For someone with shorter legs than he had, Futa was very good at running away. The uneven ground – made so by twisting, curling tree roots not quite fully under the cover of dirt where roots should be – and the overgrown trees didn't help things at all, either.
In Tsuna's defense, that was why he tripped, and why he nearly had a heart attack when he saw the Kokuyo student right before him where he would have sworn no one had been before.
He wasn't a hitman, though – instead of attacking outright or threatening, he smiled brightly once the initial surprise wore off.
"You're here to help us, aren't you?" asked the boy. He was taller than Tsuna, maybe around Yamamoto's height, and had dark navy hair shaped, oddly enough, in a way that reminded Tsuna of a pineapple.
And, despite the Kokuyo uniform and the camouflage shirt under the jacket, he looked very relieved.
"Oh wow, we're saved," he said, a hand pressed to his heart. "I thought I'd never get out of here alive."
All the hitmen that came after them so far had been wearing the Kokuyo uniform. Uniforms didn't just grow on trees, which meant they had to come from somewhere.
Or in this case, someone.
The tall boy looked so relieved that Tsuna felt terrible for not being able to give him a definitive answer. Or just not being someone better that could actually help, or know what to say in a situation like this.
"Sorry to have kept you waiting," Tsuna apologized, even if he hadn't known there was anyone captive other than Futa. Speaking of Futa. "We're, um, still in the middle of the rescue, though."
"O-oh, excuse me for making assumptions," the Kokuyo guy said shyly. "But still, I'm really grateful that you came all this way to rescue us."
Tsuna hurried to reassure him that it was no problem. Despite the piercings, the casual disarrayed way he wore his uniform and the Kokuyo uniform itself, it looked like this boy was an honest, nice person.
He hadn't known about him being held here, but Tsuna was relieved that he hadn't been too late.
The Kokuyo boy drew his brows together in worry. "But – you didn't come alone, did you? It's dangerous."
He wasn't kidding. Tsuna still had a headache from everything that happened this day, and if he thought about it the headache was going to get so much worse. Right now his mind was working into overdrive to shove all the memories away in an effort to give himself protective amnesia. His future self could deal with the repercussions and sorting out the mess. "Ah, um, no. A few friends came with me, too."
"That's brave of you all. Are they all Namimori students, too?"
"Um-," his head throbbed. "No. Just two – but don't worry, one of them is an older girl who's strong, and the other is-" a sadistic baby that was, somehow, his violent, mafia-promoting, incredibly weird home tutor, and could there ever have been a phrase with so many different words that were so wrong together? "Well, he's here too. But, hey, um, have you seen a boy, like, around this tall? He was just running ahead of me, and-"
"I'm the one asking questions right now."
Tsuna froze. The Kokuyo student still spoke politely, as if he was pointing out a mistake Tsuna made, but the change in tone was there, a difference, like something had been dropped, and a hidden truth uncovered.
The hair covering his right eye shifted, and Tsuna realized just now that his eyes were different colors. The one he'd seen so far was a dark color, but the newly revealed one was a blazing red, one Tsuna didn't dare stare at for longer, and not just because staring into a stranger's eye would be rude.
"This baby you mentioned," he pressed, the light in his eyes shifting ominously. "What is he capable of doing indirectly?"
A part of him wanted to answer. The part of him that wanted to shy away from the gaze of the red eye didn't. The latter part also happened to be telling him he should flee. Like, right now. No rational explanation to the feeling, just – he needed to get out of there now.
The latter part won without much of a fight.
Tsuna fled, shouting something about needing to find his friends as an excuse. He wasn't sure what exactly he yelled, because what was more important was getting out of here and joining up with his friends.
He didn't dare look back, but he felt that the boy was still there, double-colored gaze piercing into his back through all the trees, and his heart pounded loud enough to fill his head like it was the only sound in the world.
That feeling of unsettlement was probably what made Tsuna do such a Lambo-esque thing and yell a challenge at Rokudo Mukuro when he saw Yamamoto unconscious and Bianchi standing against him, two dishes of Poison Cooking her only shield against a massive metal ball that couldn't be for a friendly game.
He panicked, but not for long. There was no time to do that, not when the giant metal ball was hurling like a storm towards Bianchi – and strong as she was, armed with Poison Cooking in both her hands, that ball was fast, fast enough to create a whirlwind in and around its path, and the Poison Cooking was being ripped off the plates by the wind pressure, like bits of food being washed away under the tap and going down the drain –
And she couldn't even dodge because behind her, Yamamoto was unconscious and vulnerable, slumped under a tree and battered, and she was the last line of defense for him. Even if she repeated what she did with M.M., she was still going to be seriously hurt in the process, and this weapon didn't require contact with the mouth to be used.
