I talked to my grandpa a few days ago and he was joking and laughing (even though he shouldn't 'cause it caused him pain) and seemed alright overall! That combined with all your reviews just put me in high spirits and wa la! This chapter was completed!

Special super thanks to: Difficult1305, Kichou, Honoka-Chan, Kildosad, J. Shizzle, Mad31lina, hammanop, runwithanime, SasoLOVE111, BrokenBlackCat, Sasuna123, Noname-NN, Ayz283, brokenmaelstrom, dream-of-silent-death, xXScarlatto-OokamiXx, Meota Tsukiko, mangopudding, and Marhaya. Your reviews were great and provided the inspiration for me to get this chapter out as quickly as I could!

Thanks again! And a thanks to the fav's and add's as well! I hope you enjoy this chapter!

Chapter 14 When the Light has Fallen

Tsuna ran desperately, trying with all her might to outrun the jeering and catcalls behind her. She picked up her pace as she rounded a corner, only to be knocked back hard when a book bag was swung into her abdomen.

"Oof!" Tsuna tumbled down. She ground her teeth to keep herself from making any other noise as she sat up and by that time the bullies had caught up to her.

The girl the day before sneered at the brunette, two of her friends (probably the most loyal of the group) stood slightly behind the girl as they glared at Tsuna as well. "I'm going to make you pay for humiliating me in front of Reborn and Ieyasu senpai."

Before Tsuna could make another attempt to run for it, two thuggish looking teenagers came out and grabbed her arms. The brunette ground her teeth, but didn't make any sounds indicating that she was in pain. She had been through a lot worse after all.

The older girl glared at her victim, allowing her anger, jealousy, and spite to boil through until she slapped the younger woman across the face. "Come on. Let's take this inside. I don't want to ruin my shoes with all this mud." She turned around and walked away, everyone else following faithfully.

The two thug pinned Tsuna against the far wall roughly. They had decided on using an empty classroom to carry out their plans.

"We get to do whatever we want to her after you finish right?" One of the teenage guys asked, to reconfirm their agreement as well as provide a little psychological torment.

"Yes, yes," The older girl said dismissively as she walked forward, her friends flanking her. "Now let's see. What should I start with?"

The girl smirked and kicked Tsuna in the stomach, making sure that it was the heel of her stiletto that connected. She smile grew when the brunette grunted in pain. The teenage guys let go of the brunette and allowed her to collapse to the floor. The leader then reached down and pulled Tsuna up by her bangs.

"Oh? So you actually have a set of eyes. I thought that maybe there would just be holes, since you hide them all the time. My mistake," her last two words came out angrily as she slapped the younger girl again.

Tsuna glared at the girl, trying her best not to hyperventilate. She was terrified and visions of her past kept flashing before her eyes, but she knew better than to show someone like this weakness. None of the bullies had ever touched her bangs before, believing that she was ugly and it would be better to leave them alone. She was scared. So scared. But she couldn't- no, wouldn't, show this sort of person any fear. Even though her heart was speeding up, and possibly beating irregularly, she would not show fear.

"Oh~…I have an idea…" The older girl was back to her sickening sweet tone. She reached into the inside pocket of her purse and slowly drew out a knife.

Tsuna's eyes widened in horror. Of all the things to pick, the girl had to choose a knife. The one thing that had caused her so much terror and pain throughout her life.

The older girl smiled maddeningly. "We can help you do a little touch up to your face."

"Boss, I don't think this is a good idea," one of the subordinates said nervously. Even they had not been expecting this sort of torture from their leader.

"Shut up!" The older girl yelled. "Who's side are you on anyways? Now," she turned back to the brunette. She fisted her hands through Tsuna's hair on the back of her head and reached around with her knife. "Let's give you a little trim."

With a sharp series of slashing tugs, Tsuna's waist length hair was cut in half. The knife also sliced her along her back several times from the older girl's violent movements, making Tsuna cry out in pain.

"Your bangs need a trim too don't they?" The girl started slashing again scraping the brunette's scalp, forehead, and nearly her eyes.

Tsuna cried out again and pushed the girl away, getting her arm nicked in the process. Knowing that head wounds bled the most didn't make her feel better as blood started to get into her eyes.

"Don't you dare touch me!" The older girl shrieked. She swung the knife down and stabbed the brunette's shoulder. Then she proceeded to kick, scratch, and claw at the girl. "It's all your fault that the most popular people at this school hate me! If you were never here then this wouldn't have happened! You've only been an eyesore since you arrived! You should have never been born you ugly bitch!"

Tsuna fell to the floor once more. She was bleeding a lot from cuts all over her body and the knife was still imbedded in her shoulder. But even with those injuries and the tears that were pouring down from her past fears attacking her, Tsuna still managed to glare at the girl. "It's your own fault for making such a fuss over something so little. If you had just ignored me and continued on your way, then you wouldn't have gotten both Reborn and Giotto mad at you."

