Yâall can all thank  the prompt: everythingâs-the-same-but-Reborn-and-Skull-switch-places by @not-so-varia-quality for the influx of berserker plotbunnies and brain juice flood.
I dropped everything I was doing and wrote this. And now I ship SR.
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Skull the Overlord of Supreme Chaos and Number One Hitman looks to the groaning teenager on the ground.
He has to cackle mentally- this is going to be great!
Oodako pouts. He likes the boy! Donât break him!
Oh, I wonât.
Oodako is not impressed.
Fine, a little. Or a bit more.
.
Renato is done with this shit. Pray tell him- how did he land into this mess again?
Oh right, Immortal Stuntman accepted a masked strangerâs offer. Bad.
Met a group of crime syndicate members and bonded with them over how fun it is to screw with peopleâs head. Good, probably.
Get betrayed by someone- he trusted with his life how could she- and got turned into a mafia baby. Horrible.
But maybe it already started earlier? Maybe when they- he- he had to do something he couldnât just stand there-
Leon turns into a fan and smacks him on the head.
Thank you, Leon, he smiles softly.
No problem, my favorite human.
.
Sawada Tsunayoshi stares blankly at the ceiling, too⌠shocked of the recent events and made up of aching muscles to fall asleep.
A purple hitman baby and his pet octopus became his tutors.
Heâs trained to become a mafia boss- courtesy of said purple hitman baby, with the octopus as moral support.
(He likes and is grateful to the octopus, and HE DOESNâT WANT TO BECOME A MAFIA BOSS!)
He died via gunshot, again due to the purple hitman baby, but didnât die. He instead turned into a raging, freakishly strong pervert.
He humiliated himself in front of Kyoko-chan.
(He HUMILATED himself in front of KYOKO-CHAN!)
And then he got challenged to a duel, and he won.
(He won at something. He wasnât a complete failure.)
Thanks to the purple hitman baby and his pet octopus with his weird bullet. The ones that caused the whole trouble in the first place.
Deathperation Bullet, right?
He sighs. Without warning and self-introduction, they just crashed into his life and-
Without self-introduction.
A piercing scream of humiliation and indignant fury echoed throughout the town of Namimori.
(When the same voice roared âREBORN! GOING TO APOLOGIZE FOR DISTURBING THE PEACE AND COMPENSATE WITH MY DYING WILL!â and the owner of that same voice bore the arm band of a Disciplinary Committee Member the next morning, wellâŚ
Letâs say it was for the sake of extra training.)
(Oodako and Tsuna will groan and tell you otherwise, though. With Skull cackling madly in the background.
âWait, you still havenât introduced yourselves yet.â
âOh, look at the time! Nighty-night!â and Skull is out like a light.
ââŚmust. Not. Anger. Hibari-san. Again. Must. Not. Anger.â The teen murmured the mantra through gritted teeth till he fell asleep.
Oodako sighed. The shit he had to put up with, really.
Not that he would be anywhere else of course, someone had to keep his human in check.
Skull grins in his sleeps and rolls over, smacking Tsuna in the face, and jolting Oodako from his dozing.
Well, he wouldnât mind impromptu vacations now and then, or paybacks.)
.
Renato smiles with grudging fondness at the letter and sighs. âThat ridiculous assâŚâ
He has a ridiculously fine ass, yes. Astounding observation: wow. Would have never guessed that. Leon teased.
He stares flatly at his chameleon partner, ignoring the faint blush on his cheeks. âHahaha⌠Very funny.â
Leon winks at him.
Cheeky.
.
âWhat the absolutely fucking hell are you doing.â
Skull winces at the more-a-statement-than-a-question. âUh⌠I can explain-â
âFedora Incident.â
Skull wisely shuts up.
âNow youâve got me interested⌠HuehuehueâŚâ Tsuna cackles under his breath, later he will realize how scarily similar- no, terrifyingly identical even- it is to Skullâs.
