Reborn! fic - Blood of the Covenant (Chapter 2)
( Prologue | 01 )
Title - Blood of the Covenant
Rating - PG-13 for language and violence
Characters - Gokudera, Tsuna, Reborn, Yamamoto
Notes - Ready or not, here comes the first big headcanon dump; brace yourselves for impending backstory revision. Though I really did make an effort to make sure everything still fits neatly into the established canon.
Trigger Warnings for this chapter - These contain spoilers, so skip ahead if you want to avoid.
[Spoiler (click to open)]
Target 02 - Luca DiSanto
Hayato is nervous.
He’s six years old, and, although he’s been playing the piano since he was two, this will be his first real recital, a solo performance in front of dozens of people. Father has invited everyone; the hall is filled with prominent, high-ranking guests from all the neighboring famiglias. Everyone looks very old and important.
Hayato has been practicing for months. He knows the pieces well enough to play them with his eyes closed. But now that the day has finally arrived, it feels real, and his confidence is waning.
Father says he plays like a natural, that he has a gift. It’s one of the few nice things Father has ever said about him, and he desperately wants to please him today, to make him happy.
He is good at the piano, he thinks. His teachers have all said so too. And he likes to play. When it all comes together, when he’s feeling the music and lost in the moment, everything just flows and feels right. It’s one of the only times he doesn’t feel bored or awkward or ill at ease, and he feels like he knows exactly what he’s doing, and everything just falls into place.
But all of that just makes him more nervous today, because it’s even more on the line. And if he messes up, all of that will be ruined; he’ll lose the only thing that makes him feel capable and proud.
So he’s nervous because of that. And he’s nervous also because he thinks, now, that he’s made a big mistake.
Because Bianchi had been fussing over him earlier, and she’d known that he was worried, so she had made him cookies to cheer him up. Made with love, she said. So he’d eaten them without a second thought, but then something strange had happened, and he’d felt sick all of a sudden. Really sick. He feels cold and sweaty and shaky, and his stomach had already been feeling funny even before the cookies, but now it hurts; it hurts so bad that he just wants to lie down and fold in on himself until it stops.
But he can’t. Because it’s finally the recital day and he has to do a good job. But he’s only six, and right now he just wants to sit and cry.
“Hayato!” And Father is coming over to him now, and instantly his resolve wilts again. Maybe, if he just explains how badly his stomach hurts, his father can make some excuse and postpone the concert. Maybe he’ll be just a little disappointed, but Hayato can make it up to him the next time.
“Father,” he begins uncertainly. “I don’t feel so good…”
“Nonsense, it’s just nerves,” Father says with a dismissive smile. “It’s finally the big day. You’ve waited so long for this. You want to do well today, don’t you?”
Hayato hesitates, because he does. He wants to do well, he wants his father to be proud of him. But-his stomach lurches again. It feels like his insides are twisting up, on fire. It hurts.
“Hayato,” Father says, “there’s someone here that I want you to meet.”
Hayato frowns as his father steps aside to introduce a young man standing behind him. This man is younger than any of the other people Hayato has seen around the castle today. He’s still a grown-up, but maybe just barely. His hair is straight and black with long bangs in the front. Cold hazel eyes meet Hayato’s own, and Hayato shrinks back just a little, because he has the sudden odd but inescapable feeling that this other man does not like him, at all.
“This is Luca,” Father says. “He’s a young associate of mine.”
Luca holds out a hand, and Hayato doesn’t want to shake it, but does so anyway because Father wouldn’t approve of him not showing manners. But then his stomach lurches again, this time more insistently, and he panics because he thinks he’s about to puke, right here, in front of Father and everyone. Somehow he holds it in, but doubles over with the effort.
Now Father is frowning at him. “Are you all right, Hayato?”
“…My stomach,” Hayato manages to respond. He feels achy and faint.
“Maybe we should postpone the recital, then,” Father says after a moment, and Hayato wants to burst with relief; yes, please; he doesn’t even care anymore; he just wants to curl up and close his eyes until the pain goes away.
But then the young man-Luca-suddenly speaks up: “I don’t think that’s necessary, is it, Boss? It’s like you said earlier, he’s just nervous.”
And Hayato looks up, ready to scream at him that no, he’s not, he’s not nervous or faking it, he really is sick, so shut up. But when he sees Luca’s face, something inside him stops short.
It’s his eyes. They’re still cold, like before, but now…
He was wrong before, Hayato thinks in shock. About the other man not liking him. That’s not it. It’s not that he doesn’t like him.
He hates him.
Hayato doesn’t know how he knows this, but he does. One glance is all it takes. He looks back to his father, fearfully, but now Father won’t meet his eyes all of a sudden. He looks uncomfortable.
“I’m not certain…” Father says hesitantly, and Hayato doesn’t understand.
“I’m sure that’s what it is,” Luca says. “You shouldn’t let him get away with it. He’s at an impressionable age. If you let him back out whenever he says he has a tummy ache, before you know it, he’ll be all grown up and still crying to you every time he has to do anything important.”
“That’s not true!” Hayato protests, and immediately bites his lip because truthfully, he had been only a few seconds away from crying. But he won’t do it now, because it’s not true, what Luca just said, and he really does feel sick; it was the cookies; it’s not just nerves!-
-but, but Father still won’t meet his eyes, and Hayato doesn’t understand what’s going on.
And Luca looks at Hayato coldly and says, “You shouldn’t lie like that. You want to perform well today for your father, don’t you? You’re his golden boy, after all.”
And Father is looking at the ground now, and then at Luca, and he looks defeated somehow.
“You’re right,” he says at last.
“Father-” Hayato begins, but he’s cut off.
“Hayato, stop complaining now, I mean it. All these people came out today to hear you play, so.” He finally looks at Hayato again, but now his expression is stern. “Do as you are expected.”
Hayato swallows back the rest of his protests because Father has never looked at him that way before. Finally he just nods.
It’s a disaster. His stomach hurts so badly that he can’t play more than a few notes before the stabbing pains in his gut have him doubling over again. Eventually he’s just plunking keys at random, mangling his performance so badly that he’s sure Father will never allow him to play again.
But what actually happens is even worse, because once he finishes playing, after a few seconds of shocked silence from the audience, Luca suddenly begins applauding wildly. And calling it a wonderfully abstract performance. Experimental. Avant-garde. And Hayato is sure he’s just mocking him, but then all of a sudden others are applauding too, and cheering and whooping in agreement.
And then Luca says that Hayato must play for them all again soon, and Father nods and agrees that he will.
