Title: show me the promised land

[Alt: sold my soul, broke my bones (tell me what did i get?)]

Song: Promiseland by MIKA

Category: Katekyo Hitman Reborn! and Arthurian legend in general (with bits and pieces taken from the Fate series)

Pairings: Past!Arthur/Guinevere

Fair Warning: My knowledge of Arthurian legend is EXTREMELY shoddy, and if anyone wants to point me toward websites or good sources of info on it, I'd definitely appreciate it. 'Til then, enjoy what I've got so far.

Premise: Tsuna activates flames like in canon, and that pulls Arthur to the fore. Nono stumbles upon Tsuna with flames and seals them before Arthur can do anything. (Bc this is grandpa and he's supposed to be safe but it wars with his confusion and suspicion & before he knows it, the flames are sealed away, and so is Arthur.)

Arthur doesn't so much wake as get forcibly yanked to another location. The place he finds himself in is heartbreakingly familiar - because he knows it's not real. It's a mindscape, molded out of Arthur's memories and unconscious desire to return.

(Camelot as it was in its prime. But there are no people, no noises of activity, no birdsong. He can feel the wind on his face and the ground beneath his feet, but it's muted, fake.

He wanders through the castle and the town, finding no one and nothing to explain this mystery. Every room is empty, the kitchens are no longer stocked with food, the stalls in the market contain no sign of wares.

Arthur finds himself unable to properly keep track of time because the sun has yet to descend even though it surely must have been hours already. Even so, neither thirst nor hunger has made itself known, and the only exhaustion that plagues him is that of the mind.

All attempts to leave the city are thwarted. One moment Arthur is striding forth on the main road and out into the lands surrounding Camelot, and the next he finds himself walking right back through the city gates, as if he'd somehow gotten turned around.

He assumes it to be some form of magic. Likely it is connected to the false city itself. Perhaps another of Morgan's wicked traps, meant to mock Arthur one last time. Because of him, Camelot is empty, as much of its people fell in the civil war. Because of his actions, he is once more alone. Or perhaps it is meant to hammer in the fact that Arthur has always been alone, has always kept himself apart, unable to connect to others in all the ways that truly mattered.)

Eventually, he finds a room that shouldn't exist - or rather, didn't exist in the real Camelot. Replacing the dungeons entirely is a room just as wide and long, but rather than cells, it's entirely open.

(His breath catches in his throat.

In the middle of the room lies a stone like any other. Nothing about its size or shape or color is out of the ordinary. In fact, if such a stone had been in the courtyard outside, it might have been entirely overlooked.

Well, that is, if one didn't notice the sword embedded in it - a ridiculous notion, of course. The odds of one's eyes not immediately aligning on the golden holy sword, that promised sword of victory are quite small indeed.

"Excalibur," Arthur says through a shuddered breath, an acknowledgement full of disbelief and longing. "How…?" he asks, trailing off when he realizes the futility of doing so.

As if sensing his presence, Excalibur glows for but a moment, inviting Arthur to step up and claim what is rightfully his.

"I can't," he says, voice pained with a lifetime of regrets. "I am no longer worthy. Not as your wielder and not as a king."

Excalibur glows again, insistent, but Arthur knows in his heart that he has not the resolve to pull the blade from the stone, nor even the desire. His mind is too clouded, his goals for the future too uncertain, and Arthur knows himself well enough to recognize that he has not yet recovered from the treachery and foolishness that lead him to this point.

Being human is not so simple, after all, especially not for a man who cast aside his own emotions for years. It will take time to work through his grief and guilt, and until then, he cannot take up the very symbol of the ideal world he had tried so hard to build and maintain and that had come crashing down around him within a matter of months. To do so would be yet another mistake, and Arthur has had his fill of them.

And so he looks to the sword that had always served him faithfully and quietly promises, "I will become a man worthy of wielding you once again."

Unbeknownst to him, as he takes his leave, an orange flame momentarily flickers over Excalibur's finely wrought metal.)

[^I'm aware Caliburn was the sword in the stone, but it was lost forever/broken in a battle, and the symbolism was too good to pass up. If it makes any difference, Arthur is aware too?

^^I mean I guess I could have the sword gleaming at the bottom of a lake or something instead, HP reference aside,, hmmm,,, Any thoughts on this guys?]

At some point, Tsuna shows up in their shared mindscape.