âOho?â Renato purrs with a glint in his eye. âCare to share⌠your side? And some stories?â
Tsuna smiles, full of affection and hint of a certain purple loverâs demise via humiliation, and grabs his outstretched hand softly- but also firmly like a newborn would grip the finger of his father.
Skull is not feeling sappy warmth spreading throughout his chest at a certain image and fighting a dope-y grin. Heâs not.
Also like he is not planning extra tortur-tutoring sessions for acting so familiar with Renato.
Okay, he totally is.
(Itâs a creepy sight.)
Leon grins. As much as a chameleon can grin. He is so winning the best winganimal-slash-matchmaker award at the newest club meeting.
Oodako facepalms. Quite audibly, since he has eight arms and all that.
(âIf I were human,â he tells himself, âI would have become an alcoholic a long, long time ago.â)
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Byakuran smiles and extends his hand. âWonât you join my game, Renato?â
Renato looks at the teen-almost-adultâs tattoo. Gesso.
(It promises success. It murmurs about power.
âCome to my side, even though I donât have cookies. Do you like marshmallows, though?â
Most important of all, it guarantees revenge at⌠her.)
Renato stares at the beaming smile, and closes his eyes for a second.
In that second, he thinks of Leonâs club meetings, the rainbow mafia baby bonds, Tsuna, Checkerface, Her Before The Betrayal, Her daughterâs and granddaughterâs sad, knowing eyes, Leon, and Skull.
(Oodakoâs facepalms, pats on the back, the first contact he had with Tsunayoshi- bonding over Skullâs ridiculous drama, accepting the offer, âWould you like a cup of coffee?â, âIâm sorry.â, Leon. Skull.
Skull. The ridiculous ass.)
âI donât like marshmallows.â He responds evenly.
As he walks away, he turned and met (not-Skullâs-shade-of purple) deceptively amiable eyes.
âAnd itâs Reborn to you.â
âReborn?â he cocks his head, wearing the same smile he had worn at the offer.
âYes, ciao.â
Byakuran smiled. A cruel one this time. âCiao.â
A gunshot rang through the air, and the Sun Arcobaleno fell.
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That cyborg mythology post was just supposed to be an artsy-fartsy fun thing, but then a plot bunny appeared and said "this would make a good story."
"How so?" said I, "An AU, sure, but it wouldn't go anywhere."
"Sure it could, if it was the future."
"What?"
"A Re:Cyborg AU in which they lost. Those influenced by His Voice run rampant and the world is decimated, the human population dropped to miniscule. Humanity has to start over. They are too busy struggling to survive and live simply, technology abandoned. As the generations pass technology is viewed as the path to arrogance which led to the end of the world, so humanity forgets advanced technology and live in a pre-industrial society. As such, the cyborgs, leading humanity, become more and more amazing to humans with every generation. Humans begin to worship them and see them as divine. History is lost and a new mythology surrounding the cataclysm and the cyborgs is created.
"While their cybernetic implants keep the team from going senile, they have human brains and as such are not meant to retain centuries' worth of knowledge. They forget their earliest lives and begin to believe they are indeed gods until that is all they know. They form their own mythology about themselves and their role in the world."
"And then what?"
"Well clearly not everyone in the world is going to abandon all that shiny technology and knowledge lying around in the rubble. A distant faction shows up intent on disproving the godhood of the 00 cyborgs and, just for plot's sake, take over the land or something. If the world was truly destroyed, especially by nukes, there was probably a nuclear winter and sorts and the world went to shit, so fighting over resources wouldn't be uncommon."
"This...might go somewhere. DAMN IT ALL I HAVE ENOUGH FICS TO DO!"
It's kind of a shame I never got around to writing that weird AtlA Transformers crossover, where the Dai Li's chief mindbender finds a strange music box that can talk (but which mostly chooses to give bad advice). Yeah, I am not sure the world is ready for Catalyst and Xin Wan in one story XD
