A/N: KHR does not belong to me. It belongs to the wonderfully talented Akira Amano. I do not own anything except my OC.

A Drop of Belladonna

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita

mi ritrovai per una selva oscura

chè la diritta via era smaritta.

(In the middle of the journey of our life

I found myself within a forest dark

Where the straightforward way was lost.)

- The Divine Comedy (Inferno Canto I)

by Dante Alighieri.

Beady black eyes set in a cherubic face observed as a female figure jogged down the street. The woman slowed down as she approached one of the residences situated there. Swinging open the gate, she stepped onto the walkway and bent over, hands on her knees, as she panted lightly in exertion. Straightening up, the black-haired woman swiped at the light sheen of sweat that was visible on her face, and fished out some keys to open the door. Stepping inside, she could be heard announcing her arrival, voice getting fainter as she closed the door.

"Hmm, interesting," mused Reborn.

"Tadaima!" Sawada Sayuri called out, as she slipped off her trainers in the entryway.

"Okaeri, Ri-chan," replied her mother, coming out of the kitchen to greet her, wiping her hands on a napkin. "You're later than usual today, musume. Everything alright?"

Pausing on the stairs, Sayuri half-grimaced and said, "I almost encountered that loud Sasagawa kid. Had to take a detour to avoid his extremeness." Laughing at the almost-horror on her daughter's face, Nana shooed her up the stairs and said, "Well, seeing as you are later than usual, can you make sure that Tsu-kun is awake? I'll make breakfast today. Go on, go take a bath, and wake him up, okay?" shooting Sayuri a sweet smile, Nana went back to the kitchen.

Sayuri went up the stairs and stopped in front of her little brother's room. Opening the door, which had a fish sign on it, she made a face at the messy state of her otouto's room. Her fluffy-haired brother was sprawled on the bed, limbs splayed apart. Sayuri smiled softly at the sight of her brother's peaceful face, and backed out of the room, closing the door softly, intending to let her brother have ten more minutes of sleep.

Going into the bathroom, snatching up a bathrobe on the way, she started the shower and stepped into it, after removing her sweaty clothing. While showering, she thought back on her life, which she still could not understand on why it was her second one. Oh, she knew she had been reincarnated, that her soul had been recycled, but that did not mean she automatically understood the metaphysical aspects of the entire situation. And why the hell she was living in a previously-fictional world, one which she had watched an anime about. For the first nine years of her life, she had lived as a happily oblivious, and very prodigious, girl. But witnessing her five year old brother (at that time) in the middle of an inferno of brilliant orange flames, and then seeing her father's, Iemitsu Sawada's, Italian Boss poke her otouto's forehead with a flaming finger; well, it put the whole reincarnation situation in perspective for Sayuri. She had thanked all the gods and goddesses she knew that she had seen it from the safety of her room, with none of the people in the yard any wiser.

In her previous life, she had had a little brother as well, and for all that he had been a little shit, she had loved him very much. She had been ripped away from him rather cruelly, and she was thankful for the second chance she had been given. Make no mistake, Sayuri knew Tsuna was no Chris, and she did not think of him as a replacement, either. It helped that Chris had been taller than her and black-haired, and a bit of a bully, too, not that he had dared to do anything against her. Tsuna was a fluffy kitten, all soft and clumsy, and too adorable to boot.

Sayuri, thankfully, had had a lot of time to adjust to the fact that she had died, violently at that, and had been reborn (snicker), when her mind made the connection from Tsu-chan, her adorably shy kitten of a brother, to Tsunayoshi Sawada, the Decimo boss of the Vongola Mafia Family. When her brain had stopped hysterically screaming, she had turned cold and calculative. She had climbed into her bed and stayed there until her so-called father and his boss and colleagues had left for Italy. After her mother had put her brother to sleep and had retired to bed herself, Sayuri had sat up in her bed, opened a notebook, and started to do something which she excelled at, planning and plotting.

Shaking her head, Sayuri came back to the present, and got out of the shower, toweling herself dry. Slipping into the bathrobe, she hurried into her room and started to get dressed.

In her old life, which she had started to refer to as Before, she had been a shameless non-conformist, and while she had identified as female, most of her clothing had been androgynous in appearance, if only a bit too formal. And she saw no reason as to why she couldn't continue to do so in the present one.

Putting on some fitted black pants, she threw on a white shirt, tucking it in. Browsing in her closet, she pulled out a waistcoat in scarlet, smiling as found the very item she had searched for weeks. Buttoning up the waistcoat, she looked around for her suit jacket. Locating it on her desk chair, she pulled it on, and smoothing the collar, she checked in the mirror for any discrepancies in her attire. Satisfied with her clothes, she quickly brushed her hair, which hardly took a minute, seeing as it was cut in an asymmetrical bob. She paused for a moment, thinking, and then grabbed her gun holster, with her gun, and wore it under the jacket. She also strapped a hunting knife to both her ankles and slipped her collapsible Bō staff into her pocket. Grabbing her wallet and keys, she went to wake her brother up.

