Finale Scene VIII: Home
The immediate aftermath of the mass teleportation was chaotic, like the aftermath of an earthquake. Life in general was more chaotic than usual in the months following the Family's larger than expected scale rescue operation, but that first day was the hardest— trying to address everyone's urgent medical needs in the midst of significant confusion and lingering fear. There weren't enough rescuers, and Estraneo Famiglia survivors called out for their long-separated loved ones, then exclaimed and shed joyful tears upon their reunion, until the sun rose on the Vongola's airport's tarmac.
Chrome had once again done something amazing though— connecting the feelings of everyone she teleported and grouping similar energies psychically near each other. The survivors found who they were seeking with relatively little searching. They had been yearning for long enough.
Some of the former victims fled right away, becoming different people and leading new lives, never to be heard of again. The environmentally-conscious Yamamoto looked up every time the jet took off that morning, pledging to compensate for the pollution somehow when everything settled down. Other liberated Estraneo prisoners sat stunned, unsure what to do after years of confinement. Others still jumped into action, trying to help in their own ways. The Guardians later discovered that the only inmates allowed to retain their consciousness were the Flameless servants and test subjects.
After much shouting from Gokudera, some semblance of order was achieved and the throng was organized: those who wanted to leave and never look back, those who wanted to stay and make a new home with the Vongola, those who didn't know what they wanted to do now that they could choose again, those who needed medical attention before they could enjoy their new freedom, and those who were unconscious, clinging to life.
All of the children who were encased in suspended animation tanks were comatose and on the brink of their flames going out. Ryohei almost extinguished his own by stabilizing each and every child the Flameless test subjects carried to him. As he made it to the last few victims, he knew that the reason there were only children being brought to him in this state was because no one could survive for long with their flames being constantly drained as theirs had been and his were now.
"Anyone who needs a place to stay, just while you figure things out or more permanently, you have a place with us!" Tsuna assured the uneasy crowd.
"I think I'll pass byon," came a voice near where Chrome and Hibari had landed. "I've got a fun amusement park to get back to— but it's probably time for some renovations."
"Ken?" Chrome couldn't believe what she was hearing. She had seen his body. She must be mixing her illusional desires with reality again after witnessing the heartfelt reunions taking place all around her.
But Hibari had looked in the direction of the voice too, and started hard at the speaker. Chrome turned as well, against logic, and to her astonishment saw Ken and M.M. carrying a limp Chikusa between them. Tears silently streamed down her face at the cruel fantasy her mind was placing before her.
"Dokuro!" Ken called when he met her teary gaze. "Why are you crying? You came for us! And everyone else too from the looks of it."
Not caring if they were real or not, Chrome approached the Kokuyo gang. "Not soon enough though," she whispered, "I let you die."
"Um…what are you talking about?" Ken responded, raising an eyebrow. "I'm right here. And we could use some help getting four-eyes over to the boxing-nut over there by the way."
"But…" the Mist Guardian couldn't set herself up for the disappointment of believing Ken might actually be alive and then re-accepting his death all over again. At the same time, with the control she had over her powers now, she should have been able to dispel an involuntary illusion upon noticing it.
"This…" she reached into Hibari's suit jacket pocket and produced the collar that read:
Test Subject 3
Property of the Estraneo Family
Ken's face darkened as he inspected the inscription. "The clones," M.M. supplied, having to set Chikusa down. Ken did the same, laying the boy gently on the grass beside them. "Your clones never lived long, and they could only take on one of your animal forms, but they become more viable as the experimenters made more. They stopped after the third because it escaped." Chrome and Ken stared at the musician as if to ask how she knew all of this. "That perverted Rain Guardian filled me in on what he was doing to you guys as he…"
"No one will do anything like that to any of you ever again," Chrome said emphatically as she rushed her companions and fell to her knees with her arms around their necks. The Kokuyo gang, sprawled on the grass next to Chikusa, clung to each other tightly, laughing and crying with relief.
"And the integration of my precious Chrome's new subordinates is going well?" Mukuro asked lazily.
"Again, if you want to talk business you should just come to the base. Or better yet, ask the Family yourself," Yuni answered patiently. "Neither of us are her keeper anymore."
The couple was lounging peacefully in the princess' illusionary meadow. Though fall's chill had settled on Namimori, a sweet spring breeze stirred the prairie grasses of this world to ripple and swirl like ocean waves on the distant hills.
"I have something to show you," Yuni sat up and pushed the illusionist's long hair away from his face. "It will require you to look."
