Conversations with dead people
A possible look at the Tenth's very last moment, and why his Mist Guardian even bothered to go for Byakuran himself when he could have easily walked away from it all. Spoilers for revelations in Chapters 220 onwards. The title is taken from the 31 Days theme for October 31, 2008.
He remembered dying very distinctly – he could, in fact, recall with vivid detail the way it had felt for each one of those bullets to rip through his body, plugging holes through his skin, destroying whatever it touched in his chest be it his heart, his lungs, his liver. It had not been glorious, but he had not cried – he couldn't, not while he knew what was at stake, and that even after he drew his last breath all would be well.
Closing his eyes in a bloody hallway and opening them and finding himself in a field of tall grass and wild flowers, then, was not exactly what he expected. Tsuna looked down, seeing no wounds in his body, seeing clothes that fit him but definitely weren't his own. He stood up, feeling none of the weakness that he had had in his limbs just moments back, when he lay bleeding all over the floor of the Vongola Mansion. The wind in the place was sweet, cooling his face, kissing the surface of the lake laid out in front of him.
"You're a fool, Vongola."
Rokudo Mukuro was standing behind him, dressed down in the same white and black that he was wearing, glaring at him with pursed lips and narrowed eyes. Tsuna chuckled, and turned back towards the lake.
"It'll be all right, Mukuro-san. You don't need to worry."
"I am not worrying, and nothing can change the fact that you've gone off and died for nothing."
Tsuna wisely decides not to comment. He looks up, following the paths of the clouds in the sky far above his head. "Are you the only thing keeping me here?"
"Even the dead are allowed to dream before they pass on." Footsteps behind him in the grass. Two heartbeats, and Mukuro is pulling him up by the arm, turning him around, forcing him to look straight into his mismatched eyes. Tsuna cannot, in all the years that he had lived, remember ever hearing Mukuro talk the way he was at that moment, with an anger that wasn't quite anger, and an unexplainable sorrow.
"I didn't accept your ring in order to watch you go off and kill yourself."
"Then help everyone else fix this."
And Tsuna smiled, because it was the only thing he had left to give. They stared at each other for a moment more. Mukuro released his arm.
"…I am not going to help them, Vongola."
"That's all right. That you stayed while I was still alive is enough for me."
They did not say anything else, not even when Tsuna started to fade away; Mukuro, in fact, stood perfectly still and silent, even as the younger man whispered a goodbye just before he disappeared. The illusionist lingered in the garden between life and death a moment longer before stepping out, returning to his own body. Another minute of silence, and then he reached out, touching upon the mind of Chrome Dukuro, the girl grown into a fine young woman who would, without question, follow him anywhere.
Come to me, my dear Chrome. There are things that I need you to do.