And he does. Repeatedly, for the next two years, and each time Father insists that he eat another batch of Bianchi’s cookies beforehand. And gradually he becomes more and more distant.
He never is able to fully meet Hayato’s eyes again.
---
“Yes!” Tsuna cried in triumph as his Dry Bones character received a well-timed mushroom boost to overtake Wario in the final lap.
Yamamoto laughed beside him. “Easy, Tsuna, you’ll wake up Lambo and I-Pin!”
“Yes,” Tsuna repeated in a whisper, but just as emphatically. Though the other two were downstairs, so it probably wouldn’t matter anyway.
He grinned when Yamamoto started laughing again. The other boy was currently in fifth place, and struggling to keep that position. Yamamoto was naturally good at almost everything, but Mario Kart was one of the few arenas where Tsuna was capable of beating him even on an off day. But it wasn’t like Yamamoto ever seemed to mind, which made this easily one of Tsuna’s favorite pastimes.
It was the start of their school break, so they had ten days’ worth of free time now before the new term started in April. Tsuna’s mom was already talking about enrolling him in a juku in preparation for next year’s high school entrance exams. Gokudera had vowed he would enroll as well (despite having less need for a cram school than any other individual Tsuna had ever met), and Yamamoto had also promised to do so, assuming that the schedule would not interfere with his baseball practices. While this made Tsuna dread the upcoming school year marginally less, he was still not looking forward to the impending loss of all his remaining free time.
On top of that, he was sure that Reborn was already planning some sort of psychotic field trip or training exercise to take place during their break. No doubt this would be as stressful as it was life-threatening, and would probably drive him to the brink of his sanity.
All of which meant that tonight, and possibly the next couple of days, would be pretty much the only relaxation time he was going to get, and he fully intended to take advantage of every blissful, lazy moment of it.
He was seconds away from clinching the first-place victory when Reborn appeared (out of literally nowhere) and kicked him the back of the head.
Really, he should have expected it.
As he sputtered incoherently while Yamamoto looked both concerned and (the traitor) trying not to laugh, Reborn said, “Emergency meeting time, No-Good Tsuna.”
Tsuna rubbed his aching head, eyeing Reborn in wounded exasperation, and was about to protest, but that was when he caught sight of Gokudera standing hesitantly by the entrance to his room.
And he frowned, because although he couldn’t say why, exactly, his intuition was immediately telling him that something was very, very wrong.
“Hey, Boss,” Gokudera said quietly, but something was off. The way he was kind of leaning on the doorframe, shoulders hunched, almost like he was afraid to come in. His hands were stuffed tightly in the pockets of his hoodie, and although he had tried to make eye contact with Tsuna upon greeting him, his eyes had almost instantly darted away afterward.
Tsuna opened his mouth to ask what was going on, but before he could get any words out, Yamamoto had suddenly gotten to his feet beside him.
“Gokudera? What happened to your neck?”
And Tsuna blinked in shock as he realized that Yamamoto was right. They were almost covered up by the hoodie, but upon closer inspection, there were indeed angry red and purple marks crisscrossed all around Gokudera’s throat and neck.
Looking uncomfortable, Gokudera glanced away, reaching to pull the edges of his hood up higher so that the marks were less conspicuous (but still visible; now that Tsuna had noticed, he couldn’t for the life of him say why he hadn’t spotted them instantly). He did not immediately respond.
“He was attacked,” Reborn said instead, and Tsuna whipped around in shock.
“Attacked?!”
“By who?” said Yamamoto.
“Is he okay-?!” Tsuna said, turning back to Gokudera urgently.
“I’m fine,” Gokudera quickly replied.
But he didn’t look fine. His normal boisterous, over-the-top disposition was completely absent; he looked like he very much did not want to be there, still hunched in on himself and avoiding their gaze.
“Who did this?” Yamamoto said again, more insistently. His voice had an edge to it that Tsuna knew from past experience meant that he was contemplating something violent. Not that Tsuna was feeling much differently at the moment.
Once again, Reborn was the one to answer. “A hitman named Anthony Franco, who works for the DiSanto family in Italy.”
“Did you stop him?” Tsuna pressed. “I mean…” Obviously Gokudera had made it out in one piece, but had his attacker gotten away? Already his hand was halfway in his pocket, automatically reaching for his X-Glove mittens.
“He’s gone, for now,” Reborn said.
Something about the way he answered gave Tsuna pause just when he had been ready to take the gloves out. That, and the fact that it was still only Reborn responding, and that Gokudera was being so uncharacteristically quiet about all this.
“Why were they after Gokudera?” Yamamoto asked.
“You should ask Gokudera,” Reborn replied.
They looked back at him. Gokudera was still eyeing the floor. Finally he sighed.
“I’m sorry, Boss. I should have told you. I just…” He trailed off, looking agonized.
“It’s not good to keep secrets from family,” Reborn said wisely. Gokudera glanced up at him, and Tsuna didn’t at all like the expression on his face.
He was slowly starting to freak out, because Gokudera was plainly freaked out. Part of him wanted to scream at Gokudera to spit it out already. But he was clearly scared, and if it was something that he was afraid to tell Tsuna and Yamamoto, then Tsuna was almost afraid to know.
But he had to know. “What secrets?” he asked. Yamamoto, meanwhile, had gone silent, but had a very serious look.
“I didn’t… It wasn’t your problem,” Gokudera said, looking over at the wall now. “…I didn’t want to get you involved. And I thought, anyway… that maybe I was done with it. I hoped.” He ran a hand through his hair, and then all of a sudden he laughed, bitterly. “Stupid.”
He shook his head, and then: “The DiSanto family is my birth family. Giovanni DiSanto, their Boss, is-was my father. Their new Boss…”
He hesitated once more. And then he said: “Their new Boss, Luca DiSanto, is my brother.”
---
The instant he was finally able to get the words out, he wanted to close his eyes and disappear into the ground. He didn’t want to see their reactions. He wanted for this to have never happened. To go back to the way that everything was. To not have such a stupid, fucked-up past with all these fucked-up secrets. Dead mothers, adulterous fathers, and homicidal half siblings.
He wanted to be able to laugh and to say that never mind, it was nothing, and to change the subject and forget about all of this. Because he knew that, now that this part of it was finally out, it would all come out. All of the rest.
And he didn’t want to explain to Tsuna how his father had maybe killed his mother (and how the messed-up thing was that he didn’t even know for sure, that all he had to go on were his parents’ letters versus the gospel of gossipy family servants, because his father had never talked to him about any of this, ever, and now he would never be able to because ha ha, he was dead), and that the reason he’d maybe done so was to hide the fact that Gokudera was illegitimate.