"Shut up!" The girl shrieked. She yanked the knife out of the brunette's shoulder and raised her arm to bring down the weapon in a possibly more fatal area.

But before she could start bringing the knife down, there was a loud pop and the knife went flying out of the girl's hand landing on the floor several feet away.

"Get away from her now."

Everyone but Tsuna looked around to see a severely pissed off Reborn. But Tsuna tuned them out. The visions of men in lab coats approaching her with their scalpels, needles, and other tools were flooding out of her memories. They were cutting into her skin. They were hurting her and telling her to sit still while they injected that liquid fire into her. There was so much pain. She was too weak to escape. She wanted to die, it hurt so badly. Someone, please rescue her. Someone…Anyone…

Test after test, but no one came. There was another little girl, much younger than Tsuna. Tsuna liked this girl. She was nice and helped clean up her wounds when they threw her back into the cage. She was screaming for Tsuna to help. But she was so tired…so tired…Blood splattered her. The girl was being ripped apart by the scientists. They made eye contact and the girl said she was scared of dying, even as the light left her eyes. Then Tsuna's vision went red and her eyes, hands, and forehead grew hot. But by the time she became fully aware of herself, the lab was painted red and corpses lined the floors. She was a monster. She killed all of the scientists and became a demon, but she couldn't even save any of the other children. She had failed. Now everyone would hate her. She would be left all alone. So she 'forgot' and she smiled. Everyone didn't really feel that bad, otherwise they would be able to see through her lie. But the mask stayed in place and she continued to smile.

Then a while after she had escaped, she could see her classmates and several other kids cornering her. They beat her black and blue, but they still had more. A middle school student come forward and cut her repeatedly with her own knife after all the kids had taken their turn of messing with her. Their insults and accusations were dancing across her mind.

If only she wasn't friends with the others. If only she wasn't so useless and ugly. Maybe then, they would have left her alone.

But they made her so mad. The shadow that had crept into her heart after the kidnapping was whispering in her ear, telling her to just kill them and get it over with. They were just cruel souls that preyed on other people's misery, that they were more evil than she for allowing their jealousy to overrun their sense of right and wrong.

But these sorts of emotions made Tsuna hate herself more. Maybe she should just be alone. She was a monster. She was tainted and impure, unlike her friends.

It hurt so much. Did someone stab her chest? She hurt all over, but they said this was her punishment for trying to be something she's not. She's not smart, pretty, athletic, or popular. She shouldn't have tried to be friends with the cool kids. Maybe those bullies were right, and her so called friend's only played with her out of pity. Why else would she be alone right now? No one was helping her. Giotto wasn't going to save her this time.

Tsuna was all alone. Her world was fading into darkness once more.

"Tsuna."

'No. Go away. Leave me alone. You'll just be scared away when you see what a monster I truly am and I don't want to be hurt like that again.'

"Tsuna!"

'Please don't hurt me. I don't want to hurt anymore. Just make it stop.'

"Tsuna!"

Tsuna forced her eyes to open and she was able to see a pair of black orbs staring straight into her own. They were so warm and comforting, but they also held a great amount of concern and fear, but not the type fear she had been expecting.

A hand touched her face and wiped away a few stray hairs. "You're going to be okay. I won't leave." Warm arms and a familiar scent pulled her in.

Her attention picked up on the last bit the boy had spoken. They were the words that she needed the most. "You promise?" Tsuna's voice cracked as she tried to reign in her tears and broken emotions.

"Promise," the raven haired boy muttered.

The look of pain, fear, and sorrow didn't fade, but a bit of light entered her eyes. Finally it was too much and the brunette broke out into loud and pained sobs. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" For not being clean.

Reborn carried Tsuna all the way to the hospital. When they arrived, the doctors had tried to take Tsuna away so that they could treat her, but she had screamed, yelled, and fought them all away. She had tightened her clutch on the boy and cried inconsolably, only calming down the tiniest bit when the teenager holding her, shushed her and promised once again the he wouldn't leave.

They managed to get her into one of the rooms, but none of the doctors were able to get within five feet of the girl before she would start screaming at them and shouting that she didn't want any more injections, needles, and knives. She begged them to stop hurting her, that she didn't want the liquid fire to course through her veins again.

But her wounds were continuing to bleed out and even though they were someone completely fatal, if she didn't allow them to clean and close up the wound soon, then she could die from blood lose. Even if they did manage to close up the wound after she fainted, there was still the high possibility that the wounds were infected. When she started threatening to kill them if they came any closer, they thought about restraining her and giving her a tranquilizer, but that would definitely risk her already unstable mental health.

