Tsuna was lost. He was small, so much smaller than he remembered, and it felt like someone had ripped his heart out, stomped on it, put it in a blender, and then thrust it back without connecting everything right.
He looked down at his hands, hands that were so familiar yet so different, one version of him, the one from this time, staring at them like they were normal, the other version, the one from the future, staring at them in horror.
His mind was split, shattered into pieces. He couldn't think straight, his thoughts splintering as soon as they were formed, torn apart by the vortex of memories in his head. He kept seeing how his Guardians should be (older, more mature) overlayed with how they are now (young, unblemished).
It made his head ache and his heart long for something it couldn't have. His Flames raged through the room, only his barely there control keeping them from destroying the entire house. Why was he back? Why couldn't he have died with his Guardians?
His Flames kept reaching along broken bonds, searching for something to latch onto as he flailed, lost in his own emotions. The two selves, the future and present, slowly merging until there was no more differentiation, until he mourned for the world he left behind.
He wanted so much to climb out his window, sneak to Takeshi's house, and have sushi while Takeshi's cool, soothing Flames stroked his own to sleep. He was moving before he knew it, the nightly breeze brushing his face bringing him out of his dazed state. Going to Takeshi's house would not be a good idea. For one, as much as the thought made the hole in his chest ache and throb, he wasn't Tsuna's Takeshi, and he most likely never would be.
Kyoya and Ryohei, the only other two of his Guardians with actual homes in Japan, were out for the same reasons. They weren't his. He crawled back into bed, grabbed a pillow, pushed his face into it, and screamed. Even though this was a second chance, he didn't want it. They weren't his Guardians, the Guardians he had spent years fighting with, arguing with, cuddling with.
As much as they had clashed, they had also comforted each other with the knowledge that they would always be there. Except… now that feeling was gone, right along with every one of his bonds, and he didn't know what to do.
Even though he was in the past, he didn't know what to do. He was lost. If Hayato had been there, he would have had a plan within minutes, even if it was rudimentary. But… Hayato wasn't there. Hayato was gone, right along with all the others, and it made him scream into the pillow again, hot, salty tears running down his face.
He eventually cried himself to sleep, and in the morning, when the alarm rang, he went down for breakfast, only to pause when he saw his mother. She was young again, no grey hairs showing, no wrinkles on her face. The sight nearly made him start crying. Then his mother saw him, and without saying a word opened her arms, beckoning him forward to receive a hug.
Neither of them said anything, but his mother's heartbeat and her smell and the sound of her breathing calmed him down until he could think again. He could think and plan. His first order of business would be making sure that his Guardians didn't get involved this time around. They would never be hurt again, he would make sure of it.
~~~~~Fragments~~~~~
Jolting awake, Lambo's eyes stared at nothing. His head pounded. His heart ached. A hole opened in his chest and swallowed him whole. He couldn't think, memories were swirling in his mind's eye faster than he could register them. He jerked, flailed, struggled, all to get away from the feeling that something was missing, something was gone, something had been stolen from him.
He searched for the first exit he could find. His eyes landed on a desk, a chair, the bed he was lying on, and then a window. A window. Lambo focused on it, his feet already carrying him there in his desperation to find his Sky. He needed his Sky. He couldn't feel his Sky. Where was his Sky?
Lambo slid the window open, climbed out, dropped down on the ground. He reached for where his bond would be, panicked when it wasn't there. His breaths came fast. Tears pricked his eyes. The earth swayed under his feet. He thought he might be losing blood. He grabbed onto the building behind him, gripping hard enough that the pain of his hands tearing reached him even through his panic.
Pulling his hands in front of him, letting go of the wall, he stared at the crimson blood. It dripped off his hands, soaking into the soft, moist dirt beneath him. Soft and moist? Wasn't it winter? The ground should be cold, hard, not ready for growing. He dug his blood soaked hands into the earth. What was going on?
The determination and need to find his Sky increased. He needed to get to HQ. But...where was he? How did he get there? Sharp pain lanced through his head even as he received his answer. He was in the Bovino Mansion. He would have said he was home, but that mansion hadn't been home since he was five. (He wasn't five anymore.)