He didn’t want to explain to Tsuna just what that actually meant in this world, in the mafia. How Gokudera’s very existence was a taboo, a source of shame. He didn’t know which would be worse: Tsuna turning his back on him once he fully understood, or Tsuna doing the opposite, and standing by him, and in doing so weakening his own position as Vongola Boss, all for Gokudera’s sake.
That was assuming that the rest of the Vongola-Reborn, Iemitsu, the Ninth-even permitted him to stay in the family at all. He would fully understand if they didn’t.
He’d thought about this so many times, and every time that Tsuna or one of the others did something unconditionally and unthinkingly kind, the guilt of knowing that he hadn’t told them only doubled down. But that just made it even harder. To finally have a place where he felt like he belonged, was genuinely welcomed and appreciated, and to secretly be holding the other shoe in place all the while, desperately trying to keep it from ever dropping, knowing that it was impossible, but needing it not to be… it was torturous. He couldn’t bear to think about it, so he shoved it all deep down, and he pretended.
And now it was finally time to face it.
But just when he thought he had finally worked up the courage to do so, Reborn suddenly spoke up and threw him for a complete loop.
“Before you get into the whole story, you should know that Tsuna and Yamamoto already know about your mother.”
And Gokudera snapped his gaze to him, stunned.
“…What?”
Slowly, he looked back and forth from Tsuna to Yamamoto, at first completely taken aback, and then not quite daring to believe. “You both… is that true?”
“Ah…” said Tsuna after an awkward pause. “We do know. Well, some of it, anyway.”
“The kid told us about it a while back,” Yamamoto clarified.
“A while back?” repeated Gokudera, still in shock.
“Like… back when we were all in the future together.”
Gokudera stared at them.
They knew. They already knew, and they still…
“I…” Words failed him all of a sudden. He wanted to thank them. He wanted to apologize. He wanted to ask if it was really okay.
“Sorry we didn’t say anything,” Tsuna said, looking genuinely apologetic, and Gokudera immediately shook his head, because that was wrong.
“It should be me,” he said hoarsely. “I should’ve… I’m sorry.”
“I already knew about it from the start,” Reborn spoke up matter-of-factly. “I deemed it wasn’t necessary to tell them the rest, until now.”
He hopped off of the bed and onto Tsuna’s shoulder. “But now that Luca is making his move, it’s time that they knew about all of it, Gokudera.”
Gokudera nodded slowly. His throat was still hoarse; he was pretty sure it wasn’t from the attack earlier.
He plunged ahead. After all that… he owed it to them to give them the full story.
“Well, Luca… like I said, he’s my brother. Half-brother. Back before my father got married, he met some woman, and I guess… he got her pregnant. This was back when he was still a teenager, I guess… it would’ve had to have been. So she had a kid, but they weren’t married, and he was supposed to marry someone else. Betrothed. So basically he just turned his back on her and the kid both.
“And then like fifteen years later, she died, and by that time my father was married and he was the Boss, and he had my sister and me. And I guess maybe he felt guilty.” He shook his head in disgust. “Anyway, he took him in-Luca-and he made him a member of the family, and eventually he made him a Caporegime. But he didn’t tell anyone he was actually his son, of course. I don’t know how many of them actually knew, or put two and two together.
“Anyway. I didn’t know who he really was, at the time, but Luca must have known about me, because he…” He paused. “Well, he basically hated my fucking guts.”
“…Why?” Tsuna spoke up, sounding confused. “I mean, if he knew that you were really brothers, then why would he…?”
“Because to him, Gokudera is the one that had received everything he ever wanted,” Reborn replied.
(But you, for some reason-you got to be a normal, happy little kid. Don’t you think that’s messed up?)
“Gokudera?”
He didn’t realize he had frozen until he felt Yamamoto’s hand on his shoulder. He blinked.
“…Sorry. Yeah. That’s basically it. We were both illegitimate, but I was raised in our father’s house as his legal son, whereas he was only taken in after he was basically already grown, and he was still never acknowledged.”
He shoved the rest of those memories away, firmly. It wasn’t relevant, and he was too exhausted to deal with any of that right now.
“So he did his best to make my life shit for a couple of years, and then I left, and that was the last I ever heard from him.”
“Until tonight,” Reborn said.
Gokudera unconsciously reached up to touch his throat again, and he nodded. He felt Yamamoto’s grip tighten ever so slightly, hand still resting on his shoulder, and he knew that he should shout at him to respect his fucking personal space, or simply shake him off. But he didn’t want to.
“Until tonight,” he echoed. “So apparently now he’s taken over the family, and that’s why he wants me dead…”
A thought dawned on him Belatedly-far too belatedly.
“Wait a minute-”
He was thinking about it wrong. Luca hated him, yes, had always hated him, so when he’d sent his men after him tonight, he’d immediately assumed it was just the final nail in the coffin; Luca finally finishing what he’d so obviously wanted to do all these years.
But that wasn’t right. If Luca really wanted him dead to begin with, he could have done it years ago. Specifically, six years ago, on the night Gokudera had left. Means, motive, and opportunity. But he hadn’t, not then. So why now, all of a sudden, now that he was finally Boss?
It didn’t make sense, unless it actually had nothing at all to do with his personal feelings toward Gokudera, but was instead for another reason entirely.
If, for example, he was simply trying to take out any possible rivals toward succession.
In which case-
He looked at Reborn in horror. “My sister-”
“She’s fine,” Reborn cut him off.
Relief flooded through him so suddenly and strongly he almost thought he would collapse, but Yamamoto held him steady.
“Are you sure?”
“Shamal is currently watching over her. CEDEF as well.”
Gokudera exhaled slowly, clenching a fist.
“I don’t want her to get involved,” he said.
“If she becomes fully aware of the situation, you won’t be able to keep her out,” Reborn cautioned. “But right now she’s removed from the current crisis. Shamal fed her a cover story, and they’re currently out of the country. At the moment, she’s actually in a much safer position than you.”
That was probably true. He fought the urge to wince.
“Where is Luca now?” Tsuna spoke up suddenly. “Is he in Japan?”
Gokudera opened his mouth to respond, then realized he didn’t actually know.
“He’s in Italy,” Reborn answered them both. “He’s taken over the DiSanto family’s castle outside of Palermo.”
“Italy, huh…” Yamamoto said thoughtfully.
Gokudera frowned at him.
“Well, I guess it’s a good thing it’s spring break,” Yamamoto continued.
“I’ll have to make up something to tell my mom,” said Tsuna.
“Wait a sec,” Gokudera said, not yet comprehending. “What are you talking about?”