Finally, Reborn forced them away, calling them all incompetent fools, and he took care of the delirious girl himself. The moment the door was closed and the doctors out of sight, Tsuna calmed down considerably and started apologizing over and over again.

Reborn took care of her wounds and get her medicine in the forms of pills since she still refused any injections or an IV, then convinced her to lie down. Tsuna had caught his hand when he started to back away and stared at him with wide fearful eyes and begged him desperately not to leave.

It was then that Reborn started wishing that her eyes were still covered, because looking into those large brown orbs made him realize that he would have a very difficult time saying no to them in the future. No, even now he couldn't bring himself to upset the girl, so he pulled a chair over to her bed and sat down with her hand still tightly attached to his as she slowly drifted into a fitful sleep.

When she woke up, Reborn tried to get her to eat something and take more medicine, but then Tsuna started refusing everything. She didn't want to eat, drink, take any painkillers or antibiotics, nor did she want to sleep. She cried a great deal, but she made a point to never lose contact with Reborn if she could help it. The raven haired man was starting to grow truly anxious because she wasn't getting the nutrition she needed, as she was still refusing the IV, and it was obvious that her wounds were causing her a lot of pain, but Tsuna refused them all. She muttered something about it being her punishment for the evil she has committed or even thought of committing. And it was frustrating Reborn that no matter what he did she wouldn't listen, even worse was that he didn't have in him to force her. Tsuna was lost and he couldn't help her.

For once, he wasn't a hitman, but a teenager who was lost and had no clue what he was to do.

And the worst had yet to come.

"Giotto!" G shouted as he burst into the blonde's office.

The boy jumped a little at the sudden intrusion, but became serious when he saw the panic and worry in his best friend's eyes. "G, what happened?"

"It's Tsuna, she-…" The red head didn't seem to be able to finish.

"It seems that she is once again lost," Asari said calmly as he trailed into the office.

"What!" The blond gasped.

Asari nodded mournfully. "Everyone is on their way."

Giotto stood and ran, G and Asari following closely behind. They didn't stop running until they were in the hospital and outside the brunette's room.

"What is he doing in there?" The blond growled when he spotted Reborn sitting by the young girl.

"He's the one who stopped the perpetrator from killing the little one and brought her in." Alaude walked up to the trio from the shadows with his arms crossed. It was clear to everyone that he was absolutely pissed.

Giotto blanched and fell onto the bench next to the door.

"They were going to kill her?" G asked, his anger and shock hidden poorly.

Alaude gave him a curt nod.

"Nufufufu, then we should return the favor, no?" Daemon appeared out of nowhere next to them. "Who did it?"

"Did what?" Knuckles asked breathlessly as he and Lampo ran up.

"Damn. She looks like hell ran her over," Lampo muttered as he gazed into the room. He flinched when a series of glares went his way.

"It was that girl and her friends from yesterday, wasn't it?" Giotto asked in a hush tone.

"Correct." The group looked up to see Reborn leaning against the doorframe with a hard look.

"Where are they?" Asari asked, and uncharacteristic sharp glint in his eyes.

"Taken care of. That's why you weren't able to find out till now," Reborn answered evenly.

"You should have told us sooner!" Giotto snapped. "We're her family! We had every right to see her and make sure she was okay!"

Reborn's eyes narrowed dangerously. "It seems to me that you knew little to none about who she really was."

"What was that!" The blond hissed.

"Do you know why she apologizes so fiercely whenever someone messes with her bangs or attacks her with a knife?" Reborn crossed her arms as he waited for an answer. But the group just stared at him with blank and confused faces. The only one who didn't look thrown off by the raven haired teen's question was Alaude, who had closed his eyes in understanding.

"What does that have to do anything?" Giotto finally retorted.

"Wasn't she just apologizing to her attackers in an attempt to make them stop hurting her?" Asari questioned.

Reborn clicked his tongue in disproval. "How about the reason she started growing out her bangs to cover her eyes and why she's so sensitive about people seeing her eyes?"

Again the other's except Alaude looked confused.

"Do you even know the reason why she's so afraid of your siblings?" Reborn asked almost angrily. But when he didn't get any response, he shook his head in frustration. "Then ask your other blond friend. He and his kid brother knew, that's why they only pretended to help look for her while they were here. I wouldn't be surprised if he knew everything all along and was asked by Tsuna to keep quiet." There was a quiet choked sob inside and Reborn was back by Tsuna's side in an instant.

Giotto and the other's turned around to look at their strict friend. "Alaude…what's he talking about?"

The platinum blond sighed and started to walk away. "Office," he said shortly before anyone could call him back.

This was a trip down memory lane that he had been expecting for a long time. He just hoped that Tsuna would forgive him when it was over.

This was definitely a sad chapter, despite my mood. But what did you think?

Reviews are loved!