AN: There you have it, the beta-ed version. Yay!
PS:It's adult!Reborn, so it's semi-AU
Beta-ed by: Al Ilmo Noor and eclipsed flower
Chapter 1: Your Death
"Japanese"
"Italian"
'Shinigami Speech'
Thoughts or Dream,
~Namimori, Japan~
'Sawada Tsunayoshi, I hope you haven't forgotten our deal.'
Announcing the coming of a new day, the morning sun spread its smile brightly by sending warm rays of sunlight to invade every corner of the tiny town of Namimori as most of its citizens woke up cheerfully, preparing themselves for a new and lively day.
Well, mostnotincluding a certain brunet.
Cring! Cring!
Brak!
"Ahh, so noisy…" groaned said brown-haired boy, still half-asleepand he mumbled and cursed at his damned alarm-clock. "It's only fucking seven o'clock! Gahh!"
How he hated getting woken up so early.
"Ugh...guess I'll just go back to sleep..." with that mumbled declaration he pulled his blanket over his head and announced to no one in particular, "I'll get up when it hits eight o'clock," before falling back asleep.
But time flew by quickly without him realizing, and Nana had already had enough from repeatedly calling outto him withoutanyresponse.
Shetried for the last time, "Tsu-kun~! You're going to be late!" without any success, so decided that she had to take drastic measures.
She went up the stairs to her son's room and poured cold water over his sleeping form and his eyes shot wide-open in shock.
"Jeez, Tsu-kun~! You're going to be late~!" Nana blinked innocently, looking to all the world as if she had not just poured cold water onto him.
"What?" he tried to process what his mother had just told finally hit him when he caught sight of his poor, abused alarm clock sitting on the night table, half-crushed. Tsuna jumped out of bed yelling, "Shit! I'm late!" and he rushed madly to the bathroom, doing whatever he needed to refresh himself with a demonic-like speed.
A few seconds away from the door, he put a piece of toast in his mouth before muttering amuffled "I'll be going!" to his mother and made his way was already halfway through the door but was suddenly held in place, by none other than his mother. Her arms tightly held him in a warm embrace
"...Don't leave me again... will you?"
Not sure how to respond to the strange request, Tsuna blinked in confusion before hesitantly returning the hug
"I...I'll never do it again mom. I promise."
Now, free of any restraints he slowly resumed his tracks before hesitantly rushing out of the Sawada residence.
I wonder what's wrong with mom … he thought. Ugh...Never mind that! I'm sooo gonna be late!
Later…
"Oi, Tsuna! There you are! I was won-!"
Shit!Shit!Shit!I'm so late! Or better yet, dead! Hibari's going to 'bite me to death' for sure! thought Tsuna, running like mad in a certain middle school's direction , not even realizing that Gokudera and Yamamoto were calling for him.
"Juudaime! Wait for me!" said the bomber trying to catch up with the brunet.
"Ahaha! Wait for me too!" Yamamoto added.
~Namimori Middle School, Japan~
~School Grounds~
"Herbivores…" The all so powerful and feared discipline committee chairman, or better known as you-know-who said smirking as he caught sight of the brunet and his two companions .
Shit! "Y-yes, Hibari-san…?"
"You're late," announced the raven-haired carnivore ,"Prepare to be bitten to death." And without wasting any more time, Hibari pulled his tonfas out of nowhere and charged in for the kill.
HIIIIIIIEEEE!I knew it!
"Che! You wanna fight, you bastard?"
NO! Gokudera!
"Take this!"
"HIIIIIIEEEEEEE!"
And thus, all hell broke loose and a good 30 minutes full of intense fighting took place on Namimori Middle's school grounds. The fight finally finished, the trio was walking down the hallways to their class, their faces full of bruises and their uniforms roughed up. Sliding the door to their home-room open, they were greeted by a disapproving and piercing glare, the sender of it none other than Tsuna's least favourite teacher, Nezu.
"Sawada Tsunayoshi, Yamamoto Takeshi, Gokudera Hayato. You're late!" announced the old man, clearly pissed off. He made to continue, but the increasing whispers and exclamations coming from the students muffled his words.
"W-what happened with them?" asked one.
"Who knows? Maybe they had a fight?"
"Or maybe Hibari just bit them to death?"
"Eeh?! No way!" someone lamely commented.
"Silence!" ordered Nezu-sensei before turning back his attention back to the three standing in the doorway.
"Do you have any idea how important the lesson you just missed is?"
"And do you have any idea how boring your lessons are?" Gokudera retorted mockingly. "If you need to nag, it's that bastard's fault, Hibari. He's sure getting more annoying too! I'll make him pay for this later!" the bomber finished his rant, and a vein popped in his forehead.