“I’ll just tell her I’m taking you on a cultural trip,” Reborn said, casually bouncing from Tsuna’s shoulder over to Yamamoto’s. “After all, it’s about time you visited the homeland anyway.”
“That’s right, Tsuna, you’ve never been there, have you?” Yamamoto said, grinning.
It fully dawned on Gokudera then, and now he did finally brush Yamamoto’s hand away. “No,” he said. “Boss-you can’t.”
“If he’s threatening one of my friends, I’m not just going to sit back and let him,” said Tsuna firmly, and Gokudera felt a sudden rush of overwhelming gratitude and awe. Here he had been utterly terrified only minutes ago of revealing his past to the others, and admitting he’d been keeping this secret from them which could have potentially put them in danger. But, far from caring about that, all they were concerned about was keeping him out of danger.
He was simultaneously moved beyond words, and instantly terrified all over again, because the last thing he wanted was for them to jump in and get involved in something that they should rightfully have nothing to do with, and for them to possibly get hurt on his behalf. He couldn’t take it if that happened.
“You can’t just take him on like that,” he said.
“Gokudera-kun-” Tsuna began, frowning.
“He’s dangerous.”
“We can handle it, Gokudera,” Yamamoto said reassuringly. “We’ve fought dangerous guys before.”
“Not like this!” Gokudera snapped, rounding on him.
“He can’t be worse than Byakuran, or Jager, or Bermuda-”
“You’re not listening!” Gokudera exploded suddenly, and Yamamoto stopped short.
For a moment it was silent in the room. Gokudera suddenly realized that he was shaking. He forced himself to get his breathing back under control, his fists clenched harder than ever.
“We are listening, Gokudera-kun,” Tsuna said softly, finally breaking the silence.
Gokudera looked back at him, pained.
“…I’m telling you that he’s dangerous,” he said again. “He has… he’s got a trump card.”
“The Consummate Command,” Reborn said keenly.
Gokudera looked at him, startled-but of course he would know. “Yes.”
“What is that?” Tsuna asked.
“It’s the special ability passed down in the DiSanto famiglia,” Reborn answered. “Like your intuition, No-Good Tsuna.”
“Eh? Really?” Yamamoto said, looking at Gokudera in surprise.
“I don’t have it,” Gokudera quickly said. “Neither does my sister. At least, I think,” he amended.
“But Luca does,” Reborn said, looking at Gokudera for confirmation, and Gokudera nodded.
“I’ve seen it,” he said, not wanting to think on it any more than that.
“So what is it? This ‘command’ thing?” Yamamoto pressed.
“It’s a form of hypnotic mind control,” Reborn answered. “It’s not completely unlike Mukuro’s possession ability. But this doesn’t require the use of a special bullet, or for the victim to be marked ahead of time in any way. It can be used indiscriminately.”
“He can make you do whatever he wants,” Gokudera said. “Anything at all. All he has to do is say it.”
“It’s how the DiSanto family rose to power in the first place,” Reborn continued. “Past generations made liberal use of that ability to gather countless followers and vast quantities of wealth.
“However, over the years, the bloodline started to die out. More recently, only one or two people per generation have been confirmed to have the ability, and its scope is more limited as well. Past Bosses of the DiSanto clan were able to manipulate entire armies, but recent generations could control only a single person at a time. Because of that, they started to scale back, and the last few Bosses only ever used the ability sparingly, out of fear that other families would stop dealing with them altogether, or simply assassinate the remaining leaders to wipe out the last of the bloodline.”
“That’s how it was until now,” Gokudera said. “But Luca won’t play by those rules. I know how he is. He’s not gonna hold back.”
“He already isn’t,” Reborn agreed. “He knows Gokudera is one of Vongola’s Guardians, and he was willing to risk starting a war in order to target him anyway.”
“Then we have to do something before it gets any further out of hand,” Tsuna said.
“Boss-” Gokudera started to protest again.
“I understand, Gokudera-kun,” Tsuna cut him off. “He’s dangerous, like you said, so we won’t do anything rash. But waiting and doing nothing won’t solve the problem either.”
“It’s not your problem,” Gokudera said frustratedly.
“It is.”
Gokudera started to shake his head, but then Tsuna said, “We’re family, Gokudera-kun.”
And Gokudera felt his resolve starting to slip away as he looked at Tsuna. He had moved in closer so that they were now standing face to face, and he had such a clear, unflinching look in his eyes that for a moment, Gokudera believed he really could do it; that they could take care of this, no problem. Because it was Tsuna, who never, ever backed down when it came to something truly important; and when push came to shove, he had never once failed to rise to the occasion.
But then his brother’s face flashed in the back of his mind, and he couldn’t push away the terrifying, cold feeling that went along with it.
“I don’t want you to get hurt,” he whispered.
For a brief second, something pained flashed across Tsuna’s face. He looked like he didn’t quite know how to respond to that.
But then Yamamoto said, “Gokudera. It’ll be all right.” And he smiled when Gokudera looked up at him. “You’ve gotta trust us, okay? Trust Tsuna.”
Gokudera looked back at Tsuna, still unsure.
“Please,” was all Tsuna said.
For the second time that night, Gokudera felt a stinging in the back of his eyes. He ducked his head so that the others couldn’t see.
Finally, he gave a short nod.
“Then it’s settled,” said Reborn. “We’re going to Italy.”
---
Continue to Chapter 3
Prologue | 01
Additional Notes - All right, I just want to take a sec and discuss the whole name issue before we get too far into this thing.
So yeah, while planning this story and coming up with the backstory, I decided for a number of reasons not to use “Gokudera” as his family’s name. This is one of the few things in this fic (to my knowledge) that does not 100% line up with the established canon; specifically, some translations of chapter 162, as well as Gokudera’s Secret Bullet novel backstory, Bakudan Bambino.
However! I decided not to go with those, and here’s why.
So that’s that! If anyone has any feedback regarding this topic (or, you know, the other huge canon-altering thing I also dropped and then didn’t essay about), feel free to hit me up. Hope you guys are enjoying the fic so far.
Title - Blood of the Covenant
Rating - PG-13 for language and violence
Characters - Gokudera, Tsuna, Reborn, Yamamoto
Notes - Ready or not, here comes the first big headcanon dump; brace yourselves for impending backstory revision. Though I really did make an effort to make sure everything still fits neatly into the established canon.
Trigger Warnings for this chapter - These contain spoilers, so skip ahead if you want to avoid.
[Spoiler (click to open)]
- It’s still only minor, but have another tw for psychological abuse (and arguably, physical abuse, depending on how you feel about enabling accidental poisonings), because I’m playing it safe here.
