spine.
"That's not determined yet," Reborn says. "He could pick anyone."
"He'll have the best," Xanxus says, "either because you and my old man pick them out, or because I defeated any competition that raises its head. Either way it's me."
"What are you talking about?" the heir says. Xanxus flicks him another glance. The minute he's had to catch his breath hasn't really done much to help him. He's still taking deep breaths, carefully measured to avoid seeming like he's panting. He looks like an exhausted cat, squinting at him and Reborn.
"You haven't even explained this much?" Xanxus asks.
"I don't answer to you," Reborn says, but even Xanxus catches the assessing glance he throws the heir's way.
"What are you talking about?" the heir repeats. His legs tremble—from exhaustion or fear it's hard to tell—but he steps towards Xanxus.
"Tsuna—" Reborn starts, but the heir doesn't do more than briefly look his way. All of his tired focus is on Xanxus and it doesn't budge for a second. Xanxus could almost admire the determination if it wasn't so pointless.
Xanxus steps towards him in return. "I'm talking about the blade you'll wield as Death. Don't you know the story?" The heir shakes his head and Xanxus scowls so hard he feels the corner of his scar pinch again. "This is all that we have left?" he asks Reborn. "Pathetic."
Reborn finally stands from where he's sitting, and jumps onto the heir's shoulder. "I chose him," he says. "You'll understand why eventually. Now I suggest you leave." Leon flicks a tongue in the air. He doesn't make any threatening moves, but the air grows heavy with intent. It tastes like ozone in the back of Xanxus's throat.
Either way, he'd seen what he'd come for.
Xanxus spins on his heel. "We'll see about that."
He's almost out the door when the heir speaks up. His voice shakes for a second before he gets it under control, but his words carry. "Hey! I don't know who you are, but you're wrong. My name is Sawada Tsunayoshi. I'm not going to become Death."
At this, Xanxus barks out a laugh. He doesn't look around. "So you're even more delusional than I thought."
Like he'll have a choice.
But like a burr, the name sticks with Xanxus as the door slams behind him.
Sawada Tsunayoshi. It'll almost be a shame when he dies.
Death came back the next night, and the boy was still not ready to die.
"Elder sibling, the night is still too young to welcome guests. Let me give you wine and bread and bid you on your way."
And Death was still caught in the thrill of the game, and so it sat on the boy's stoop and ate his bread and drank his wine. And then it turned to go. But before it left, it looked at the boy, and he knew without a word that it would not be turned away next time.
As Death turned to leave, the boy tried to wedge his knife beneath its shadow and cut Death out of the world. And his knife, which was sharp enough to split a second in two, shattered in the attempt.
Death vanished, and the boy picked up the shards of the knife, and he ran back to the blacksmith.
"Sister, this knife could not cut any part of Death and it returns on the morrow. Can you forge me a knife sharper than this one?"
And the blacksmith, who loved the boy dearly, said, "It will take all night and all day, but I will make this for you."
And so she melted the starlight in the fires of the sun, and reforged the shards with her tears. She hammered the blade flat and sharpened the edge on the horizon.
When she returned the blade to him, she said "Be careful, for this blade is sharp enough to separate night from day."
Your father's voice: "People always think they can cheat Death. Right up until they can't."
He was always tired towards the end.
Xanxus puts it out of his mind until a week later, when he's staring down Sawada Iemitsu's smiling face, a pile of papers in his outstretched hand.
"Xanxus. You've been assigned to track down a corrupted soul in Rome. This is time sensitive, direct from the top."
Emotion crawls across Xanxus's face like a dead animal. "Did he ask about—" he starts, before making himself stop.
Iemitsu makes a pitying expression, and Xanxus's mood sours. Unfortunately, of anyone still alive, Iemitsu understands his position best. Iemitsu had once stood where Xanxus is standing now, except that he is now the sword Timoteo wields in his off hand, and Xanxus is barely the scum on Death's boots.
"I know what you've been angling for. None of this will make a difference if you don't mesh with Tsuna," Iemitsu says, which is better than commenting on Xanxus's expression, but only barely.
If Xanxus were a better man, he'd try not to hold the circumstances of his father's ascension against him. If Timoteo was a better man, he would have ascended before Xanxus's mother died. They both have their flaws.
What's the point of Death if he cannot intervene when they need it most? But Death stands apart and lets his family do his dirty work. Death holds the blade and forgets the man he used to be.
