Chapter 20 - Fine

"Enma! Dinner time!"

Enma slowly looks up at his mum's voice. He blinks rapidly like he's coming out of a trance. He stands haltingly and practices walking around the bedroom shared with his little sister. When the stride is smooth he stops.

Enma's left eye flares indigo and he smirks darkly.

Daemon has Kyouya to thank for this bit of inspired psychological torture; after all, what's better than slaughtering an entire family? Slaughtering the entire family with the son's own hands, of course! People will believe it too, because children are terrifying.

Daemon rolls Enma's shoulders to loosen up and then toddles out of the room with the same lack of grace he's seen Tsuna wield. He finds the family bustling around the kitchen. The little sister is already sitting in her high chair while the mother is setting the table and the father is pouring the last of the stir-fry out of a pan and into a bowl.

Daemon wonders if he should wait until the end of the meal or perhaps mid-way through. He doesn't want to do it now, that would be rushing things, and he first wants to display signs of 'strange' behaviour. It's always better if they know something is wrong because it heightens the tension perfectly.

'Daemon?'

Daemon is too good to be thrown off by the abrupt call. Instead, he smoothly walks up to the table and clambers up the adult sized chair in his currently child sized body.

'What is it, Chrome?' Daemon responds. 'If Ryohei wants another juice box then tell him no. It makes him even more hyper active, that's why I put it on the top shelf.'

'It's not that,' Chrome hedges. 'Tsuna is… feeling bad?'

Daemon immediately tries to remember if Tsuna showed any signs of becoming sick when Daemon left, but he still tells himself he doesn't care.

'Tsuna says that the bad feeling tells him Kyouya is going to get hurt.'

Enma slides off his chair and walks away without a word.

"Enma?" Makoto calls after his son.

When Enma doesn't respond, Makoto shares a confused look with his wife. He stands up to find Enma and asks what's wrong, but after half an hour without a single sign of the boy, they call the police.

.

Daemon arrives in time to see tiny Asari tackle a full-grown man through the restaurant's wall and into the street. The boy's body is encased in a bright blue glow and his snarl is ferocious.

"So cute," Daemon murmurs, perhaps a bit tilted from spending so much time with Kyouya and his kiddie cult.

Daemon uses Enma's Earth flames to fly over and drop onto the road beside the very one-sided fight. Unfortunately for Daemon, he is not possessing someone with Mist the way Mukuro is with Chrome, so Daemon can't hop back into his body with a snap of his fingers.

It takes a whole lot of concentration and power to switch bodies not aligned with Mist flames, so that has to be put on the back burner until he knows where Kyouya is.

Daemon flips the gravity around the man's head to ten times so the skull collides with the concrete and neatly knocks the man out. Daemon leaves Asari's kid though because the boy looks like he's having fun punching the man and it would be rude to drag him away.

Daemon toddles over in this small body and enters the restaurant through the hole tiny Asari made. It was hardly a load bearing wall, only plaster and some insulation, but it's still rather impressive. That boy can really pack a punch.

All the humour in Daemon drains away when he sees Kyouya's still form.

.

Kyouya wakes up to an off white ceiling and an uncomfortably hard bed. He raises his head to look around and realises several things in quick succession. He needs to get some new tonfas, he's in the hospital, he intensely dislikes herbivores, and there is also a baby sitting the chair next to Kyouya's bed who looks a lot like him.

In that order.

"Kyouya, do you feel alright?" the baby asks. "Is there anything I can get you?"

Kyouya pushes the blanket away and pulls the neck of the hospital gown to look at his torso, but he can't find any sort of wound. He thought injuries needed time to heal, like when he gets bruises from fighting. Maybe going to a hospital gets rid of that waiting time. Kyouya reminds himself to visit more.

"Who are you?" Kyouya demands. "And why are you here?

The baby blinks. "Oh, well you were rather young back then, I suppose you wouldn't remember. My name is Fon, I'm a relative of yours. I've been asked to take care of you."

"What is our relation?" Kyouya interrogates. "What do you mean 'take care of'? I am perfectly fine by myself."

"Distant," Fon says bluntly. "And no, you are not fine. You got shot."

"So this is because I wasn't strong enough?" Kyouya snaps. "I was sent a baby as a sitter because of a scratch?"

"It's because you're seven and you shouldn't have to be strong in the first place," Fon says patiently. "Besides, it was hardly a scratch. The bullet caught your transverse colon, jejunum and kidney, not to mention the muscles affected and the blood loss."

"It's completely healed," Kyouya deadpans. "You're over exaggerating."

Fon bites his tongue, but certainly not because the mafia gets twitchy when civilians know about flames. It's really for the best if Kyouya doesn't discover anything. "The doctors here are very good," is all he comments.

"You're not living with me," Kyouya grumbles, settling back into the hospital bed.

"We'll speak about the arrangements later, when you're out of hospital," Fon says with a serene smile.

Kyouya narrows his eyes. "You are not living with me."

Fon seems to consider not replying but eventually speaks up. "You will be staying with me for the next few weeks… in Italy. Just until everything has calmed down here." Or until Fon tracks down who did this to Kyouya and has a stern talk about who is and isn't allowed inside Namimori.

"And what can an infant do that I can't manage?" Kyouya scoffs. "Namimori is not a place of any violence except my own. This is a one-time incident."

"We'll speak later," Fon repeats, hopping off his chair. "I'll sign you out of hospital now. Please change into the clothes I brought, then we'll stop off at your house to pick up some of your things."

Kyouya watches the infant toddle out of the room and looks to the bag Fon brought, resting at the end of the bed. He scowls.

...

Omake – Babysitter

Hayato frowns at the mess of weapons on the training room floor but starts to clean it up anyway. "Yeah, fine. I guess I'm just the babysitter now."

"You're not a baby," Kyouya declares, cleaning his tonfas a few meters away.

"That's not what that word means," Hayato begins, though he should know better than to argue at this point.

"Either you're a baby who's a sitter, or you sit on babies," Kyouya explains.

"No."

"Pick one."

"Kyouya, stop, that is not how an argument works. Are you even trying to argue anyth-?"

"Pick. One."

"Okay, you know what? That's not how anything works, Kyouya. Nothing. Nothing works like that. Except maybe a dictatorship."

"P i c k o n e."