Target 02 - Luca DiSanto
Hayato is nervous.
He’s six years old, and, although he’s been playing the piano since he was two, this will be his first real recital, a solo performance in front of dozens of people. Father has invited everyone; the hall is filled with prominent, high-ranking guests from all the neighboring famiglias. Everyone looks very old and important.
Hayato has been practicing for months. He knows the pieces well enough to play them with his eyes closed. But now that the day has finally arrived, it feels real, and his confidence is waning.
Father says he plays like a natural, that he has a gift. It’s one of the few nice things Father has ever said about him, and he desperately wants to please him today, to make him happy.
He is good at the piano, he thinks. His teachers have all said so too. And he likes to play. When it all comes together, when he’s feeling the music and lost in the moment, everything just flows and feels right. It’s one of the only times he doesn’t feel bored or awkward or ill at ease, and he feels like he knows exactly what he’s doing, and everything just falls into place.
But all of that just makes him more nervous today, because it’s even more on the line. And if he messes up, all of that will be ruined; he’ll lose the only thing that makes him feel capable and proud.
So he’s nervous because of that. And he’s nervous also because he thinks, now, that he’s made a big mistake.
Because Bianchi had been fussing over him earlier, and she’d known that he was worried, so she had made him cookies to cheer him up. Made with love, she said. So he’d eaten them without a second thought, but then something strange had happened, and he’d felt sick all of a sudden. Really sick. He feels cold and sweaty and shaky, and his stomach had already been feeling funny even before the cookies, but now it hurts; it hurts so bad that he just wants to lie down and fold in on himself until it stops.
But he can’t. Because it’s finally the recital day and he has to do a good job. But he’s only six, and right now he just wants to sit and cry.
“Hayato!” And Father is coming over to him now, and instantly his resolve wilts again. Maybe, if he just explains how badly his stomach hurts, his father can make some excuse and postpone the concert. Maybe he’ll be just a little disappointed, but Hayato can make it up to him the next time.
“Father,” he begins uncertainly. “I don’t feel so good…”
“Nonsense, it’s just nerves,” Father says with a dismissive smile. “It’s finally the big day. You’ve waited so long for this. You want to do well today, don’t you?”
Hayato hesitates, because he does. He wants to do well, he wants his father to be proud of him. But-his stomach lurches again. It feels like his insides are twisting up, on fire. It hurts.
“Hayato,” Father says, “there’s someone here that I want you to meet.”
Hayato frowns as his father steps aside to introduce a young man standing behind him. This man is younger than any of the other people Hayato has seen around the castle today. He’s still a grown-up, but maybe just barely. His hair is straight and black with long bangs in the front. Cold hazel eyes meet Hayato’s own, and Hayato shrinks back just a little, because he has the sudden odd but inescapable feeling that this other man does not like him, at all.
“This is Luca,” Father says. “He’s a young associate of mine.”
Luca holds out a hand, and Hayato doesn’t want to shake it, but does so anyway because Father wouldn’t approve of him not showing manners. But then his stomach lurches again, this time more insistently, and he panics because he thinks he’s about to puke, right here, in front of Father and everyone. Somehow he holds it in, but doubles over with the effort.
Now Father is frowning at him. “Are you all right, Hayato?”
“…My stomach,” Hayato manages to respond. He feels achy and faint.
“Maybe we should postpone the recital, then,” Father says after a moment, and Hayato wants to burst with relief; yes, please; he doesn’t even care anymore; he just wants to curl up and close his eyes until the pain goes away.
But then the young man-Luca-suddenly speaks up: “I don’t think that’s necessary, is it, Boss? It’s like you said earlier, he’s just nervous.”
And Hayato looks up, ready to scream at him that no, he’s not, he’s not nervous or faking it, he really is sick, so shut up. But when he sees Luca’s face, something inside him stops short.
It’s his eyes. They’re still cold, like before, but now…
He was wrong before, Hayato thinks in shock. About the other man not liking him. That’s not it. It’s not that he doesn’t like him.
He hates him.
Hayato doesn’t know how he knows this, but he does. One glance is all it takes. He looks back to his father, fearfully, but now Father won’t meet his eyes all of a sudden. He looks uncomfortable.
“I’m not certain…” Father says hesitantly, and Hayato doesn’t understand.
“I’m sure that’s what it is,” Luca says. “You shouldn’t let him get away with it. He’s at an impressionable age. If you let him back out whenever he says he has a tummy ache, before you know it, he’ll be all grown up and still crying to you every time he has to do anything important.”
“That’s not true!” Hayato protests, and immediately bites his lip because truthfully, he had been only a few seconds away from crying. But he won’t do it now, because it’s not true, what Luca just said, and he really does feel sick; it was the cookies; it’s not just nerves!-
-but, but Father still won’t meet his eyes, and Hayato doesn’t understand what’s going on.
And Luca looks at Hayato coldly and says, “You shouldn’t lie like that. You want to perform well today for your father, don’t you? You’re his golden boy, after all.”
And Father is looking at the ground now, and then at Luca, and he looks defeated somehow.
“You’re right,” he says at last.
“Father-” Hayato begins, but he’s cut off.
“Hayato, stop complaining now, I mean it. All these people came out today to hear you play, so.” He finally looks at Hayato again, but now his expression is stern. “Do as you are expected.”
Hayato swallows back the rest of his protests because Father has never looked at him that way before. Finally he just nods.
It’s a disaster. His stomach hurts so badly that he can’t play more than a few notes before the stabbing pains in his gut have him doubling over again. Eventually he’s just plunking keys at random, mangling his performance so badly that he’s sure Father will never allow him to play again.
But what actually happens is even worse, because once he finishes playing, after a few seconds of shocked silence from the audience, Luca suddenly begins applauding wildly. And calling it a wonderfully abstract performance. Experimental. Avant-garde. And Hayato is sure he’s just mocking him, but then all of a sudden others are applauding too, and cheering and whooping in agreement.
And then Luca says that Hayato must play for them all again soon, and Father nods and agrees that he will.
And he does. Repeatedly, for the next two years, and each time Father insists that he eat another batch of Bianchi’s cookies beforehand. And gradually he becomes more and more distant.
He never is able to fully meet Hayato’s eyes again.
---
“Yes!” Tsuna cried in triumph as his Dry Bones character received a well-timed mushroom boost to overtake Wario in the final lap.
Yamamoto laughed beside him. “Easy, Tsuna, you’ll wake up Lambo and I-Pin!”
“Yes,” Tsuna repeated in a whisper, but just as emphatically. Though the other two were downstairs, so it probably wouldn’t matter anyway.