When the loud sound of the gunshot reached his ears, there was already a fire beginning to burn at his brows, and he was no longer where he'd been standing, on the edge of the woods.
He was where he needed, wanted to be – in front of Bianchi, between her and the iron ball that had been stopped between his hands.
"Rokudo Mukuro," Tsuna declared, as his clothes were shed like the leaves of trees in autumn. "I'll take you down with my Dying Will!"
In response the man with two tattoos retrieved the ball with a yank of the chain and began to swing it until its rotations were a blur, and a menacing sound of metal cutting through air filled the distance between them. The next time the ball was thrown, almost fired out like a bullet, Tsuna ducked and darted under the ball and dashed towards Mukuro. Busy controlling his weapon, he didn't see Tsuna until he was flying towards his chin, one arm extended out in a fist to face greeting.
Rokudo Mukuro almost flew into the air, but Tsuna hadn't hit him that hard, to send him flying. He had jumped with the momentum, and the chain he still held, and the heavy weight of the ball, straightened him out midair.
And he immediately struck the ball with both hands to take full advantage of the height difference.
"Hija-Reppa!"
Tsuna's arms, held before his face, kept the ball from crushing him, but couldn't stop him from being forced back. The friction between the ground and his soles was hot and painful, but not nearly as much as the strain his arms and shoulders were going through. The air currents, like snakes, lashed out around and at him.
Mukuro had struck the iron ball with an incredible amount of power, enough that there was still spin left in the ball.
No point in trying to get the ball to come to a complete stop like he did last time. Mukuro would only use the chain to get the ball back under his control. Tsuna roared, more wordless beast than a human, and heaved with all his might to strike the ball back towards the still-airborne Mukuro, who couldn't dodge and crashed into the building far behind him from the momentum.
"You did it." Bianchi dropped the remnants of her Poison Cooking in relief. She had probably intended to strike Mukuro if there had been any openings, but he'd kept himself too guarded on that front for her to try anything. His focus being diverted towards her had let Tsuna strike, so in the end the Poison Cooking hissing and smoking in the dirt had been helpful.
Something he never thought he'd ever think. The smell was making him sick even now.
"We can go back to Namimori now," said Reborn, when the loud clang of the metal ball drew their attention.
It could have been the ball rolling off or moving due to balance issues or gravity or something giving way.
Or, it could have been that the man who was thrown back with it still looked ready to fight.
"No more playing with balls," he said coolly, and tossed the metal ball far up into the sky, like it weighed less than a baseball.
While the massive weapon fought the laws of gravity in its flight, Rokudo Mukuro rushed him, and in the blink of an eye he was there, a fist flying in a blur.
"My specialty-" he grunted as he struck Tsuna, breaking the guard he raised instinctively with a single blow, "is hand-to-hand combat!"
A knee kick to the face nearly knocked him unconscious, and Tsuna almost flew backwards.
Almost. A hard hand grabbed him by his neck and slammed him into the ground. Tsuna felt his back break the ground and create a crater, and above his head, the metal ball that lost its fight with gravity was beginning to fall. It would land on top of him, and combined with the weight and the momentum, he would be crushed.
Mukuro, rather than deal the finishing blow with his own hand, instead closed his eyes and turned away, as if he was a mourner in silent tribute at a funeral.
That was his mistake – to act as if Tsuna was dead already.
Because Tsuna was alive, and rather than die, he was going to use that energy to fight to live. To win.
He caught the ball, despite its heavy weight, and didn't let it crush him to death. The weight still threatened to do that, so he did the only thing he could do to fight that fate and shoved the ball aside and rested his arm on the grooved surface.
"Impossible," breathed Mukuro. "What kind of a monster . . . ."
His nose was bleeding, his face was swollen, and his entire body, though pumped up on adrenaline, would be seriously sore as soon as he relaxed.
And yet the first thing he had to choose to do was say something.
"You're not that evil a person," Tsuna said through a bloody mouth. He swallowed, because the saliva and blood were making him mumble.
But Mukuro had sharp ears, and it seemed that the words struck something within him. "What did you say?"
"That weak will of yours," he said slowly, words clearer now. "Could never defeat my Dying Will."
A storm brewed over his face, an earthquake rippled in his eyes, and Mukuro snarled like thunder in the distance. "'Will'? Don't speak of things you don't understand – you know nothing about me! Killing you is my will!"