Mukuro groaned at the prospect of engaging his eyelid muscles, but languidly did as he was bade. "Is it another flower wreath?" he asked mellowly. "I'm already wearing one."
"It is not another flower wreath," Yuni smiled. In her hands was instead a familiar vase.
"Is that the one…?"
"Yes," Yuni answered, "it's the one you smashed when you threw your tantrum at the base before the rescue operation." Mukuro let that comment slide when be noticed veins of glittering gold lining the cracks where the piece had one been shattered into fragments.
"Kintsugi,"* he mused, making the effort to sit up. Yuni leaned forward as if to place the restored vase in his hands, but it disappeared when she let go.
"The real one is at the base of course," Yuni said. "Shall I say all the things I admire about it?" she asked while looking into Mukuro's for once clear, blue eyes.
A small army of Flameless girls combed through the ruble of Episcopo Castle, bearing the most in-tact stones to a field where mounds of freshly-filled graves rose above the earth. Hibari watched the teenager that had confronted him in the dungeons of this very castle place one at the head of an unadorned grave and say a prayer.
"I don't know if they would have wanted their final resting places marked by the stones of the castle they were imprisoned in," Chrome said, "but the girls thought that they would like to know that the Episcopo Family had been dismantled— literally."
"They don't have to help me with this," Hibari said. Chrome looked up at him, suspecting more than his typical aversion to crowds was at play. "Isn't being back here painful for them?"
Chrome felt a small pride rising inside her at how he was now able to not only consider the feelings of others, but voice his concerns for them as well. This was still a rare occurrence, but not unheard of anymore.
"These are only the trainees that volunteered," she assured him. "The rest are back at the base enjoying a break from drills. These are the ones that want to be here. I hope it helps them in some way…" she trailed off.
Little pink-headed blue-eyed Nami struggled with the weight of a larger piece of masonry from the fallen castle, but two other girls quickly came to her aid. "I did some looking into her family," Hibari commented.
"Did you find them?" Chrome asked eagerly. She still felt guilty and responsible for returning Fran to his grandmother in the state he was in after the rescue, and wanted to do everything she could for him, including helping the friend he had gone into battle for.
"Yes," Hibari answered. "They didn't want to be found though, and for good reason." He ground his teeth (or 'sharpened his fangs' as Tsuna would say). "They knew how despicable what they had done was at least."
"What do you mean?"
"Nami wasn't just abducted. Her family sold her to the Episcopo Family to get out of debt." Hibari delivered this revelation in his trademark monotone, but there was a glint of fury in his dark eyes.
"That's awful," Chrome breathed, watching Nami and her two helpers place their burden on an empty mound. "It sounds like something my mother and stepfather would have done."
Hibari took Chrome's hand and they were silent for a moment, watching the Flameless recruits pay their final respects to those that had suffered the same fate as them but hadn't been as lucky in the end.
"Let's take that trip to Mafia Land," Hibari proposed. "We didn't even make it onto the plane last time."
Chrome giggled. "I'd love to," she said, "but the girls are still getting settled in and a routine in their training is really important for them, especially so soon after all the upheaval in their lives."
"So let's bring them."
"Bring…?" Chrome couldn't believe what she was hearing. "But we'd be in a herd," she said, using his unique language to remind him that he'd be crowded.
"I thought of that," Hibari smirked. "We'll develop some espionage training they can do at the park— their objective will be to lay low and stay out of our way. We'll put Kusakabe in charge of it."
I guess he hasn't changed too much Chrome thought with a smile. "I'll ask who wants to participate in special training when we get back. But…" she stopped again, realizing another complication.
"The cost?" Hibari had anticipated this as well it seemed. "I can cover it and much more in the future. I was the heir to this place, remember?"
"You're right…that's amazing!" Chrome exclaimed, realizing the implications. This could finance so many missions.
"You don't have a problem with me taking blood money?" Hibari asked quizzically, squeezing Chome's hand tighter.
"First of all you're not taking it, you fought for it," Chrome retorted. "And second of all, I think you're already putting it to fantastic use."
Hibari looked at the woman who only months before he had considered no more than a wraith, and knew that he would never stop being grateful to that damned Bucking Bronco for stealing his boxed weapon, though he'd never admit it of course. On impulse he pulled Chrome to him and kissed her gently.
"I love you," she said. As soon as the words came out of her mouth her face lit up like a Christmas tree, but she didn't look away from the man that had brought her to where she was now or retract her confession.
"I love you too."
*Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with lacquer dusted or mixed with powered gold, silver, or platinum. As a philosophy, it treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise— embracing the flawed and imperfect.