He grinned when Yamamoto started laughing again. The other boy was currently in fifth place, and struggling to keep that position. Yamamoto was naturally good at almost everything, but Mario Kart was one of the few arenas where Tsuna was capable of beating him even on an off day. But it wasn’t like Yamamoto ever seemed to mind, which made this easily one of Tsuna’s favorite pastimes.
It was the start of their school break, so they had ten days’ worth of free time now before the new term started in April. Tsuna’s mom was already talking about enrolling him in a juku in preparation for next year’s high school entrance exams. Gokudera had vowed he would enroll as well (despite having less need for a cram school than any other individual Tsuna had ever met), and Yamamoto had also promised to do so, assuming that the schedule would not interfere with his baseball practices. While this made Tsuna dread the upcoming school year marginally less, he was still not looking forward to the impending loss of all his remaining free time.
On top of that, he was sure that Reborn was already planning some sort of psychotic field trip or training exercise to take place during their break. No doubt this would be as stressful as it was life-threatening, and would probably drive him to the brink of his sanity.
All of which meant that tonight, and possibly the next couple of days, would be pretty much the only relaxation time he was going to get, and he fully intended to take advantage of every blissful, lazy moment of it.
He was seconds away from clinching the first-place victory when Reborn appeared (out of literally nowhere) and kicked him the back of the head.
Really, he should have expected it.
As he sputtered incoherently while Yamamoto looked both concerned and (the traitor) trying not to laugh, Reborn said, “Emergency meeting time, No-Good Tsuna.”
Tsuna rubbed his aching head, eyeing Reborn in wounded exasperation, and was about to protest, but that was when he caught sight of Gokudera standing hesitantly by the entrance to his room.
And he frowned, because although he couldn’t say why, exactly, his intuition was immediately telling him that something was very, very wrong.
“Hey, Boss,” Gokudera said quietly, but something was off. The way he was kind of leaning on the doorframe, shoulders hunched, almost like he was afraid to come in. His hands were stuffed tightly in the pockets of his hoodie, and although he had tried to make eye contact with Tsuna upon greeting him, his eyes had almost instantly darted away afterward.
Tsuna opened his mouth to ask what was going on, but before he could get any words out, Yamamoto had suddenly gotten to his feet beside him.
“Gokudera? What happened to your neck?”
And Tsuna blinked in shock as he realized that Yamamoto was right. They were almost covered up by the hoodie, but upon closer inspection, there were indeed angry red and purple marks crisscrossed all around Gokudera’s throat and neck.
Looking uncomfortable, Gokudera glanced away, reaching to pull the edges of his hood up higher so that the marks were less conspicuous (but still visible; now that Tsuna had noticed, he couldn’t for the life of him say why he hadn’t spotted them instantly). He did not immediately respond.
“He was attacked,” Reborn said instead, and Tsuna whipped around in shock.
“Attacked?!”
“By who?” said Yamamoto.
“Is he okay-?!” Tsuna said, turning back to Gokudera urgently.
“I’m fine,” Gokudera quickly replied.
But he didn’t look fine. His normal boisterous, over-the-top disposition was completely absent; he looked like he very much did not want to be there, still hunched in on himself and avoiding their gaze.
“Who did this?” Yamamoto said again, more insistently. His voice had an edge to it that Tsuna knew from past experience meant that he was contemplating something violent. Not that Tsuna was feeling much differently at the moment.
Once again, Reborn was the one to answer. “A hitman named Anthony Franco, who works for the DiSanto family in Italy.”
“Did you stop him?” Tsuna pressed. “I mean…” Obviously Gokudera had made it out in one piece, but had his attacker gotten away? Already his hand was halfway in his pocket, automatically reaching for his X-Glove mittens.
“He’s gone, for now,” Reborn said.
Something about the way he answered gave Tsuna pause just when he had been ready to take the gloves out. That, and the fact that it was still only Reborn responding, and that Gokudera was being so uncharacteristically quiet about all this.
“Why were they after Gokudera?” Yamamoto asked.
“You should ask Gokudera,” Reborn replied.
They looked back at him. Gokudera was still eyeing the floor. Finally he sighed.
“I’m sorry, Boss. I should have told you. I just…” He trailed off, looking agonized.
“It’s not good to keep secrets from family,” Reborn said wisely. Gokudera glanced up at him, and Tsuna didn’t at all like the expression on his face.
He was slowly starting to freak out, because Gokudera was plainly freaked out. Part of him wanted to scream at Gokudera to spit it out already. But he was clearly scared, and if it was something that he was afraid to tell Tsuna and Yamamoto, then Tsuna was almost afraid to know.
But he had to know. “What secrets?” he asked. Yamamoto, meanwhile, had gone silent, but had a very serious look.
“I didn’t… It wasn’t your problem,” Gokudera said, looking over at the wall now. “…I didn’t want to get you involved. And I thought, anyway… that maybe I was done with it. I hoped.” He ran a hand through his hair, and then all of a sudden he laughed, bitterly. “Stupid.”
He shook his head, and then: “The DiSanto family is my birth family. Giovanni DiSanto, their Boss, is-was my father. Their new Boss…”
He hesitated once more. And then he said: “Their new Boss, Luca DiSanto, is my brother.”
---
The instant he was finally able to get the words out, he wanted to close his eyes and disappear into the ground. He didn’t want to see their reactions. He wanted for this to have never happened. To go back to the way that everything was. To not have such a stupid, fucked-up past with all these fucked-up secrets. Dead mothers, adulterous fathers, and homicidal half siblings.
He wanted to be able to laugh and to say that never mind, it was nothing, and to change the subject and forget about all of this. Because he knew that, now that this part of it was finally out, it would all come out. All of the rest.
And he didn’t want to explain to Tsuna how his father had maybe killed his mother (and how the messed-up thing was that he didn’t even know for sure, that all he had to go on were his parents’ letters versus the gospel of gossipy family servants, because his father had never talked to him about any of this, ever, and now he would never be able to because ha ha, he was dead), and that the reason he’d maybe done so was to hide the fact that Gokudera was illegitimate.
He didn’t want to explain to Tsuna just what that actually meant in this world, in the mafia. How Gokudera’s very existence was a taboo, a source of shame. He didn’t know which would be worse: Tsuna turning his back on him once he fully understood, or Tsuna doing the opposite, and standing by him, and in doing so weakening his own position as Vongola Boss, all for Gokudera’s sake.
That was assuming that the rest of the Vongola-Reborn, Iemitsu, the Ninth-even permitted him to stay in the family at all. He would fully understand if they didn’t.