(Arthur has gotten used to the unnatural quiet and solitude, so it comes as rather a shock when a distressed cry suddenly breaks the stillness. Alarmed, he races to the location of the sound, which has devolved into sobbing, and stumbles upon a small child curled into a ball on the floor of the throne room.

"Hello," Arthur tries, tone gentle and soothing. It has been almost half a decade since Arthur took the time to seek out Camelot's children to play, but he has not forgotten how to comport himself. It helps that children, unlike adults, have no interest in politics or scheming, and entertaining them can be as simple as recounting old tales or partaking in childish games. That innocence had been what Arthur had sworn he would do everything in his power to protect.

The boy of perhaps five or six years of age looks up at him, startled, but after a moment, he hops to his feet and throws himself at Arthur, burying his face in the leg of Arthur's trousers as he continues to cry.

Arthur drops to his knees and takes the boy into his arms, rubbing his back and murmuring reassurances. "It's okay, little one. You are safe. I won't let any harm come to you." He says this over and over again until finally the tears subside, and the boy is able to calm himself.

The boy pulls away then, eyes red and snot trailing from his nose. He wipes it on his sleeve and regards Arthur with shyness and no little gratitude. "Um, thank you," he says, almost a mumble, and it draws a warm smile from Arthur.

He places a hand on the boy's fluffy, brown hair and tells him, "You're very welcome, little one. My name is Arthur Pendragon, and it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance. Might I have your name?"

"Mama calls me Tsu-kun," he says, still on the verge of being too quiet, and his brown eyes switch between the ground and Arthur's own with increasing frequency. "Um, but Yamada-sensei calls me Tsuna," he adds quickly.

Odd names both, Arthur thinks, but doesn't say. Upon closer examination, the boy looks foreign, but he sets aside the information for now.

"What would you like me to call you?" he asks, and the boy's expression scrunches up in contemplation.

"Tsuna," he decides, emphasizing his choice with a nod of the head.

Arthur can't help it; he ruffles the kid's hair. "Tsuna it is then," he agrees, charmed by the small smile he gets in return. "Can you tell me how you got here, Tsuna?"

Immediately, Tsuna's expression crumbles. "There was a bad man, and I ran away, but he got me, and it was really scary, and then I cried, and he hit me, and it hurt a lot, and I cried some more, and I woke up here, and I- I want my mama!" He breaks out into tears again, and coming to a quick decision, Arthur scoops him up, tucks Tsuna's head firmly into his neck, and makes more meaningless soothing noises as he exits the throne room and bids a hasty retreat towards his personal quarters, wherein he snags a comfortable chair and settles Tsuna on his lap to wait out this bout of crying.

Meanwhile, Arthur mulls over the implications of Tsuna's tearful explanation. He was kidnapped, harmed by his kidnapper, and then 'woke up' here after presumably crying himself to sleep. Here, this poor imitation of his beloved Camelot in which only Arthur resides, this place which Arthur had assumed to be an afterlife of sorts. He grips Tsuna more tightly and hopes dearly that that isn't the case.

Eventually Tsuna regains some semblance of calm, great, heaving sobs turning into occasional whimpers, and Arthur asks, "Feeling better?"

Tsuna nods against his chest but doesn't make any attempts to pull away.

"That's good," Arthur says, wondering how to proceed. "I always feel better after a good cry."

That is enough to make Tsuna lean back and look up at him in confusion. "But everybody says boys aren't supposed to cry."

Arthur's smile grows wistful as he says, "A very smart woman once told me that tears were a way of cleansing the soul. Bad things and scary things and things you don't want to think about pile up inside in you, to the point where you feel like you might burst, and crying takes all of that out of you and releases it back into the air." Gwen really was too good for him, he muses. If he'd been a smarter man, he'd have heeded her advice. Serious sea-green meets curious brown, and Arthur tells him, "There's no human in this world who has never cried, and none who could not benefit from doing so. There is no shame in it. Remember that, Tsuna."

"Hm!" Tsuna agrees, taking the words to heart.

Smiling, Arthur asks him about his mother, hoping internally that it will not cause more distress, but Tsuna just brightens, taking to the topic with enthusiasm. Over the next hour, Arthur learns much about Tsuna's life, and perhaps more importantly, he learns that the world Tsuna comes from is just different enough from his own as to be entirely alien. The fact that it is from a child's viewpoint is to be considered, of course, but Tsuna seems to be incapable of lying and has no cause to regardless.