It's not hard to see why Iemitsu gets along with Death. He holds himself more like a weapon than a man, even as he smiles hard enough to crease the corners of his eyes. The lightheartedness is like light off steel, a farce that only highlights his edge. Xanxus spares a thought to Tsunayoshi—and the ugly symmetry of their lives—and for the first time feels a glimmer of recognition. After years of knowing Iemitsu, he can't imagine the man was home much.
No matter how much Death loved his family, he is not a father anymore.
"Do you even know him?" Xanxus asks, which is not the burning thing that wanted to escape his mouth, and is perhaps a worse question to boot.
Iemitsu's face does a complicated twist. But what he finally ends up looking like is fond, of all things. His expression melts; emotion rises in him like a peregrine hitting a perfect thermal.
"Of course I know my Tsuna-fishy! He's too good for this place." A look towards Xanxus again. "He was never meant to fight."
He seems to genuinely believe that, which makes Xanxus want to punch something.
Xanxus supposes if you're Death's blade, you can go around with your heart on your face like that and not have it ripped from your chest. Too bad he couldn't extend the same privilege to his son. The immense irony of Iemitsu's position: strong enough to save Tsunayoshi from everything but his own job.
"Good luck with that," Xanxus says, and snatches the papers from Iemitsu's hands. "Does this have a deadline?"
Iemitsu accepts the change of subject with as much grace as Xanxus had made it. "Don't underestimate my son, Xanxus. You'll bow to him in the end, whether it's before or after he's Death it doesn't really matter."
"Like fuck I will," Xanxus says.
"Have this wrapped up by next Tuesday," Iemitsu says in return, and smiles brightly. Xanxus shifts uneasily at the expression and Iemitsu turns away with the complete confidence of someone who knows he's being a dick. "Good luck."
"Fuck you!" Xanxus snaps at his back. He spends a moment to grit his teeth before an idea occurs to him, and he turns his steps towards the training hall.
In the training hall, Tsunayoshi is still struggling to hold his sword in anything approaching a proper guard. Xanxus kicks the door in, and the teen jumps like he'd been shot.
"Xanxus? What are you doing here?"
Reborn is in a lounge chair this time, holding an espresso. Xanxus has one dizzying moment where he worries about caffeine's effects on a baby before reality reasserts itself, and he remembers it's Reborn he's looking at.
Xanxus waves the papers in the air. "Came to ask you if you wanted to come on a mission."
Tsunayoshi's brow furrows and he looks at Reborn. "What?"
Reborn takes a sip of his coffee. "I suppose this is as good a time as any to introduce you to the work that Death's manor does. You'll be assigning these missions eventually."
"What??" Tsunayoshi asks again, with rather more urgency.
Xanxus sees the look that Reborn sends him, and walks over to hand him the papers. He can read the writing on the wall. If he wants Tsunayoshi, he'll have to get through Reborn.
"I thought they just helped Death with its work?" Tsunayoshi asks.
Reborn makes a considering sound. "That's not wrong, but it's not exactly right either. The manor handles anything that Death cannot catch on his own. In this case, it is a corrupted soul that's preying on innocent people in Rome. Death cannot be everywhere at once, and he cannot handle every type of issue. Do you remember how it was tricked in the first place?"
Tsunayoshi sets down his blade on a nearby stand. His hands are careful, even though they shake with exhaustion.
"The First cut Death's cape free of its shoulders and wrapped it around his own," Tsunayoshi says, though his voice remains dubious at best.
"No, before that," Reborn says.
"The First offered Death a puzzle," Xanxus says, when Tsunayoshi still hesitates.
"Exactly," Reborn says. "Death cannot resist a game, or ignore hospitality. In this case, the soul is luring people in with a gamble. It's exactly the kind of thing that Death couldn't get involved in, or we might actually lose him."
"Would that be so bad?" Tsunayoshi asks, and Xanxus shoots him a surprised look. He didn't expect the heir to say something so similar to Xanxus's own thoughts.
"If you couldn't stomach a mass murderer wearing Death's cloak, maybe not," Reborn says, and Tsunayoshi grimaces.
"Nevermind."
"It'll be a few days," Xanxus says, before standing in front of the doe-eyed heir begins to grate too much. "Pack light."
With that, he turns around to leave.
Once again though, the teen calls out to him.
"Why do you want me there?"