He’d thought about this so many times, and every time that Tsuna or one of the others did something unconditionally and unthinkingly kind, the guilt of knowing that he hadn’t told them only doubled down. But that just made it even harder. To finally have a place where he felt like he belonged, was genuinely welcomed and appreciated, and to secretly be holding the other shoe in place all the while, desperately trying to keep it from ever dropping, knowing that it was impossible, but needing it not to be… it was torturous. He couldn’t bear to think about it, so he shoved it all deep down, and he pretended.
And now it was finally time to face it.
But just when he thought he had finally worked up the courage to do so, Reborn suddenly spoke up and threw him for a complete loop.
“Before you get into the whole story, you should know that Tsuna and Yamamoto already know about your mother.”
And Gokudera snapped his gaze to him, stunned.
“…What?”
Slowly, he looked back and forth from Tsuna to Yamamoto, at first completely taken aback, and then not quite daring to believe. “You both… is that true?”
“Ah…” said Tsuna after an awkward pause. “We do know. Well, some of it, anyway.”
“The kid told us about it a while back,” Yamamoto clarified.
“A while back?” repeated Gokudera, still in shock.
“Like… back when we were all in the future together.”
Gokudera stared at them.
They knew. They already knew, and they still…
“I…” Words failed him all of a sudden. He wanted to thank them. He wanted to apologize. He wanted to ask if it was really okay.
“Sorry we didn’t say anything,” Tsuna said, looking genuinely apologetic, and Gokudera immediately shook his head, because that was wrong.
“It should be me,” he said hoarsely. “I should’ve… I’m sorry.”
“I already knew about it from the start,” Reborn spoke up matter-of-factly. “I deemed it wasn’t necessary to tell them the rest, until now.”
He hopped off of the bed and onto Tsuna’s shoulder. “But now that Luca is making his move, it’s time that they knew about all of it, Gokudera.”
Gokudera nodded slowly. His throat was still hoarse; he was pretty sure it wasn’t from the attack earlier.
He plunged ahead. After all that… he owed it to them to give them the full story.
“Well, Luca… like I said, he’s my brother. Half-brother. Back before my father got married, he met some woman, and I guess… he got her pregnant. This was back when he was still a teenager, I guess… it would’ve had to have been. So she had a kid, but they weren’t married, and he was supposed to marry someone else. Betrothed. So basically he just turned his back on her and the kid both.
“And then like fifteen years later, she died, and by that time my father was married and he was the Boss, and he had my sister and me. And I guess maybe he felt guilty.” He shook his head in disgust. “Anyway, he took him in-Luca-and he made him a member of the family, and eventually he made him a Caporegime. But he didn’t tell anyone he was actually his son, of course. I don’t know how many of them actually knew, or put two and two together.
“Anyway. I didn’t know who he really was, at the time, but Luca must have known about me, because he…” He paused. “Well, he basically hated my fucking guts.”
“…Why?” Tsuna spoke up, sounding confused. “I mean, if he knew that you were really brothers, then why would he…?”
“Because to him, Gokudera is the one that had received everything he ever wanted,” Reborn replied.
(But you, for some reason-you got to be a normal, happy little kid. Don’t you think that’s messed up?)
“Gokudera?”
He didn’t realize he had frozen until he felt Yamamoto’s hand on his shoulder. He blinked.
“…Sorry. Yeah. That’s basically it. We were both illegitimate, but I was raised in our father’s house as his legal son, whereas he was only taken in after he was basically already grown, and he was still never acknowledged.”
He shoved the rest of those memories away, firmly. It wasn’t relevant, and he was too exhausted to deal with any of that right now.
“So he did his best to make my life shit for a couple of years, and then I left, and that was the last I ever heard from him.”
“Until tonight,” Reborn said.
Gokudera unconsciously reached up to touch his throat again, and he nodded. He felt Yamamoto’s grip tighten ever so slightly, hand still resting on his shoulder, and he knew that he should shout at him to respect his fucking personal space, or simply shake him off. But he didn’t want to.
“Until tonight,” he echoed. “So apparently now he’s taken over the family, and that’s why he wants me dead…”
A thought dawned on him Belatedly-far too belatedly.
“Wait a minute-”
He was thinking about it wrong. Luca hated him, yes, had always hated him, so when he’d sent his men after him tonight, he’d immediately assumed it was just the final nail in the coffin; Luca finally finishing what he’d so obviously wanted to do all these years.
But that wasn’t right. If Luca really wanted him dead to begin with, he could have done it years ago. Specifically, six years ago, on the night Gokudera had left. Means, motive, and opportunity. But he hadn’t, not then. So why now, all of a sudden, now that he was finally Boss?
It didn’t make sense, unless it actually had nothing at all to do with his personal feelings toward Gokudera, but was instead for another reason entirely.
If, for example, he was simply trying to take out any possible rivals toward succession.
In which case-
He looked at Reborn in horror. “My sister-”
“She’s fine,” Reborn cut him off.
Relief flooded through him so suddenly and strongly he almost thought he would collapse, but Yamamoto held him steady.
“Are you sure?”
“Shamal is currently watching over her. CEDEF as well.”
Gokudera exhaled slowly, clenching a fist.
“I don’t want her to get involved,” he said.
“If she becomes fully aware of the situation, you won’t be able to keep her out,” Reborn cautioned. “But right now she’s removed from the current crisis. Shamal fed her a cover story, and they’re currently out of the country. At the moment, she’s actually in a much safer position than you.”
That was probably true. He fought the urge to wince.
“Where is Luca now?” Tsuna spoke up suddenly. “Is he in Japan?”
Gokudera opened his mouth to respond, then realized he didn’t actually know.
“He’s in Italy,” Reborn answered them both. “He’s taken over the DiSanto family’s castle outside of Palermo.”
“Italy, huh…” Yamamoto said thoughtfully.
Gokudera frowned at him.
“Well, I guess it’s a good thing it’s spring break,” Yamamoto continued.
“I’ll have to make up something to tell my mom,” said Tsuna.
“Wait a sec,” Gokudera said, not yet comprehending. “What are you talking about?”
“I’ll just tell her I’m taking you on a cultural trip,” Reborn said, casually bouncing from Tsuna’s shoulder over to Yamamoto’s. “After all, it’s about time you visited the homeland anyway.”
“That’s right, Tsuna, you’ve never been there, have you?” Yamamoto said, grinning.
It fully dawned on Gokudera then, and now he did finally brush Yamamoto’s hand away. “No,” he said. “Boss-you can’t.”
