And Every Breath We Drew was Hallelujah
Author: Jusrecht
Characters/Pairings: Tsuna, Guardians, Kyoko, Reborn
Diclaimer: KHR belongs to Amano and the title is taken from 'Hallelujah' (original song by Leonard Cohen, although the version I listened to while writing this fic was Jeff Buckley's).
Warnings: See the Summary.
Summary: Death turned its ugly head upon them, and they met it head on.
Notes: Written for a khrfest prompt: Tsuna+Guardians - firmament; "no matter the price, i will protect"
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1.
Gokudera was the first.
Tsuna saw the car blown before his eyes, saw scraps of metals set alight by fire, riding gravity's curves and falling in a shower all around him—but he did not see the body, he did not. Yamamoto pulled him away from the scene and into the nearest building, where walls might hide and offer what shield they could. Through a grimy glass window, Tsuna stared at the towering pillar of smoke rising to a grey-tinted sky. In his ears, the sound of alarm sounded like death's high-pitched laughter—you should be in that car, you should be dead right now, you should be in that car.
He was twenty-three, and would never be the same again.
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2.
When Ryouhei died protecting him, Tsuna cried on Kyoko's lap for hours.
She had tears streaming down her cheeks, past the corners of her tightly sealed lips and onto the mess of his hair, each drop colder than the last. Her hands were curled on the cushioned seat, as silent as defiance, anger, denial could be. He couldn't look at her and she wouldn't look at him; one was her husband, the other her brother, and suns were supposed to last forever.
Bells had tolled, night had dawned before she finally found the strength to touch him. Tsuna sobbed; the faint pressure of her fingers on his face felt like forgiveness.
He was twenty-six, and sat on a pinnacle of corpses.
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3.
"When you lie with dogs, you'll catch off their fleas eventually."
Anger shot up inside Tsuna like a blaze of fire and his gloved fists almost moved to strike Reborn. His former tutor sat on the frontmost pew with a cigarette balanced between his lips, sending white curls of smoke to the high ceilings of the cathedral. Before them, on the altar, Lambo lay in a closed casket with only his horns at his side.
"You know it will come to this."
There had been a time when Tsuna would forgive everything Reborn did, or said. Since returned to his prime, his former tutor had lost everything which once had made him agreeable, even tolerable. Now every time he opened his mouth, Tsuna cringed.
"It was my fault," he worked the words past the lump in his throat, his anger burning out fast. "I should have kept an eye on him."
But he could not help thinking that it was also Reborn's fault. Lambo had been too young when he had accepted his role, when he had done his first kill, when he had finally understood. That he had tried to run and found an escape in the streets, in drug-induced friendships and excitement and eventually a drunken death, was perhaps not as incomprehensible as Tsuna liked to think.
None of these excused Tsuna's neglect, or Reborn's choice of a five-year-old child in their rank of murderers.
"And this wouldn't have happened," Tsuna murmured to himself, ignoring Reborn's scoff.
He was twenty-eight, and Lambo was nine years younger.
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4.
Hibari did not die in a blaze of glory; he did not even know how Hibari died.
Absence was a matter of course with his Cloud Guardian. There had never been any question of where, when, how long, even less why. All they had was an agreement, not even dependence, and then one day Tsuna glanced at the calendar on his desk and realised that it had been years.
Now 'why' felt like the right question to ask.
All efforts to locate Hibari ended in vain. Few of the Foundations members came under his radar and none of them knew where Clouds went if not above and ever drifting, not even Kusakabe. He heard whispers, words mentioned in passing, sometimes the lined edge of rumours, and Tsuna followed each with the desperation of a dying man. He needed to find Hibari, he needed to know, he needed to make sure, he needed so many things that he could no longer tell one from the other.
There were different degrees of loss. With no confirmation, just a constant, silent ache that ebbed and flowed with time, Tsuna inherited the worst. Both hope and despair became his enemies and their unceasing war made him wish for a closure; any closure. In a safe tucked away behind a wooden panel, there was a ring case and seven velvet-lined hollows. Three rings had come home, three still survived in a world cursed by others, but one was unknown; its place would forever be empty, waiting.
Some nights, he still dreamt of Hibari, his body rotting in a nameless abyss, alone, without a grave to remember his name, his deed, even his existence. Then he would wake up shaking, but never crying, because dreams and realities were two separate entities walking side-by-side, and they would not hold hands unless there was a cause.
He was thirty-two, and the dream always ended there, in that nameless abyss.
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5.
Chrome was standing at the water's edge when he descended the wooden stairs leading to the lake behind the summer house. Her white dress shook and billowed, guided by the same wind that stirred the water at her feet, and she was smiling. It made his heart ache.
"I have come to say farewell, Boss."
Tsuna stared at her, his breath caught in his throat. "Are you going somewhere?"
"Somewhere and nowhere," her soft voice pealed clearly in the silence. The summer house was a desolate place, an empty place at best. There were no children running about, no sound of their laughter filling up the empty space between him and his wife. (Kyoko had said once, in a moment of rage, that it was because he was what he was. Sometimes he wondered if happiness should be so costly.)
"I don't understand," Tsuna said weakly.
She was still smiling; he could not remember the last time she had smiled so long. "When you have lived long enough as an illusion, you too will die an illusion." She stepped closer and raised a hand to touch his chest. "We will always be with you, Boss."
Under the August sun, her eyes, cheeks, hair, dress and sun-touched skin dissolved into a mass of white-gold dusts. Tsuna reached out—she was not an illusion, he would have felt it—but the wind scattered them away faster than his fingers could grasp, carrying them across the span of the lake to a place he could not follow. She was the mist, and he was alone, with only her ring left where she had once stood.
The next day, Tsuna received a call from the Vendicare prison, informing him about the demise of one of their prisoners.
He was thirty-five, and felt like eighty.
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6.
Yamamoto was the rain. The rain came from the sky where sun is absent, from clouds pierced by lightning to stir a storm and spin mist on the face of the earth. He took all the roles and Tsuna often wondered how he could do it—except that he could not. No one could.
He had never married. There had been many women and casual dates, sometimes even prostitutes with their sharp heels scraping the marble floor, their painted nails clawing at tabletops and centuries-old furniture. There had been drinks and nights spent wasted in bars, although his grip on the sword never slipped once. There were many ways a man could be broken and Tsuna tried to help him, tried to talk him out of it, but regret was a shadow long gone from Yamamoto's face. Then he knew that it was too late—too many ways for a man to be broken; he could not guard against them all.
Kyoko's death buried a part of him with her, both good and ugly. He mourned and mourned and mourned, but Yamamoto stood at his side at the funeral, after the funeral, since the funeral, and continued to do so for the rest of his life. His last words were, "You've done a great job," and he was still smiling at his deathbed and Tsuna remembered a time when all had just been another game for a strong-willed baseball player.
And then he cried.
He was sixty-four, respected, admired, feared, and utterly alone.
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7.
They were guardians; their most important duty was to protect the Family and the boss, and died for both. In return, the only way he could repay them was to make sure that he did not fail their trust.
Sawada Tsunayoshi lived a long life and died at the age of eighty in his sleep.
He made sure that he died last.
End
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