"I could have done better."
The eyes that stared into mine were a cold, almost slitted yellow, very unlike my own yet one and the same.
"I could have been that pillar. That right-hand man."
Eyes closed as I listened to what my own, warp-echoed voice said back to me. The other two were here. The ones this lookalike no doubt would be referring to. By Tsuna's description, I expected something like this. I knew of that darkness.
"They never saw it, did they?" My own voice cooed at me. "They never saw passed your smile. But can't they see? We're not smiling anymore, are we?"
He was right. We weren't. The Takeshi across from me, clad in a sharp suit that reflected a traditional hitman, looked like a downright killer. His glowing eyes held a hollowness to them. A face that hadn't smiled in over a decade. A shadowed blade raised toward my shortest companion.
"We smiled because we wanted normalcy for you, Tsuna. Laugh it off, pretend it's a game. Go on with life. We were just school boys, and that's all we needed to be. That's all I knew you wanted to be. I wanted to be that familiarity for you, to be that "normal friend from school"."
My own amber eyes closed as I focused on steadying my breath. I wouldn't get mad. There was the faintest of ripples around my rings as tranquility worked to soothe my soul while the harsh voice that sounded so much like my own rang onward, much louder and truer than the rebukes my companions both shouted back.
"And Hayato, poor little Hayato."
Eyes opened, and I stared the shadow, this other me, in the eye.
"Not another word."
"Oh, you don't want him to hear?"
A hand went to my sword, but the tranquility flames blazed a bit stronger, allowing me to drop my hands to my sides again. He'd have to hear eventually.
"You don't want him to hear how you looked down on him? How he always forced himself upon Tsuna, how he always brought nothing but trouble."
My teeth grit, brows starting to furrow. Yes, perhaps those had been thoughts of mine, on a distant memory.
"That was a long time ago."
"But was it really? Hayato," Eyes opened again to see my clone addressing the silver-headed male by my side. "Tell me, tell /us/, when did Tsuna ever look on at you with anything but exasperation? When did he ever call you reliable? I had been those things, reliable, trustworthy, friendly, but in the end it was you he chose. But that's okay, isn't it?"
Eyes opened to see him, to see me, dropping that hardened, scary expression for a gentle, cheerful grin.
"The pinch hitter is never the supporting player in the team~ just the backup. A backup." That shadowed smile grew twisted before falling. "A replacement, a last resort for when the better man fell. Sure we carry the team to victory, but we're not the ones pictured in the initial victor's ring. Two's company, three's a crowd. Maybe that's why we left Japan for as long as we did after graduating. To help Tsuna in our own way without being shrouded in a lesser man's shadow."
The words were right on the tip of my tongue. 'I've never felt that way!' but I knew that not to be truth. Somewhere, I had felt that way down the line.
"Maybe that's why we fell in love with him, isn't it, rain guardian? The second in command had everything we didn't, he was admirable. He held a position greater than us just by forcing himself upon Tsuna to accept that idea. If we could be close to Hayato, then, maybe..."
"Enough."
His sword had drawn, but on that face held a familiar cheesy grin.
"I'm not going to deny any of what you said, cause it's all true in some form or another. But don't tell only half the story, if you're gonna tell it at all. Growing up and becoming an adult means dealing with all that crap and still pushing onward. Emotions can change, so if you're going to say how they started you could at least tell what they grew into. I don't have time for this, and neither do they."
The sword flicked to the side, blade displayed outward.
"Shugure Soen Ryu..."
Defeating a your shadow is easy when you already knew you carried it around in your heart for as long as you could remember. With no reason to deny it, there's no reason for it to fight so hard to be accepted. I accepted these truths behind my oddball behavior. But it wasn't my reactions I was worried about. Sheathing my sword, I raised a free hand to the glowing card that fell from gathered particles. This card held a reflection of my soul. That hadn't been the part that worried me. It was the fact that I felt unable to turn around and walk back to my friends. In the end, I let out a calming sigh. My expression held that same hollowed, deadly look that my other self had. There was no happiness in these amber eyes. That was the face I wore when I did turn back. I had nothing to smile about now. They already knew why I did.