He pulled his hands out of the earth and ran, ran towards the secret exit hidden in the hedge that he'd made so long ago. (Wasn't it just last week?)
Lambo dashed through the tiny door in the fence that should have been too small. He bolted across the land in the direction that he knew his real home was in. His legs ached and his feet were sore, but he was sure that he hadn't been running that long.
The fence surrounding the mansion (Lambo's mansion) came into sight. He didn't stop running even when the fence was right in front of him, instead using the momentum to propel himself up, up and over, dropping into a roll on the other side so as not to break any bones. (He'd fallen just like his brothers had taught him.)
Aiming for the single window that was still lit, Lambo bolted toward the wall. He scaled it easily, having done it a million times before, and carefully slid the window open. He entered backwards, his Flames spreading out to find his Sky so the hole in his chest would stop hurting.
Lambo found a Sky, but not his Sky. The Flames felt too old to be Tsuna, so who was it? He turned around, and the room got smaller, his breath caught in his throat, and he couldn't breathe. Staring at him in amusement and befuddlement, was Vongola Nono. The very Nono who was dead. They had buried him.
Which meant that the only way for him to be there was time travel to the past, which would mean that his Tsuna was gone. His Sky was gone, gone, gone. His vision got dark, and the floor approached his face.
A single, resounding thought circled in his head as everything else faded. Why?
There was liquid warmth moving through Lambo's veins, seeping into his whole body and filling the hole in his chest just the slightest bit. He blinked open lazy eyes, idly noting that his hands didn't hurt anymore. Wait. His hands didn't hurt?
Everything that had happened earlier hit him all at once. He shot up from what he was lying on. It wasn't a hallucination. Nono was alive. Tsuna wasn't his Tsuna. There would be no more Family nights. His breathing became heavy. He turned around to face Nono. (Had he been on his lap?)
His tiny hands reached up, desperately taking in every detail, every minute feature that he could. He was real. No one could fake Nono this well. The tears that had been gathering in Lambo's eyes spilled over as he threw himself at Nono, wet, hacking sobs wracking his frame.
"Grandpa!"
~~~~~Fragments~~~~~
It was day two of being in the past, and Takeshi was not adjusting well. He wished that his mental age matched his physical age, that the memories hadn't come back, that he didn't know how to kill so very, very well.
But he did, and he was 14 even though he wasn't, and he was a killer that hadn't killed, and the memories had mixed themselves into his own that he really couldn't tell who he was anymore. The hole in his chest that wanted to be filled didn't care though, it didn't care that he was lost, losing himself in who he was and could be.
The hole didn't care, it just continued to throb and ache so he could never ignore it, forget it, forget even for a moment that he had a broken bond with a dead Sky who was never coming back. And Tsuna was alive, he was alive, but he wasn't Takeshi's Tsuna. It wouldn't be the Tsuna that had once managed to fool almost the entire Vongola into believing that he had a twin named Yoshi.
And Hayato would be alive, and Kyoya, and Ryohei, and everyone else, but they weren't his. He wouldn't be the one they came to for comfort anymore, he wouldn't be the one who would listen to their woes and nightmares over hot chocolate and sushi while he gently stroked their agitated Flames to sleep. He wasn't their Takeshi, and they weren't his Family, and that hurt, but it would feel wrong to compare their innocent, pure selves to their blood drenched future counterparts.
Takeshi had seriously considered - was still considering - suicide. He had gone up to the roof, that first morning, and stared at the clouds that floated up there, so aloof and distant that he almost smiled, because the clouds were acting exactly like his Cloud, and then he remembered that he'd never see his Cloud again.
He'd stared at the sun for as long as he dared, so similar to Ryohei because if you were around it too long, if you just stood in its area of influence, you could get burned, or you could be healed. Except...this Ryohei didn't know how to heal, and maybe never would.