“If he’s threatening one of my friends, I’m not just going to sit back and let him,” said Tsuna firmly, and Gokudera felt a sudden rush of overwhelming gratitude and awe. Here he had been utterly terrified only minutes ago of revealing his past to the others, and admitting he’d been keeping this secret from them which could have potentially put them in danger. But, far from caring about that, all they were concerned about was keeping him out of danger.
He was simultaneously moved beyond words, and instantly terrified all over again, because the last thing he wanted was for them to jump in and get involved in something that they should rightfully have nothing to do with, and for them to possibly get hurt on his behalf. He couldn’t take it if that happened.
“You can’t just take him on like that,” he said.
“Gokudera-kun-” Tsuna began, frowning.
“He’s dangerous.”
“We can handle it, Gokudera,” Yamamoto said reassuringly. “We’ve fought dangerous guys before.”
“Not like this!” Gokudera snapped, rounding on him.
“He can’t be worse than Byakuran, or Jager, or Bermuda-”
“You’re not listening!” Gokudera exploded suddenly, and Yamamoto stopped short.
For a moment it was silent in the room. Gokudera suddenly realized that he was shaking. He forced himself to get his breathing back under control, his fists clenched harder than ever.
“We are listening, Gokudera-kun,” Tsuna said softly, finally breaking the silence.
Gokudera looked back at him, pained.
“…I’m telling you that he’s dangerous,” he said again. “He has… he’s got a trump card.”
“The Consummate Command,” Reborn said keenly.
Gokudera looked at him, startled-but of course he would know. “Yes.”
“What is that?” Tsuna asked.
“It’s the special ability passed down in the DiSanto famiglia,” Reborn answered. “Like your intuition, No-Good Tsuna.”
“Eh? Really?” Yamamoto said, looking at Gokudera in surprise.
“I don’t have it,” Gokudera quickly said. “Neither does my sister. At least, I think,” he amended.
“But Luca does,” Reborn said, looking at Gokudera for confirmation, and Gokudera nodded.
“I’ve seen it,” he said, not wanting to think on it any more than that.
“So what is it? This ‘command’ thing?” Yamamoto pressed.
“It’s a form of hypnotic mind control,” Reborn answered. “It’s not completely unlike Mukuro’s possession ability. But this doesn’t require the use of a special bullet, or for the victim to be marked ahead of time in any way. It can be used indiscriminately.”
“He can make you do whatever he wants,” Gokudera said. “Anything at all. All he has to do is say it.”
“It’s how the DiSanto family rose to power in the first place,” Reborn continued. “Past generations made liberal use of that ability to gather countless followers and vast quantities of wealth.
“However, over the years, the bloodline started to die out. More recently, only one or two people per generation have been confirmed to have the ability, and its scope is more limited as well. Past Bosses of the DiSanto clan were able to manipulate entire armies, but recent generations could control only a single person at a time. Because of that, they started to scale back, and the last few Bosses only ever used the ability sparingly, out of fear that other families would stop dealing with them altogether, or simply assassinate the remaining leaders to wipe out the last of the bloodline.”
“That’s how it was until now,” Gokudera said. “But Luca won’t play by those rules. I know how he is. He’s not gonna hold back.”
“He already isn’t,” Reborn agreed. “He knows Gokudera is one of Vongola’s Guardians, and he was willing to risk starting a war in order to target him anyway.”
“Then we have to do something before it gets any further out of hand,” Tsuna said.
“Boss-” Gokudera started to protest again.
“I understand, Gokudera-kun,” Tsuna cut him off. “He’s dangerous, like you said, so we won’t do anything rash. But waiting and doing nothing won’t solve the problem either.”
“It’s not your problem,” Gokudera said frustratedly.
“It is.”
Gokudera started to shake his head, but then Tsuna said, “We’re family, Gokudera-kun.”
And Gokudera felt his resolve starting to slip away as he looked at Tsuna. He had moved in closer so that they were now standing face to face, and he had such a clear, unflinching look in his eyes that for a moment, Gokudera believed he really could do it; that they could take care of this, no problem. Because it was Tsuna, who never, ever backed down when it came to something truly important; and when push came to shove, he had never once failed to rise to the occasion.
But then his brother’s face flashed in the back of his mind, and he couldn’t push away the terrifying, cold feeling that went along with it.
“I don’t want you to get hurt,” he whispered.
For a brief second, something pained flashed across Tsuna’s face. He looked like he didn’t quite know how to respond to that.
But then Yamamoto said, “Gokudera. It’ll be all right.” And he smiled when Gokudera looked up at him. “You’ve gotta trust us, okay? Trust Tsuna.”
Gokudera looked back at Tsuna, still unsure.
“Please,” was all Tsuna said.
For the second time that night, Gokudera felt a stinging in the back of his eyes. He ducked his head so that the others couldn’t see.
Finally, he gave a short nod.
“Then it’s settled,” said Reborn. “We’re going to Italy.”
---
Continue to Chapter 3
Prologue | 01
Additional Notes - All right, I just want to take a sec and discuss the whole name issue before we get too far into this thing.
So yeah, while planning this story and coming up with the backstory, I decided for a number of reasons not to use “Gokudera” as his family’s name. This is one of the few things in this fic (to my knowledge) that does not 100% line up with the established canon; specifically, some translations of chapter 162, as well as Gokudera’s Secret Bullet novel backstory, Bakudan Bambino.
However! I decided not to go with those, and here’s why.
- First and foremost, “Gokudera” is not an Italian fucking name. And as far as we know, unlike the Vongola, none of Gokudera’s ancestors dipped the fuck out and retired to Japan. In fact, Gokudera’s own Japanese heritage is an important plot point because it’s so unusual in the mafia world. And none of the other Italian characters have Japanese names. So basically, it makes zero sense for his folks be rocking a Japanese surname.
- Bianchi never once goes by the name “Gokudera”, which would be her own surname if it actually was their father’s. In fact, Bianchi’s last name is never mentioned at all. It therefore would make perfect sense if the reason was because it was different from her brother’s last name.
- Lastly, it’s clearly established that Gokudera (at least prior to chapter 292) despises his family, and wants absolutely nothing to do with them (Bianchi excluded). And in particular, he hates his father. For this reason, it’s really hard for me to picture him keeping the man’s last name, let alone going by it exclusively and insisting that everyone call him that, rather than his given name. What would make much more sense, though, is if “Gokudera” was actually his mother’s surname, and he adopted it himself as a form of tribute to her. It also perfectly explains the fact that, once again, it is a Japanese name and not at all Italian.
So that’s that! If anyone has any feedback regarding this topic (or, you know, the other huge canon-altering thing I also dropped and then didn’t essay about), feel free to hit me up. Hope you guys are enjoying the fic so far.