"H-Hibari?"
Normally, people wouldn't survive if they made any nuisance in Namimori; suffice to say said town's middle school grounds. And if they did, they'd be lucky to just land in the hospital. Nezu, clearly aware of that, couldn't help but gape slightly, forgetting about the insult he just received from the silver-head.
"Yeah, why?" asked Gokudera like it were the most obvious thing in the world to do while insolently walking by his teacher, dragging a hesitant Tsuna with him and helping said brunette to his seat, the latter mumbling an uncertain "Thanks…" The act only intensified Nezu's anger as he burst out in a fit of rage.
"Don't ever think you're getting away with this! You three are getting detention!"
It resulted in an irritated "What the fuck?!" as a response.
And so time flew rather slowly on that boring day with nothing else happening than Gokudera later challenging the school prefect, Hibari, to a fight .The latter accepted it half-heartedly knowing that it would be the only entertainment he would get for the day.
~School Grounds, After School~
"Because of that damn teacher I'm late for my fuckin' job! " complained Gokudera, while kicking an innocent wall in the hallway. "Why did we have to stay and clean the class too, anyway?!" he questioned, veins popping out all over his face.
"Maa, maa, no point in getting angry about it~" added Yamamoto, as carefree as usual.
"Well! Of course you'd say that, since it's your goddamn fault!" shouted Gokudera.
"Heh? Why is it my fault?" wondered the base-ball player innocently, which only got the bomber angrier as the number of blood veins popping on his face increased.
"Jyuudaime was 30 minutes late to home-room this morning and he unjustly got detention all because of you! And now, you're pretending it's not your fault!" spat Gokudera.
"But~ wasn't that because you fought with Hibari this morning and then challenged him again at lunch break?"
"So it's my fault?!"
It is! screamed Tsuna inwardly, And don't use me as an argument!. God! He just knew that the one-sided fight was going to end up in explosions and shouting all over the school which would lead them to another confrontation with the blood-sucking prefect. Thatwould NOT be good!
"By the way, Gokudera-kun what's your job anyway?" Tsuna interrupted the silver-head, smartly preventing a ticking bomb from exploding and destroying everything in its way.
"It's nothing much Jyuudaime, I'm just tutoring some high school students."
"Nothing much? That's awesome Gokudera-kun!" said the brunet with a wide smile.
"Y-you think so Juudaime?!"
"Of course that's really amazing Gokudera, haha" added Yamamoto, grinning cheerfully.
"Shut up baseball freak! I was talking to Jyuudaime, and I don't remember asking you for your stupid opinion!" But still the bomber couldn't stop his face from turning beet-red which called up another never-ending argument between him and Yamamoto.
Too immersed in their chit-chat, the two of them didn't take note of Tsuna's change in expression. The brunet had suddenly come to a halt when a strange sensation overtook him...
This feeling...
It was as if his hyper intuition was alerting him to something. It was as if it was screaming at him to get the fuck away from there! Or you're gonna be dead! Yet he couldn't pinpoint whatever it was that seemed to endanger his live nor know how to evade it. A mixture of frustration and fear slowly ate away at him as he came to a conclusion.
Chances were, he wasn't going to escape it... Perhaps, even really die...
'Are you sure it's him?'
'Yeah! It's him! Look at his spiky brown hair!'
'You know, it could be his twin or something...'
'Kami-sama, it's him!'
'But still, what if we get the wrong person and only realize afterwards?!'
Silence. Then…
"Whatever,we're hitmen. Let's just get this over with."
"Hmm, alright." And so tightening his grip on his firearm, he positioned it to meet the target before charging and shooting.
Bang! Bang!
Piercing through the air as they greedily looked for living flesh to splash and mess its content around, the bullets headed straight for the sniper's prey, the latter happening to be a certain brown-haired teen. Striking said brunet's forehead and his chest, a crimson spurt of blood shot out instantly, shocking the arguing silver-head and baseball-freak as it spluttered onto their uniforms.
And with the scene of green school field grass died bloody red surrounding a certain brunet's motionless body already engraved in their minds, the duo slowly and shakily fell to their knees in shocked silence. Their minds went blank. If they had tried tracking the bullet's source they would have discovered two hired snipers hiding in Mount Namimori congratulating each other on the good work.
If only they weren't too immersed in their jumbled up thoughts they would've noticed that the decreasing in temperature was as real as the hallow creature that would certainly validate as a Shinigami embracing the brunet's body before taking enough, their beloved boss' expression was now peaceful and not as horror-stricken as it seemed to be some seconds ago. But they didn't, only waking up from their daze when it was too late.