Because Xanxus would cut off his own nose to spite Iemitsu. Because he hates doing his father's work. Because he wants to see for himself the person that he will be forced to bow to.
"Because you should see for yourself what you'll be getting into," is what he says out loud, one foot out the door.
Tsunayoshi walks over to him, mouth flat.
"I'm not getting into anything," he says. "I told you, I'm not becoming Death."
"And I told you, you don't have a choice," Xanxus says. "This isn't some commitment that you can step away from when it ceases to amuse. Death is coming for you. It's on you to be ready."
"I didn't want this," Tsunayoshi says, his voice quiet.
Behind him, Reborn tips his hat low over his eyes.
Xanxus is so tired it comes out the other end as incandescently angry. "Get in line. Are you coming to Rome?"
Tsunayoshi chews his lip for a second before he answers. "Yes."
"Good," Xanxus says, and leaves.
When Death returned the third night, the boy knew it would not be turned away again. Still, he offered it bread and wine, and sat on the stoop while it ate.
Before it finished eating, the boy tried again to cut its cloak from its shoulders. The knife, which could separate night from day, screeched against the shadow and fractured down the middle.
Death looked at the boy, and when it finished the bread and wine, it reached for him.
The boy, who was still not ready to die, grabbed the shards of the knife and ran back into town.
In Rome, Xanxus walks down cobblestone streets that twist like yarn around his fingers. Beside him, Tsunayoshi walks with Reborn on his shoulder and no one gives them a passing look. More magic, probably.
Deep in the orange-roofed labyrinth, Xanxus can smell the stink of perfume and garbage, cooling stone and night air. There is also another scent of rot—the sweet-sour decay of a disintegrating soul.
They've been wandering around this part of the neighborhood since mid-evening, trying to get a sense for the where the soul might be hiding out. From the smell—more of a metaphysical trace than a physical reality—he's guessing they burned through their flesh a while ago.
"Too much messing with Death's domain will strip the skin from your bones," Reborn says when Tsunayoshi asks about it. He's been watching Xanxus warily, like he's not sure what he's planning. It's so funny Xanxus could choke. Any danger to Tsunayoshi is something Reborn himself already sanctioned by training him.
"He's probably long past having a corporeal form," Xanxus says. "Only the spirit will touch him now. It's the same reason why Death always has a blade; no steel could ever harm a soul."
"And you…" Tsunayoshi trails off, and Xanxus snorts a laugh.
"Yeah, that's why I'm here. When we find it, leave the soul to me. You won't do much good anyway."
Tsunayoshi nods, and Reborn's eyes stay on Xanxus.
There's one way Tsunayoshi could kill the soul, but that would involve Xanxus giving up parts of himself that he doesn't trust to others.
They keep walking down the twisting streets, watching shops slowly close around them, until the hustle from earlier in the day is at a low hum at best. The rot hangs in the air like a sick fog.
"How do they not notice?" Tsunayoshi asks eventually. His nose is wrinkled and he looks tired, but Xanxus notices that he hadn't stopped searching. When Xanxus stops by a nasoni for a drink he had sits down right on the side of the walkway. A premature line works its way in between his eyebrows.
Rome's water runs clear from the Peschiera-Capore, but tonight it tastes like mud. Xanxus drinks deeply anyway, and resists the urge to spit. Above them, the stars are covered by a thin layer of clouds that reflect the city lights.
"The same reason we're the only ones who can kill it. Maybe a priest too, but fuck if the Vatican has anyone who would. To see Death you have to have been touched by it too. It also," he says sardonically, "applies to smelling it."
Answering Tsunayoshi's questions reminds him of being a kid again, skulking around the edges of his brothers' missions until they explained where they were going. The comparison twists his lungs in a knot and he looks at Reborn. "This is basic shit, what are you teaching him?"
"We've been going through more pressing matters," Reborn says, and doesn't blink. His eyes look like a predator's, dead-flat and hungry.
Xanxus looks away first.
The nasoni they've stopped by is located next to a small block of apartments and another row of storefronts. A closed gelato shop is just shutting off its lights. An intersection is a few meters away, and numerous alleys branch off between the buildings. He lets his eyes roam over the streets, trying to spot the soul over the rooftops.
He's not sure where it is. The soul has murdered five people in the last two weeks and was seen feasting on their corpses. The dossier hadn't made it seem subtle.
"Can't see what's more pressing than this," Xanxus says.
He sits down after a second too, tipping his head back to look at the sky. No sense in tiring the baby heir out more than necessary.