Could this be years in the future? Centuries? Even Tsuna's clothes are foreign to him, and his shoes are strange enough that Merlin might have had a hand in their creation. They actually shine with an orange light whenever the boy stomps his feet.

Arthur would believe they were magical in nature, but what would be the purpose of such a thing? Surely not for lighting as the light goes out only seconds after activation, and they hardly give off much light in the first place. It seems to be for purely aesthetic reasons, a simple way to amuse a child, and if so, Arthur can't help but wonder what this says about their society. If such a marvel is considered common enough to serve as childish entertainment, then what technology might be considered practical or in demand?

These are not questions Tsuna can answer, and so Arthur does not ask, but he wonders.

Halfway through an enthusiastic reenactment of a battle from one of his favorite shows - from what Arthur has gathered, 'shows' are somewhat like theatre but viewed through some sort of mechanism known as a TV - Tsuna vanishes into thin air.

Arthur does a thorough sweep of the city, but he finds no trace of Tsuna or even a sign that he'd ever been there in the first place. As Arthur is not in the habit of questioning his sanity - and he trusts his instincts besides - he disregards the idea that he might have imagined everything and instead holds out hope that Tsuna has returned to wherever he came from - not in the hands of his kidnappers but safely to the mother he is so very fond of.)

Tsuna pops in at random over the years, always during highly stressful situations. Sometimes more mysterious men in suits attempt to kidnap him as they had the first time, but those dwindle with time. Others are caused by his clumsiness, tripping down a flight of stairs, almost getting hit by a car, accidentally setting himself on fire. More increasingly it is because of bullies and delinquents.

Arthur figures out he and Tsuna are connected & realizes that the first moment he woke upon his death, he must have been in Tsuna's body, so maybe somehow he still is. Tsuna doesn't remember that incident at all, of course, having been unconscious the whole time Arthur was in control.

Tsuna never figures out how to voluntarily seek out Arthur, but he makes the most of every time he gets thrown there accidentally. He comes to regard Arthur as a mixture of a father and a brother, especially since his own father is never around. Arthur takes up the role with reluctance (he killed the only child he ever had and said child killed him; it left a mark) at first, but the more he spends time with Tsuna, the more he comes to love him as family.

Honestly he spends a lot of time worried that the next perilous incident that brings him here might be the last. While he does want to see Tsuna, he hates that this is the only way. Tsuna doesn't appreciate the life-threatening situations any more than he does, but he also can't resent them bc they give him Arthur.

Anyway, Arthur begins to influence Tsuna in small ways. Tsuna becomes more confident, more settled in his own skin. He learns from Arthur's mistakes, but despite Arthur's best efforts, he also admires Arthur a great deal and aspires to be like him when he grows up.

("No one should become like me," Arthur says, in one of his more bitter moods. They're few and far between, but Tsuna has weathered this before. He hadn't known what to say then.

He does now. "If I can become even a fraction as smart or kind or competent as you, nii-chan, then I'll be happy." Arthur opens his mouth to protest, but Tsuna talks over him, "You made mistakes, and you acknowledge them! You became king at fifteen because you wanted to help people, because you felt it was the right thing to do. You helped me out even though you didn't know me and had no reason to comfort some random kid! You're my hero whether you like it or not, and I won't let you talk badly about yourself!"

Arthur is taken aback, but Tsuna just glares at him, daring him to say anything. Eventually, Arthur throws his head back and laughs. "Thank you, Tsuna," he says sincerely, once he regains his composure. "I will endeavor to be worthy of your admiration."

Tsuna scowls. "You already are!" And Arthur laughs again, drawing a grudging smile from Tsuna in the process.)

Then comes the day Reborn shows up & plants a Dying Will Bullet in Tsuna's head. He gets knocked back into Faux Camelot while his subconscious takes over, his subconsciousness which includes Arthur.

ARTHUR COMES FORWARD EVERY TIME TSUNA GOES INTO DYING WILL MODE! Which means he doesn't burst out of his clothes & become a one track minded bullet train of a person. His eyes turn orange, his forehead burns brightly with a small flame, and Arthur is in full control, as if it were his body while Tsuna is closed off in the mind space. (Changed my mind. Arthur just calmly takes in the situation and attempts to get all the facts before jumping into action. Probably has a very tense conversation with Reborn, who is just as surprised at this turn of the events, though he doesn't show it. Then the DWM runs out, Tsuna comes back, and Reborn has a mystery to solve.)