"...J-JUUDAIME!" screamed Gokudera, his throat aching and turning dry as he called for his boss desperately, the same thingreplaying over and over again. He refused to acknowledge that the body in front of him was a corpse and stubbornly called it an injured body in his head.
He's alive! Jyuudaime has to be alive! Yet he obviously knew even with all his denying that he wouldn't get an answer, which only added to his desperation as tears streamed down his flushed face.
"Tsu-Tsuna…" muttered Yamamoto shakily, his face pale and eyes wide with horror as he also crumbled to the ground next to the bomber. He hesitantly stretched out his hand to the brunet's blood-stained body, instantly pulling back with a shiver.
"W-what should we do…?" stuttered Yamamoto
"… I… I don't know!" snapped Gokudera, but it came out more as a whimper than anything else. Aware of that, the bomber tried to muster up a glare and snort but failed horribly.
"Herbivores… what do you think-"
Even the raven haired perfect could only stare wide-eyed at the scene in front of him, as he took in the sight of a blood soaked sniffling Gokudera holding in his embrace what seemed to be like a certain herbivore, sometimes-carnivore's, motionless corpse.
"...This...I'll catch the killer," said Hibari and he rushed out of sight.
Just as the silence got too heavy to bear, Yamamoto motionedat his phone and said, "Gokudera… I think we should tell him… "
Taking the bomber's silence as approval, he glanced at the living mess of blood and tears of his friend one last time before dialinghis number.
Ring... Ring...
"What?"
~Vongola HQ, Italy~
It was in times full of boredom like these that Tsuna proved himself quite irreplaceable, Reborn mused.
It had already been hours and his boring meeting with Vongola Nono, his Guardians, the CEDEF elites (Iemitsu, Oregano, Collonelo, Lal Mirch, and Basil) as well as the Varia Members (Squalo, Xanxus, Levi, Bel, and Fran) had yet to end.
Ugh! How long will this meeting last? Nothing interesting has happened as of lately… how boring… he thought. Guess I'll have to make it up by torturing Dame-Tsuna when I get back.
Such a wonderful and irreplaceable personal-stress-reliever his student was.
But it didn't take long before his vibrating phone forced him out of his sadistic fantasies and a silent sigh escaping the Arcobaleno'slips.
To answer or not to is the question. But granted, he was bored and no one was paying attention to him anyway
...I'll answer then. Sighing, Reborn picked up his phone, not even bothering to read the caller ID.
"What?"
"R-Reborn..." Yamamoto? he thought, surprised, noting how the Rain Guardian's voice shook with horror.This can't be good.
"Spit it out," he ordered. Yet Yamamoto kept on hesitating, pushing Reborn to his limits in irritation and dare-he-say, worry took over him "Spit it out or you'll shit bullets for a month," he threatened coldly, and Lal Mirch and Colonello who both sat not too far from him unintentionally overheard.
"What the hell's wrong, Reborn?" asked Lal.
"Yeah, tell us what's going on, kora!"
"Shut up," said Reborn before turning back to speak to Yamamoto. "Well, spit it out!"
"Tsuna… he's dead," as the meaning of the words sunk in, Reborn's eyes widened, completely caught off guard. The repeated whines and callings of 'Juudaime!' by a certain silver-head, echoing in the background, erased any doubt he had that this call could be a revengeful prank from his dame-student.
And as he got to this conclusion, his hold on the phone tightened to a crushing level, breaking the poor object into tiny pieces and successfully caught the attention of the other occupants of the meeting pairs of eyes rested on Reborn,but he didn't care much about getting found out on receiving a call from someone in the middle of a meeting, as going back to Japan is had just become his first priority.
Bolting up from his seat, the SunArcobaleno rushed to the double wooden doors bordering the meeting room and the wide hall of the Vongola mansion, but before he could successfully step out to the hall Iemitsu asked, "What happened, Reborn?"
For a second, Reborn twitched as he thought about the man's reaction upon hearing the news of Tsuna's death before deciding against it and without bothering to turn around the Arcobaleno answered in a rush,"Don't have time to explain, it's urgent".
"Something to do with Decimo?" asked Timoteo with worry yet at the same time, authority filled his voice, forcing the hitman to stop in his tracks and turn around to answer.
"Yes."
"What?! What happen to Tsuna?!" shouted Iemitsu, slamming his hand on the meeting table, his face twisted in anger and fear.
This was exactly one of the reasons why he didn't want Iemitsu to know. Not sure how to word it, Reborn stood silent for a few minutes, before saying, "You're not goingto like it…"
"Just tell us, kora!"
"He's right, Reborn. You can't keep it to yourself" Lal added as well.
After silently thinking for a moment the hitman finally spoke up.
"Tsuna…"
"Yeah, what about him?"
"He's dead"
And then, silence…