When he had invited Tsunayoshi on this trip, he had been thinking of the blithe confidence of Iemitsu's grin, and how badly he wanted to shove his face in the dirt. But here on the streets of Rome, Iemitsu isn't around and Death is miles away. It lets something unclench in his stomach, enough that what he said at the manor is almost true.
Tsunayoshi should know what he's getting into. He should know what their family has become.
"You know, there's no record of corrupted souls before the First," Xanxus says. "It's hard to say if they were there and we just couldn't see them, or if disturbing Death had wider ripple effects than the First imagined. But either fucking way, the family agreed that it was our responsibility to handle them, for the good of the people who couldn't see."
"Is that why you're here?" Tsunayoshi asks. "Duty?" He's looking a little less wilted, but Xanxus gives it a few more minutes.
"What else is there?" Xanxus asks.
He had dreams of more, years ago. He had wanted to find a way to break the family free of their curse. But when his brothers died one after the other like falling dominoes, and Xanxus was too heavy in their hands to lift at all, he had been forced to face reality.
He had wanted to leave. But he values loyalty above everything, and there is no one he would forgive less for abandoning the family than himself.
"We're saving people though," Tsunayoshi says, a bit of stubborn confusion sticking in his jaw. "Isn't there that?"
"You're naive," Xanxus says. It's almost refreshing to hear Tsunayoshi's stubborn optimism, even if it doesn't change the facts. "What were you doing all your life?"
At this, Tsunayoshis's mouth twists unhappily. "I was living with my mother."
Xanxus waits a second, when it seems like Tsunayoshi is on the verge of saying more. The boy's mouth works, like he's chewing his words.
He takes a shuddering breath, fingers clenching in his pants. "Dad said I could save her, if I was Death."
Xanxus blows out a breath and wishes he were surprised. "Fuck, kid."
"She's not dead yet," Tsunayoshi says, carefully measured. "But she only has so much time left. And so—"
"You said you're not becoming Death," Xanxus interrupts.
"I'm going to find another way," Tsunayoshi says, and only now does Xanxus hear the desperation in the statement.
He thought Tsunayoshi was just some kid. He's still young. But this...
He doesn't mention that Death could probably save his mother right now. If Tsunayoshi has any sense, he already knows.
Death wants an heir before he ceases to remember why he wanted one in the first place. There's not much he's unwilling to do to get one.
"Come on, let's get going," Xanxus says, hauling himself to his feet. He's tired of shooting holes into Tsunayoshi's dreams, when it's becoming increasingly clear that they're all he has left.
The boy raced into town and found the blacksmith. Death chased after him, implacable as the fall of night across the horizon.
Neither of them stopped.
Eventually the boy reached the blacksmith's house, and banged on the door.
"Sister, are you there?"
The blacksmith opened the door at the boy's voice. "What's the matter?"
"Sister, my knife shattered again on Death's shadow. Do you have a knife that is sharper?"
The blacksmith took the shards of the blade in her hands and despaired, for she saw Death over the boy's shoulder, approaching ever closer. She had no other knife to give to him.
But she loved the boy very much, and so she set the knife aside and stood in front of him as Death approached. And staring at its approach, she found in her soul a shining edge, sharper than any starlight. The blacksmith took hold of that bright thing and pulled it into existence, until she was a blade in the boy's hand.
Just before Death reached the boy, he reached around it and cut its cape from its shoulders, driving the blade that was the blacksmith into the edge of its shadow. Their souls were aligned so perfectly that the blade was feather-light in his hand, and sharper than any other ever forged.
The cloak came free with a snap and the boy pulled Death's cloak around himself. In a second, they both vanished.
Before the two of them disappeared, Death looked at the boy. In the evening light, the boy later swore that it had grinned.
They seemed to have more awareness in the first years after ascending, the family records said. Though the observations were understandably biased.
Were the people that talked to Death looking at what was there, or were they looking for something they wanted to see?
Too often, the record keeper was a friend, or worse, family.
You had read between the lines and seen the sorrow there. The desperate hope to see the familiar in the unknown.
But on one thing, the texts uniformly agreed: Death had ten years, maybe twenty, before they started to lose themselves. Daniella pushed it to thirty. Whoever wore Death's cape could escape it only until they became Death themselves. And then they turned their gaze to the next member of the family line. Their blade helped anchor them, but it could only do so much.
