The Heavens Fall
Author: Jusrecht
Warning(s): Blood, torture, dark, Reborn being a bastard. All in all, not a nice fic.
Notes: Written for a prompt in LJ community khrfest: Tsuna - responsibilities; "the iron weight he is not yet ready to bear"
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The stage was set.
Reborn eyed the man, bound to the chair in the middle of the square room. A flood of pale light—bright, blinding whiteness, excessive and nowhere near necessary—brought out the dirty slickness of the man's dark hair, unwashed for days. The skin of his face strained against jutting cheekbones and a crooked nose, beaded with perspirations. A torn silver duct tape sealed his lips, but the fear in his pale eyes, laced with enough hatred to paint a grotesque picture of Nemesis, was too eloquent to stay silent.
Reborn began with a knife.
It was the easiest, the most mundane, and yet the impact never disappointed. The man was soon howling behind his gag as the tip sunk into his skin, into the layer of fat behind and finally vein-threaded flesh. Reborn took care to follow a methodical approach, now a habit cultivated over the years. He had forgotten the face of the hunchbacked hitman who had taught him the art, but the teaching itself was as deeply engraved in his brain as the scar left by the same man on his temple. The mark of Cain, he had said with a hacked laugh, breath heavy with alcohol—Cain who had been the dawn of sin, and such a perfect Cain.
Reborn had worn a fedora ever since.
The old bastard was nothing more than a bloodthirsty sadist, he reflected dispassionately as his knife neatly sliced a straining tendon, but his teaching had not been entirely without merit. Listen to what your blade tells you. Every stroke has a meaning, should have, not haphazardly applied. Speed counts, boy. The wrong speed takes away the edge and we don't want that, do we? Different pressures on different points of pain yields different results. Always play with increments, for nothing breaks a man's resistance more than a constant demolition of their hopes.
Pain, more pain, greater pain, even greater pain—you can endure this, but how about this, repeated, ad infinitum.
Once, the knife slipped from his grasp. It clattered on the blood-slicked floor, white tiles now spotted with red. Reborn had long since resigned himself to the inconveniences caused by a child's body, but for once he frowned at the ineffectiveness of an infant's grip. So irritating. Not to mention fingers as short as his could only hold a knife of corresponding size. His teacher had spat on the difference; a knife was a knife and size did not matter as long as it carved and speared—oh, but what a sky of difference it could make. So small a knife would never pierce the density of a carpus, let alone a femur.
The disappointment passed. Reborn jumped down from the mess that was the man's thigh and retrieved his blade. The handle was slick, no longer warm, for blood outside a body was just another liquid—but of course he knew that. Experience was an even greater teacher.
He settled himself on the man's other thigh and contemplated a pentagram, oblivious to the whimpers and sobs rocking his victim's body. He was not even a victim; less than that. His mouth had a secret to spill, but a secret, no matter how precious, ceased to have a price if another mouth had spoken.
This man served an entirely difference purpose, although no less precious.
A sound, soft but unmistakable, stayed his knife's progress at the right-corner tip of the star. Reborn glanced at Leon, masquerading as a clock on the far wall to escape the stain and mess. He nodded to himself, pleased; on any stage, timing was irreplaceably crucial.
He sank his knife into the middle of the pentagram.
"Stop it, Reborn!"
Tsuna was standing at the doorway, face white with horror. Unperturbed, Reborn held his student's gaze and twisted the knife a little deeper, earning himself an anguished sob from victim and spectator both.
"A word of wisdom, Tsuna," he spoke softly, matter-of-factly. "The best hitman in the world does not take orders from someone who has never killed before. It goes against the whole essence of his existence."
Tsuna lunged at him blindly, a roar ripping the distance between them. His Sky Flame rippled wildly in his wake, but Reborn calculated distance, distraught speed, the reckless force of anger, and measured his own reaction with ease born of countless battles.
He stepped out of the way and Tsuna's fist, naked and ablaze, dug into the man's chest.
A gurgle, a twitch, warm blood spilling from an open mouth, and he stilled.
A clean kill, Reborn noted with satisfaction, messy as it was, but one did not expect otherwise from the brutality of fists. Sometimes Tsuna was not a disappointment.
But now for the wake-up call.
Jumping onto his student's shoulder, he grabbed a fistful of brown hair. "Feel it," he hissed, voice suffused with ten years of pent-up disgust. "That is you ripping someone's life from their body. Horrible? Of course. These aren't games you are playing, Tsuna. You are juggling with lives and deaths and your heart should bleed for it. So. Feel. It."
Tsuna did not move, still frozen in shock. No matter, Reborn thought and left his perch, wiping both hands on a white handkerchief. A dead body cooled fast and blood coagulated even faster. The more gruesome, the better experience.
Vongola Tenth.
A slight smile on his lips, Reborn left through the door, the faint if hollow satisfaction that another student had passed swelling quietly in his chest.
End
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