Chapter Text
Sunday arrives quickly.
Tsuna is still ill, his fever weaker than it was but still stronger than she’d like. Despite her protests, he’s built himself a fort of blankets and pillows on the couch, hunkering down under its weight, determined to meet his mother’s friend. She’s glad he feels well enough to leave his bed, but it worries her that he isn’t resting.
Artemis seems to be catching it, too. Yesterday, he came down for breakfast swaying on his feet, face ashen and eyes glazed. He picked apart his toast and sipped listlessly at his tea. Japanese barely registered. English barely registered. She kept him home, too, just in case.
It was the right decision, Nana decides, although something else seems to have taken root. Artemis is picking at his breakfast again, but this time it’s slow and deliberate. As if he’s building up strength. For what, though?
Nana sips at her tea, and waits. Over on the couch, Tsuna makes a well in his blankets for Orion to curl up in.
The clock ticks. The morning news ends and a documentary starts.
Out of nowhere, Artemis asks, “do you think magic is real?”
He bolts before Nana can answer.
“Art—”
His door slams shut.
The doorbell rings.
.
Kuzunoha Anko doesn’t know what to make of the ward coiled around Nana’s house.
It’s a delicate thing, still settling, but the design—whoever set it is a conniving, tricky bastard, that’s for certain. The base is Celtic but there’s something else threaded through it that reminds her of old Hindu temples, the ones dedicated to Varuna or Ananta Shesha. Something heavy and vicious, a sentinel with too many teeth, hidden just outside of view. It shouldn’t work, but it obviously does since it hasn’t collapsed.
It’s—good that someone is looking out for Nana. Especially since that bastard Iemitsu isn’t. But . . . Anko doesn’t recognize the magic powering the ward, and that—
Maybe the castor studied at one of the other campuses, or was in a different age group. Maybe it’s a muggle-born cousin Anko’s never met, or—or a foreigner, someone who doesn’t realize these types of wards—bloodthirsty and hyper-intelligent, picking apart her intentions with a surgeon’s precision, looking for anything that will let it feed—were outlawed decades ago. Still, why would they think to use a ward like this?
Her gloves creak as her hands curl into fists. How badly has that bastard failed Nana?
Anko adjusts her bags, releases a slow breath, and steps over the wardline. Nothing happens, though she can still feel the weight of the ward’s attention. Whoever set it up is an asshole—a sadist and a worrywart piloting the same brain. They must get so many migraines.
She reaches the door, gives herself one last second to chicken out. Rings the doorbell and waits.
That’s all she can do, in the end. Wait and wait and wait. Wait for a patient’s test results to come back, for potions to finish, for her selfishness to be forgiven.
Before, Anko had always assumed it would always be just them. She’d been content with that—so content that the sudden appearance of an engagement ring on Nana’s finger made something in Anko snap. Oh, she’d tried to make herself believe the poison churning in her gut was worry that Nana and Iemitsu were rushing things. Tried to believe it was only concern, but Anko has never been good at lying.
In the end, Anko had let her jealousy taint Nana’s happiness. Why else would her best friend ignore her for a decade? Not that she didn’t deserve it.
She’ll do better this time. Anko will be the friend Nana needs. She won’t make the same mistake again.
Anko sucks in a deep breath when the door opens, feels it catch and tremble in her lungs. Nana is just as she remembers—hair cut shorter, and the beginnings of laugh lines and crow’s feet aside—smile lit by that beautiful warmth and easy acceptance.
“Hey,” she says. Her voice is thick and wet. Damn it, she’d promised herself she wouldn’t cry.
“Hey, yourself.”
Anko hesitates, teeth pinching her tongue, reaches for the first thing that comes to mind.
“I got some of that tea from Kaguya’s—the black raspberry one?” Not what she was hoping for.
But Nana’s smile grows brighter and Anko can’t help but smile back.
“My favorite!” Nana claps her hands together. “I’m surprised you remembered!”
“Nothing could make me forget.”
.