Before they lost themselves though, that ten year stretch was glorious. Death, when they still remembered being human, could perform miracles. They turned aside fatal diseases, struck down wayward souls, tipped the balance of life and Death in their favor for once. The First established a legacy like that, helping those who came to his door for miracles.
It wasn't until he turned his gaze towards his own family that they realized the man behind the cloak was disappearing. The Second cut it from his shoulders and the First vanished with a smile.
But if there was no one who could wield a blade sharp enough, then Death came for the family one by one until it was satisfied. No one knows what would happen if it killed the entire line.
No one had ever wanted to find out.
You watched your father kill every one of your brothers like so much livestock before Iemitsu intervened, and you understood the price of that bargain.
None of your brothers could wield you, nor any other blade. You try not to remember how they died with you in their hand, a thousand kilo knife like an anchor.
There were more blades in the world they could have tried. But partnerships?
Those were a rare thing indeed.
It's past 2am when they finally find the soul, something they only manage because Xanxus gives up on subtlety and climbs one of the nearby churches.
He's tired, irritable, and wants to be done with this fucking mission. Tomorrow, he'll take the baby heir to a gelato store and make him stand in line while Xanxus buys wine somewhere nearby. There'll probably even be a coffee shop for Reborn to judge. They'll sit somewhere actually warm, and Xanxus will get drunk and not deal with his problems for a solid six hours. The daydream keeps him occupied until he hits the fourth story of the building and really has to put his back into the ascent.
The stone of the crenellation he's climbing over grits into his palm, and he pulls enough steel forward that his hands go metallic before he gets a leg up and onto the roof proper. He shakes the feeling back into his palms, and looks around.
He doesn't spot anything for a long moment, taking in the rooftops around him. There's nothing much here. In the far distance he can see some churches, the neighboring municipios rising like waves.
But there's nothing that looks like a soul until—
He spots it like the glint of moonlight on water. Six streets away, the barest fin of something massive peeks itself over the rooftop. The light it casts is red-silver, like a lightbulb being held behind a slab of tuna, radiance shining through dead blood.
"North!" he shouts down to the baby heir, and takes off across the rooftops.
Luckily, it hadn't rained recently, so all Xanxus has to do is not trip across the tiles. He sprints across a connecting street and takes a jump across a small alleyway to get closer to the place he had last seen the soul.
The landing jars his ankles, and he winces as he rolls with the impact, coming up and racing forward again, eyes on that flash of red light.
In the distance, somebody screams.
"Fuck," Xanxus swears. He hits a section of the rooftops that doesn't connect to where he's going at all, and throws himself off the balcony, transforming completely on the way down.
The impact doesn't hurt at all as a knife, and he doesn't hit anyone either which is good. He had pulled that trick once on a crowded street, and nearly taken one of his brothers' eyes out.
In a second, he's back on his feet and running.
He hopes the baby heir saw where he was going. Sometimes he forgets that not everyone he works with are the Varia, with their drive for excellence.
Still. The brat has Reborn. He can't get too far off course.
Rounding one more corner, Xanxus comes face to face with the soul and curses again.
Towering nearly a story and a half, it's clearly outgrown any semblance of being human. Ragged spines erupt from its back, and its fingers end in knives. It has razor sharp teeth where its face should be, spinning like a saw. The soul's body is slightly translucent, built around a beating red center that Xanxus hesitates to call a heart. It's standing over an older man, face full of teeth bending towards his neck.
Before it can see him, Xanxus calls on his steel and transforms his forearm into an oversized knife blade. Then he runs straight at its face of teeth.
The soul sees him halfway through his charge and turns, face spinning faster. All the spines on its back click like scales locking into place and it jumps at him, knees bending with a sickening snap.
It's faster than he thought it would be, and Xanxus barely raises his forearm before it's on him, teeth screeching against his steel.
"Fuck off!" he yells at it, shoving its jaws away and jumping back. It takes a swipe at him with its claws and he ducks, lunging towards its chest in the same movement.
His knife barely manages to scratch its skin before he's being shoved back hard enough to hit the building behind him. The air leaves his lungs in a wheeze. Sparks dance before his eyes. He's pinned against the brick, straining against the weight of its magic.
The soul leans in, head tilting.
Somehow, for something with no eyes, Xanxus gets the distinct impression of being observed.