Takeshi sat up from his bed, the bed he'd slept in for the last fourteen years, the bed it felt like he had left behind forever. He crept over to the single window in his bedroom, and opened it in one swift movement. He climbed to the roof, and sat there to wait for the sunrise, so he could remember, and wish that the weeping hole in his chest would stop aching, even if just for a moment.
Today he would have to go to school, pretend he didn't feel like snapping his teacher's neck, pretend to be happy when there was nothing to be happy about, and most of all, pretend that the sight of even a few of his Family didn't almost send him over the edge.
After all, he thought, what was the point of coming back if he doesn't manage to save his Family?
With that firmly fixed in his mind, he watched the sunrise, so slow, just like Tsuna. He practiced his smile, hoping it didn't come out bloodthirsty. And he waited. He waited, because he knew the game well, and if he was going to get anything done, he needed to wait.
After all, waiting was part of the game called mafia, and if there was something he was good at, it was that particular game. Wasn't that what Reborn, his Reborn, had always said?
~~~~~Fragments~~~~~
Omake: Unedited Cut Tetsuya Scene
Kusakabe Tetsuya had known Hibari Kyoya for most of his life, and throughout almost the entire time they had known each other, Hibari had never changed very much. He always loved fighting, and punishing rule breakers. However, even though those two fundamental things never changed, recently Hibari had been strange.
It had started with Hibari confronting Sawada Tsunayoshi before school, as if he wanted to fight him. Tetsuya couldn't wrap his head around it, because although Hibari loved fighting, he had yet to seek it out in a form that wasn't punishment. And even more, Sawada was the weakest kid in their entire school. So why would Hibari want to fight him?
It just made no sense, and continued to make no sense no matter how much he mentally chewed on it. And, even stranger, when Sawada had run away, instead of chasing him as Hibari was wont to do, he let him go and stared after him with this wistful, longing, fearful gaze that made Tetsuya's heart throb just looking at.
He had no idea what was going on with Hibari, but it wasn't good. That was only the first of several incidents that made Tetsuya wonder just how much he actually knew about the Disciplinary Committee Leader.
After the Sawada incident, Hibari had skipped his classes, something that wasn't unusual in and of itself, and gone to the roof. He had stood on the edge, almost as if he were contemplating jumping, something that made Tetsuya worry even more. And then, when the lunch bell rang, he had taken one last, long look at the clouds, and then stepped back onto the safe part of the roof and laid down to take a nap, blatantly ignoring Tetsuya.
When Sawada arrived on the roof a few minutes later, Tetsuya expected Hibari to wake up and punish him for trespassing on the roof, his sleeping place. Except, Hibari didn't. Sawada ignored Hibari, and Hibari ignored Sawada.
When Sawada's eyes landed on Hibari, they gained that same look that Hibari himself had had earlier that day, longing and fearful and hopeful all at once, with so many things intertwined that it made Tetsuya's head ache and his heart throb.
After lunch, Sawada left, Hibari woke up, and Tetsuya watched. Tetsuya watched for the rest of the day, waiting for anything else out of the ordinary, but nothing happened.
The next day, the same exact thing happened, and Tetsuya wasn't sure whether to be relieved that whatever had happened hadn't changed him that much, or fearful that anything had changed Hibari at all.
The only thing that really freaked him out was that whenever Hibari and Sawada accidentally brushed against each other, they looked like they were going to cry. Sawada crying was not unexpected, because Hibari could be terrifying, but Hibari? The first time it happened, he thought he was seeing things, but then it happened, and he was very, very worried about Hibari.
What had happened? What had he missed? Why had Hibari, a constant grounding stone in Namimori, changed?
A/n: Hi, my lovely Dragons! This fic is a joint project with the shag-worthy Sky witch who's username is Amu4ever. We're both super excited to be doing this! How this works is three fragments per chapter, with a fragment being one of the scenes above. This doesn't include omake or cut scenes.
Amu is going to write a sister fic with a few differences that will be called Coloured Future once it's up. This will be an angsty story, but have no fear, there will be fluff. This is probably going to be the lengthiest author's note throughout this whole thing, but I felt that some explanation was needed.
See ya'll next update!