Align a Line
Author: Asphodael
Disclaimer: This work is purely non-profit. The characters belong to Amano Akira.
The first kill had been the hardest. There was a moment when Yamamoto squeezed his eyes shut, forced them back open again because it was only fair to acknowledge the person whose life he was ending. The feel of a sword biting through flesh was jarringly similar to that of a knife slicing fish or meat.
(After that, there wasn't an instance he could remember where he turned the blade wrong way - right way? - forward. No, that wasn't precisely true; for Hibari and Gokudera and Squalo, for spars, he never even thought about killing. Defeating, yes. There was a difference.)
And so Yamamoto of the future's sword held the intention to kill. It was something neither Gokudera nor Tsuna really absorbed, the first time he'd brought it out before them, and when he'd wielded it again there'd been more pressing things to think about. (Rings and boxes, protecting Haru and Kyoko of the future from the bloodlust of the Black Spell. Too many things at once; Tsuna didn't believe he was ready for it at all.) Somewhere along the way, nearly ten years worth of time, Yamamoto had learned the value of a blade that could murder. He didn't think on it much any more, because it was pointless to think about. There was always a loser; just here, there was more at stake than pride and boyish dreams.
He didn't intend to be the losing team.
Yamamoto was good with the sword, too, even if he himself never really considered himself so. A simple matter of always looking forward, no use dwelling on what couldn't be changed except as a lesson for the future. Shaping the present was important too; he tossed the boxes up, and then he was gone, gone, three strikes out--
"Hmm?"
Huh, thought Yamamoto, surprised, these mafia games really were advanced!
Plans were readjusted, people were shifted about. In the end, Yamamoto moved into the same room as Gokudera and Tsuna. Before bed, he went through his future self's possessions - a well-worn baseball and bat, a closet-full of suits too big for him to wear now. In boxes, there were all the uniforms he'd ever worn and some more besides, and books upon books of photographs. At the end of the one labeled as most recent, one of the photos had been haphazardly placed in, unset in a proper slot. Whomever had put the scene together had done a good job of replicating what his future self might have been like.
He lifted the photograph out and eyed it, took awhile to realize it was himself at a grave (no wait, his 'older' self), took longer to recognize the characters on the marking stone as his father's. Flipping the photograph over gave him a date and a scrawl of a note -- a mocking heart and flower, So how's Tsuyoshi doing? It raised his hackles; he'd always been slow to anger, but this, this was bad taste, a joke that would never be funny.
"Yamamoto?" Tsuna's voice interrupted his thoughts.
Yamamoto slipped the photograph back into the book, Hahaha, sorry, got lost in all this stuff. It's really put together well! Tsuna looked as though he wanted to say something, just as quickly decided not to.
He thought on the props on the way back to the room, before finally slinging his arm around Tsuna's shoulders. "Hey," he says, cheerfully. "My 'future self' - the guy could still laugh, right?" It looked like the directors had given him a pretty difficult storyline, after all, but the best way to get through difficulty was to face it.
Tsuna paused before nodding.
"Good!" and then they were at the door, and Gokudera was grumbling at him, What the hell took you so long, idiot!?, and he figured, as long as everyone was there, the game could never get too bad at all.