It doesn't last for more than a second before something barrels into its side, barely budging its monstrous bulk. The weight doesn't do much, but the soul's head whips around like it had been electrocuted, face pointing towards Tsunayoshi's unguarded front.
"Move!" Xanxus bellows, for all the good it does him. His head is still spinning, but he manages to pry himself out of the soul's grasp enough to shove his knife into its forearm.
The soul's flesh splits like overripe fruit, spilling silver, worm-like tendrils of flesh across the road.
"Xanxus!" Tsunayoshi yells back, and the soul pushes Xanxus away. Its focus is on Tsunayoshi now. As Death's heir apparent, he's been touched by the weight of its shadow. All that magic energy and no blade to fend off danger with. He's a far easier meal than Xanxus would make, and a more delicious one than any random person on the street. "What should we do?"
"Get back," Xanxus snaps, running towards the soul again. The street is more cramped than he would prefer, forcing him to jump over the soul's unoccupied arm to wedge himself in front of it.
"I can't just leave you here!" Tsunayoshi says.
"That's what I brought you here to do!" Xanxus parries another swipe of the soul's claws and the screech of them meeting his blade makes him wince.
"It's going to EAT you."
"Only if I'm slow," Xanxus says, and rolls under the soul's guard enough to slice a line down its other forearm. More silvery flesh spills from the wound, some of it sizzling as it touches the ground.
"Remember your training, Tsuna." Reborn's high pitched voice sounds from above them, the baby somehow standing on a nearby light pole.
Tsunayoshi quiets for a second at that, and Xanxus can't look at him at all because he's fending off the soul's face again, shoving his knife between spinning teeth with a noise that shrieks against his bones.
The next thing he knows, the soul is being kicked back by Tsunayoshi's booted foot. The impact is enormous, sending it flying back a couple of meters and giving the both of them some breathing room.
Xanxus runs towards it, not stopping to take a breath for a second.
But somehow, Tsunayoshi is faster. The brat runs past him, a bloom of orange fire on his forehead. Xanxus gets the barest glimpse of his eyes gone dead-calm and luminescent before he's on the soul, one hand wrapping itself in flame before punching the soul in the chest.
The fire catches, the silver flesh of the soul going up like tissue paper. Xanxus stops in his tracks and stares.
It screams for a second, a horrifying sound that sounds like razor blades going through a woodchipper. And then Tsunayoshi's hand reaches the red, pulsing core of it, and rips it out of its own body.
The body collapses, dissolving into a sea of burning silver and red ephemera. Xanxus wrinkles his nose as it sloshes over his boots. It starts to dissipate after a second, dissolving into the air.
Tsunayoshi is still staring contemplatively at the soul in his hand. It's a scaled orb, beating with red light. Xanxus walks over to his side and takes it from him.
"What was all that, brat?"
"What are you going to do with that?" Tsunayoshi doesn't answer the question, pointing to the soul in Xanxus's hand.
Xanxus snorts. "What, never seen a blade eat one of these before?" He tips his head back and swallows the soul whole, privately amused when the baby heir yelps, orange fire faltering for just a second. It never stops making him feel like a snake, unhinging his jaw to swallow something whole. The soul is all texture no taste, falling down his throat like a raw egg.
"What?" Tsunayoshi asks again. Xanxus isn't surprised at his lack of knowledge this time. He's starting to realize that Tsunayoshi's education has been low on information about their family history and how weapons operate because the brat has been learning something far more dangerous.
He chances a look at Reborn, and finds the baby looking smug.
"Good job Tsuna. You're getting better." Tsunayoshi smiles quietly at that.
"There's no safe way to leave corrupted souls around," Xanxus says after a second. "They end up corrupting the air around them, and driving people to madness. Eating them is the best solution we've got. They sharpen your steel, as well."
"Ah," Tsunayoshi says. He looks at Xanxus, eyes catching the light. He looks like a hunting cat before the pounce, all amber-intent and anticipation. He opens his mouth to say something.
And then he falls flat on his face.
Xanxus kneels by his side, but there's nothing wrong with him it seems besides exhaustion. When he tells Reborn this, the baby nods.
"Let's go back to the hotel," he says. "Using that much magic will have exhausted him."
Xanxus picks him up and brushes soul-guts off of his face before he turns back towards their hotel.
His ribs hurt. In his arms, Tsunayoshi is heavier than he seems at first glance, like the core of him is solid all the way through.
"Come on brat," he tells him. "Let's go rest."