Sneaking into her brother's room, a mischievous smile crept onto her face as she debated on the various ways she could wake Tsuna up. His reactions were always so hilarious. But as she took a look at the time, she simply opted for shaking him awake.

As Tsuna sat up groggily, Sayuri smiled and told him, "Breakfast is ready, Tsu-chan. Get ready quickly or you're gonna be late for school."

As she went downstairs, she could hear a "Hiiee" from Tsuna's room, which made her smirk slightly. So entertaining, her little Tsu-chan.

Sayuri sat at the table and started eating her breakfast, after muttering a quick "Itadakimas".

Some crashing and tumbling could be heard from down the hall, but she paid it no attention, and neither did her mother, the latter only sparing a concerned, yet exasperated, glance in the direction of the noise, both of them sadly used to the daily occurrence that was the clumsiness of the youngest member of the family. A disheveled Tsuna came and sat at the chabudai, rubbing at his head, a sheepish expression on his face. They all ate in silence for a few minutes, Tsuna gobbling his food up, shooting desperate glances at the clock.

Nana broke the silence, and cheerily said, "Tsu-kun, I have hired a home-tutor for you. Papa recommended him!"

Tsuna gaped at her and gave his older sister a betrayed look, when she said nothing against their mother's proclamation.

"But… Kaa-san, I don't need a home-tutor! Aneki already tutors me," burst out Tsuna, giving Sayuri a pleading look.

But Nana simply shook her head and replied, "Your sister is very busy nowadays, she teaches at your school already. I have already called him, and it is even free! Look," she said, brandishing a pamphlet, "It says that we only need to provide room and board!"

Tsuna only groaned in despair and thunked his head on the table.

Sayuri, meanwhile, was thinking about her job, which was teaching English to the brats at Tsuna's middle school. When she had died, she had been a 25-year-old woman with a Master's degree in Anthropology, and had just started on her PhD. No way was she wasting that much education, seeing as she had been given a second chance at life. So Sayuri had gradually displayed signs of more than average intelligence as she grew up, and so had been labeled a child genius as she completed high school when of age 13, and her bachelor's degree by age 17. While she did want to get her Master's, she also wanted to keep an eye out for her younger brother, as there was a 90% chance that he would still be chosen as Vongola Decimo, despite Sayuri being the older sibling, seeing as the Mafia was rather sexist; when there was a male candidate, why would they want a female one? Even the Vongola Ottava was chosen because she was the only child of the previous Don.

So, Sayuri wanted to oversee Tsuna's progress, and see to her family's safety, as her dumb father had not posted any guards against any assassins coming after the family of the CEDEF leader. She had lost count of the attempts on her family's person she had thwarted over the two years she had been home after college. So she had applied for and got the position as the English teacher at Namimori Middle School.

Lost in her memories, Sayuri ate her breakfast silently. She only roused as the doorbell rang. Getting to her feet, she said over her shoulder, "I'll get it, Kaa-san, you eat your breakfast."

Opening the door, her eyes were drawn to the fedora-wearing, suit-clad toddler standing in front of her. Fathomless black eyes stared at her for a moment from under the brim of the orange-ribboned fedora. Her eyes were inevitably drawn towards the impossibly curly sideburns. The toddler spoke in a high, cutesy voice, and her attention snapped towards him.

"Ciaossu! Is this the Sawada residence?"

Reborn stared in interest as the door to the Sawada's house was opened by the older sister of the Decimo candidate. Taking a moment to assess her, he lamented internally that Sawada Sayuri was not chosen instead. Because going by the reports he had of her, she clearly was a genius, had been labeled a child prodigy even, and was already proficient in more than four languages. But the Mafia was rather sexist, even with some famous Donnas. Observing the figure in front of him, he saw that while her clothes were a bit too formal, they clearly were of a higher quality than usually seen on people her age and status. Her straight black hair was cut in a practical, yet pleasing to look at cut. All in all, she cut an elegant figure, if slightly edgy. But he could see the tell-tale bulge of a gun under her jacket, which alarmed him slightly, as there had been no such information on the reports on the younger female of the Sawada household. But he pushed that thought aside, to be examined later on, as Sawada Sayuri's amber eyes, ones she shared with her brother, narrowed in confusion, and was that recognition?

So Reborn squeaked cheerily, "Ciaossu! Is this the Sawada residence?" even as the ever-present loathing for his baby-ish voice surfaced and was pushed aside with the ease that comes from doing so regularly.

A/N: Please review and tell me what you think of my first KHR fic!