Over time, as the Seal breaks and the divide between them isn't so sharp, so totally separate, they learn how to manage it. With concentration and Will, Arthur can see through Tsuna's eyes, even feel things to an extent and vice versa when they switch places. Hyper Dying Will Mode only works when the two of them are totally in sync, completely aligned in their goals and intentions. Like in Digimon lmao or Bleach with Shinigami & their Zanpakutou.

With the seal breaking comes cracks and gaps where memories pour through on both sides. Not enough to change their personalities - they're two different people stuck in one body, essentially - but enough for a better understanding. Of each other and their different eras. So Arthur gets modern technology and terms and society in general, whereas Tsuna gets what life was like for Arthur and everyone else a thousand years ago. This of course helps them synchronize.

When the seal finally breaks completely, they have total access to each other's thoughts and emotions, but by this time, they've also learned how to build their own mental walls for a modicum of privacy. There are just some things you don't want even the person living in your head to know. Plus it's not like Arthur would want Tsuna to see some of his bloodiest memories or his worst moments. Those are his burden alone.

And eventually the truth comes out about Arthur, likely to Reborn if not his Guardians. Initially, I think Arthur will be treated as a separate personality, a side effect of the Seal. (Dissociative identity disorder fits since Tsuna seems to have two distinct personalities with different mannerisms & different memories of events. If the seal didn't trigger it, all the kidnapping attempts, bullying, & Nana's neglect could certainly have caused it since trauma in early childhood is listed as a common cause.) Until lots of little things pile up to form a different, suspicious picture. (Tsuna deferring to Arthur, Arthur's inexplicable skills, the age/wisdom/power in his eyes, things Tsuna shouldn't know, etc.)

I'm thinking that the Seal won't fully break until Arthur reclaims Excalibur. It's the last line of defense, Arthur's own subconscious attempt to protect Tsuna from himself, and on some levels, he knows this. It's not until the fight with Mukuro that he shores up his resolve, firmly grasps its handle, and claims it once more in the name of protecting Tsuna and the other children does the Seal shatter, and for a time, Arthur and Tsuna become one. One mind, one body, one heart and soul. One who protects.

Tsuna defeats Mukuro and then falls (fully) unconscious as soon as Mukuro & co are taken by Vindice, exhausted by the surge of memories and emotions he'd been pushing back to focus on the fight. While unconscious, they work on building mental walls (mentioned above) and adjust to the flood of new information they'd both just endured. Have a deep, bonding moment over everything revealed & likely begin planning for the future now that Tsuna has almost unlimited access to Arthur's everything & can do things he couldn't before.

Various other things:

-Kyoko & Haru as Guardians again bc there will never be enough fics with it

-Guardians bonding with both Arthur and Tsuna (Gokudera treating them both as boss but relenting to calling them by their names bc his usual title doesn't lend itself well to differentiating the two)

-When they switch you can tell who is who by eye color (brown=Tsuna & orange w/o flame=Arthur; orange w flame/HDWM=both)

-Other differences: Tsuna is more unconfident, clumsy, sarcastic, prone to shrieking/overreacting and complaining to/about Reborn and about all the craziness in general, wishes for a normal life even if he's happy he's got friends now, has a higher pitched voice (so like Canon but more like he was near the end)

Arthur is more calm, at ease with himself, confident in his abilities, friendly, teasing, unflappable, wishes only to protect those Tsuna and he care about and otherwise enjoys the crazy antics, gets along well with Reborn actually which confuses the hell out of Tsuna, has the HDWM voice/a deeper voice

-Uhhh I was thinking that the whole Dissociative identity disorder thing means the "personalities" would both have names, right? And Arthur is,, a strange name for a Japanese boy, plus a huge clue to his identity if/when people start putting the pieces together. So maybe Arthur goes by a different name? Arthur apparently means "noble, courageous" & I wanted to find a name with a similar meaning & ended up finding Yoshi which depending on the characters used can mean "righteous" or "good, virtuous, respectable" which both describe him really well even if it's not the exactly the same AND it kinda makes sense! Tsuna and Yoshi make Tsunayoshi! Idk if that's lame or kinda neat. Someone let me know lol

NOTES: That's all I have rn. I'd love to hear your thoughts! Also check out kolbiethewriter on Tumblr for more updates on this (probably) as well as other fic I post there first or only post there. (Wrote this all a while ago &only added a few things just now; still super busy ;u;)