It was a frustrated shout, an emotional scream dragged up from the gut and heart, and Tsuna didn't believe his words at all. "You're lying!"
Roaring at each other, they swung their fists towards each other. His previously sharp, focused, deadly blows were no more. Shaken at the core, affected by Tsuna's words, Mukuro's swing was wild, predictable, and most importantly – not fast or strong enough.
In a battle of resolves, with one side as shaken as Mukuro's was, and Tsuna fighting with the Dying Will, there was no competition.
Before Mukuro could hit him, Tsuna struck first, small size landing a blow on the center of his torso. With the dull sound of something breaking, Rokudo Mukuro coughed up blood, and his knee collapsed, unable to support the rest of the body in a standing position.
"How . . ." rasped Mukuro, blood wetting his words like Tsuna's had been, just moments ago. "How could I lose . . .?"
There wasn't any attachment towards victory in his voice, just stunned surprise. And that was the difference in their wills for this fight, because if the situation had been reversed Tsuna wouldn't do what he was doing right now.
"When you attacked, you closed your eye, and you didn't let your iron ball complete the finishing blow," Tsuna said. That was what had been odd about the way Rokudo Mukuro fought – the hesitation, the reluctance.
The guilt, causing conflict within his heart.
The Flame began to fizzle out, but Tsuna couldn't stop speaking, because he had to get the words out. "I thought it was strange, the first time I saw you. It felt more like – like this kid we have at home. I didn't feel any fear towards you."
It was weird, that seeing a tall man swinging a weapon as large as that towards him wouldn't strike fear within him, but it was true. Once Mukuro was attacking Tsuna, not his friends, there wasn't the same feeling of being threatened.
Tsuna didn't mean it as an insult, but the amount of fear he felt towards him was about the same he had towards Lambo. It was a contradiction he saw, between the person responsible for the mess going on in Namimori – attacking innocent student to get to him, hiring people like Birds and the Twins – and the person he fought.
Like how Lambo threw around grenades and said he was going to kill Reborn, but there was no real malice behind his actions. A mess, sure. A lot of chaos? Oh yeah.
Malice, though?
No.
And that was the same here.
Mukuro's eyes widened in surprise, but then, slowly, like spring melting the last of winter's snow, his lips curved into a faint, awkward smile, like he was trying it after a very long time and found it rusty.
Despite the clumsy attempt, it was genuine, and reached his eyes to light them softly.
"I admit defeat," he said, a relief filling him where there was once guilt, light where there was once a pit of emptiness. "No wonder Rokudo Mukuro is cautious about you."
Tsuna blinked.
"What?" Maybe his ears had broken during the fight. Maybe he just liked referring to himself in the third person. His heart stuttered in surprise. "Wait, you're Rokudo Mukuro, aren't you?"
But even as he asked, Tsuna felt his instincts deny that, and it didn't fit, the story Reborn told him and the man he saw with his eyes right now –
"I'm a fake," confirmed his former opponent.
Except, as he explained how he had come to be the fake Rokudo Mukuro, Tsuna realized with dawning horror that he was more than just a fake, he was a victim. It was more than just beating up students from his school that Rokudo Mukuro was guilty of, it was so much more.
"That's not something a human could do," Tsuna mumbled. That wasn't something anyone should have had to undergo. That wasn't something anyone should do to anyone.
All that – for what?
"Listen to me, Vongola," said the man, urgency stained with pain and exhaustion. His breath was heavy, but there was a greater will to him now, to push himself to continue speaking through his injuries, than there had been when they were fighting. "Mukuro's real objective is – move!"
A hard shove to his chest threw Tsuna off his balance, and he landed hard on his butt. The pain that shot through his spinal cord nearly blinded his sight for a moment with tears, but he still saw a black blur move above him.
Not threateningly – but protectively.
When his sight cleared, the man collapsed onto his back, dropping like a lifeless body. On his left chest and shoulders, needles pierced his skin – needles that would have hit Tsuna, if he hadn't pushed Tsuna out of the way and covered him with his own body.
For the second time today, someone pushed him out of becoming a dead hedgehog in exchange for becoming injured.
"Are you alright?!" That Tsuna couldn't even call the name of the person who saved him at risk of his own life was even worse.
There was still breath in him, but the words he spoke were faint. "What a terrible life I've had . . . ."
This wasn't right. This wasn't how he should go, used as a killing machine and controlled to do terrible things until his use ran out and he was disposed of. This wasn't fair.