You knew of other families with strange relationships to Death. The Arcobaleno, for one. The Vindice for another. Though calling either of them families was a stretch.
There existed many ways to bargain with Death. But every one of them had their drawbacks.
You never envied the Arcobaleno and their dance with Death and time and power.
Before your father ascended, you wondered if there were more ways out there, bargains that would leave your family whole.
And then your father. And then your brothers bleeding out on the manor tile. And then you, all alone, throwing your half-conceived dreams away.
When it is time for another person to cut Death out of the world and wear its cape you will be there.
You will be the blade in their hand. You will cut the cape off Death's shoulders and then, before anyone else can wear the cursed thing, you will turn and slit their throat, ending the farce forever.
No one has ever killed Death before. You imagine it will be rather a novelty.
Back in the hotel, Xanxus watches Tsunayoshi sleep and thinks that he might have to reconsider.
He can't rid himself of the memory of Tsunayoshi's gaze. The burning heart of his fire had been hot enough to melt even Xanxus's steel. Xanxus wouldn't win, if it came to a fight. There has never been an heir who could wield magic before.
He looks at Tsunayoshi and holds onto that thought. It is the beginning of a possibility too fragile to name, even in his head.
Eventually, he nods off there in the chair next to Tsunayoshi's bed, head pillowed on his arm.
The blacksmith or the boy: you couldn't be both.
You cursed, when he first found out you couldn't Become.
Perhaps in the end it was a gift, your steel, even if it never felt that way. Your father never came after you, even when your brothers' blood soaked into your shoes.
You had thought it might let you get close enough—
And now, a different path opening itself like a flower. You wonder if your mother would have approved.
It is the morning sun that wakes Xanxus.
He groans. The dream-like hope of last night has left him, and the reality of sleeping in a chair with injured ribs is making itself known. He hopes they're just bruised.
His entire body feels like it was run over by a truck. When he pulls himself up, he finds Reborn looking at him, cup of espresso in hand. Tsunayoshi is also up, standing near the window leading to the balcony.
"You're awake," the witch says.
Xanxus squints his eyes into the light and curses the baby out in his head. And then out loud for good measure.
Reborn just looks at him, carefully measured. "So now you know 'what I've been teaching him'," he says.
"It's clearly not self preservation," Xanxus bites, rubbing a hand across his face. More of the last night is returning to him, and Tsunayoshi's complete lack of regard for his own safety, even before he whipped out the orange fire, is hard to forget.
"You know what I mean," Reborn says.
Xanxus closes his eyes. "Yeah. I do. So you think you're going to outwit this whole thing?" He directs the question to Tsunayoshi, who doesn't startle for once.
Tsunayoshi's hands clench on nothing. When he looks up, a flash of emotion passes across his face, quick as a coin flipping in midair.
"Yeah," he says, quiet. "I'm not going to become Death."
"My father is coming for you," Xanxus says, not disagreeing. He eyes Tsunayoshi with more wariness than he did yesterday, trying to figure out the baby heir's angle. There's no way that showing Xanxus his fire was an accident, even if Xanxus was the one that invited him on the mission. The reveal stank of Reborn's type of manipulation. "So what, you kill him instead of inheriting the cloak?"
"I want to give the cloak back," Tsunayoshi says firmly. For once, he doesn't look back to Reborn for reassurance. His eyes are locked on Xanxus.
"No chance in hell Death will take it back," Xanxus says. "It's probably still laughing, like it has been ever since the First."
"Then we'll make it," Tsunayoshi says.
Xanxus gets up from his chair, wincing as his spine clicks in three places.
"We?"
Tsunayoshi nods. "I still need a weapon to cut the cape free. You're the best there is. Will you help me?"
Despite everything, he wasn't expecting the question. He takes a startled breath and stares.
Xanxus doesn't want it to be him, of all people. Why Tsunayoshi? Why this trembling heir who can't walk six meters without tripping over his own ankles? There's no guarantee that Tsunayoshi will be able to lift him at all. He remembers Iemitsu's warning, about the two of them meshing.
But there is a light that hits Tsunayoshi's eyes in this moment, like sunlight slanting through clear gold. The focus of a lion on the hunt. And in those eyes, Xanxus sees a person who could hold him.
A person who might be the only option he could live with.
Tsunayoshi holds himself steady, and looks at him.
Xanxus nods.
And then slowly, he reaches out and places himself in Tsunayoshi's hands.