Tsuna isn’t sure what to expect from Kaa-chan’s friend. Maybe she’s like Yamamoto Takeshi’s mom, loud but kind and always with a smile. Or maybe she’s like Sanada-sensei, sweet when she isn’t distant.
The woman in their entranceway is sharp-faced and thin, like a fox, with tiny glasses slipping down her nose. She’s taller than anyone he’s ever seen and holds herself with the same easy confidence Nii-chan does. She’s kind of scary, like that one upperclassman who beats everyone up, but . . .
The smile she has when Kaa-chan isn’t looking is so soft that Tsuna can’t imagine ever being afraid of her.
“Do you live at a shrine?” he asks her after she sits down. Kaa-chan’s gone up stairs to get Nii-chan.
“A shrine?” Anko-san’s mouth twitches.
“Yeah, like the white fox! Her name was Kuzunoha, too, right? Um, Abe no Seimei’s mom.”
“Ah.” She nods, wrinkling her nose in thought. “Well, my cousin looks after the shrine near the clan’s estate, but there hasn’t been a fox in the family for—I think it’s been four generations?”
His eyes widen. “A fox in the family?”
“It’s an expression.” A nervous laugh. “Like, someone who’s tricky and good at sleight-of-hand, a—”
“A magician.” Nii-chan steps around the couch. His face is set in that careful blankness again and part of Tsuna aches. Tsuna drags some of his blankets out of the way, waits for Nii-chan to sit, then throws them over his lap. They land in a messy heap. Without looking away from Anko-san, Nii-chan smooths them into place.
Orion slithers up Nii-chan’s arm to coil around his neck.
“Yes,” she says quietly, matching Nii-chan’s stare, “exactly like a magician.”
.
Hours later, while they’re gather around a hotpot, Anko is still reeling. That bastard’s illegitimate kid—a goddamn ten-year-old—is the wardmaster. What kind of shitty life did this kid have before he wound up on Nana’s doorstep? And what madman teaches a tiny brat blood magic? Adding everything together doesn’t make for a pretty picture.
She can’t even be mad he hasn’t told Nana about magic yet. As much as Anko doesn’t want to lie to Nana again, it’s painfully easy to see Artemis is stepping on eggshells, smothering reactions he thinks will earn him rejection. Forcing the issue would be—she’s not cruel. The kid is terrified of something. Honestly, she’s treated veteran aurors more relaxed than this kid.
There’s a break, when Nana goes to the kitchen and Tsuna runs upstairs for something.
“Hey kid,” she says, “what’s up with the ward?”
Artemis blinks, expression pleasantly neutral as he steals the lion’s share of onions and mushrooms. He puts a few carrots on Tsuna’s plate.
“I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean.”
“Pull the other—no one puts up wards like that without a reason.”
A flicker of disgust and bitterness crosses his face before it’s swallowed by his Occlumency.
“That’s just a placeholder.”
A placeholder? That bloodthirsty beast coiled around the house is “just a placeholder?” Who the fuck—Anko sucks in a deep breath, holds it, then slowly lets it out. Okay, alright.
The kid stares, expression matched by the snake on his shoulders. She sighs.
“I can help.”
“Thank you for your concern, but I don’t require any aid,” he says mildly. As if the ward around his home isn’t a predator. As if he isn’t strangling himself under layers and layers of Occlumency.
Anko wants to scream, to rage and drown the world that taught a kid to lock himself up like this. She wants to hunt down Iemitsu and break his face for conning Nana into this sham of a marriage. She wants to wring every last fucking neck—
“Anko-san,” Tsuna cuts into her spiraling thoughts, “are you okay?”
She snaps out of it to find the boys staring at her, one with concern, the other indifferent. The snake rubs against Artemis’s cheek and his mouth twitches upward.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” She manages a weak grin. “What do ya got there?”
Beaming, Tsuna presents a worn book of folklore.
“Nii-chan’s been reading it to me!” He pauses to squint at her. “Are you sure you’re not related to Abe no Seimei?”
Anko hums, picking up her tea. “At this point, most people are.” After pausing to take a drink, she goes on with a grin. “There’s a family that claims lineage to Tamamo no Mae, if you can believe it—”