But there was nothing Tsuna could do, except –
"Tell me your name! Your real name!"
For a moment it looked like he would never know the man who had everything, even his name stolen from him, but his lips moved. ". . . Lancia . . ."
It was a foreign name, of course, but Tsuna called it, the only thing he could ask of the man who saved his life when he was in a far worse situation. "Hang on, Lancia-san!"
Mumbling something in Italian, Lancia smiled faintly, and his eye slid shut.
There was still something to be said about the acumen of the Vongola Nono, Mukuro considered, in that liminal state where he had two perspectives – from his own body, hidden in the shadows behind a faint illusion, and from the eyes of Futa de la Stella, who he was controlling. Such an odd, overlapping perspective would have led to insanity for some, but for Mukuro it was manageable.
(It was a little too late to be careful about madness, anyways.)
For all that Sawada Tsunayoshi seemed a meek, powerless civilian boy, he had proven he wasn't by fighting Lancia and surviving. If raw power wouldn't do the job, then a different approach would be better.
Mukuro moved the ranking prince's body and stabbed the Poison Scorpion, completing the contract. The look of deep relief on the Vongola Decimo's face quickly changed to that of horror and disbelief.
It was almost amusing, he thought, watching Sawada Tsunayoshi duck and dodge the trident's tips while still wearing the same look.
"What's wrong with you?!" he pleaded to a puppet attacking him. "Put that down, it's dangerous!"
Yes, he did have to admit he had been wrong in his assumptions. This boy was nowhere near the cruel, heartless monster he'd expected.
The admission, made only to himself, changed nothing. At the end of the day it didn't matter, what kind of a person Sawada Tsunayoshi was.
He was still a human, still a part of the filth that was the mafia, still a part of this world that was the worst of all the hells.
There were no exceptions.
"His mind is being controlled," the Arcobaleno said.
That meant little to Sawada Tsunayoshi, and perhaps he didn't fully understand the implications. He continued to plead to Futa, though this time he begged the boy to 'wake up'. As if it was such an easy thing to do, breaking free from his control, from Hell.
The Arcobaleno stepped in, acting as indirectly as the Vongola Decimo had said, and pushed the whip he used to pull his student out of the way into his hands.
"Do whatever you want," he said in reply to his student's shouting. "If you don't fight, you'll die."
Like how the sisters of the little mermaid pushed the dagger into the doomed woman's hands and told her how she could preserve her life at the blood of the callous man's, the Arcobaleno told the student he should turn the whip on the poor child whose only crime was being useful.
And the youngest princess raised the dagger but threw it aside at the last moment, unable to stab the sleeping prince.
"My opponent is Futa! How could I possibly fight him?!"
In the fairy tale, the mermaid chose to throw the dagger and herself into the ocean, just as the sun rose and turned her into seafoam.
This was reality, where the concept of self-sacrifice for something like love belonged in fairy tales. If push came to shove, and his life was truly threatened, what would the former civilian choose?
What was his price, to struggle to keep hold of the worthless thing that was his life?
Mukuro chuckled and asked, genuinely curious. "What will you do now, Vongola Decimo?"
His words seemed to strike something in him – and Sawada Tsunayoshi, whip in hand in a way that suggested he had no idea how to wield it properly, rushed towards Mukuro.
Not bad, but not enough. Futa's body moved under his command, chasing after Sawada Tsunayoshi. The chase lit him up with more determination, and with a determined cry he swung the whip towards Mukuro.
From the first move, even as someone who didn't use the whip as a weapon, Mukuro could see the inevitable failure. Somehow, almost impressively, Sawada Tsunayoshi ended up striking himself in the eye, wrapping up his legs, and falling over like a scene in some slapstick comedy.
"You're full of surprises, aren't you?" And he was, truly. Mukuro would give him that.
It just wouldn't be enough, in the end. "Watch out, behind you."
Futa de la Stella's body was also tangled up by the whip, perhaps proving that good and bad luck came hand in hand. It restricted the movement of his body, but if one couldn't walk, crawling was also a possibility.
The ranking prince grabbed the trident and raised it over his head to stab the Vongola Decimo, a hero in a world written as repeating tragedies.
Rather than dodge, or attack, or even scream, he did something unexpected.
"It's not your fault."
Sawada Tsunayoshi's voice was no longer panicked. It was still worried, and disgustingly so, but it was heartfelt. Mukuro focused the ranking prince's sight on his face, and found no trace of falsehood in it. Sawada Tsunayoshi truly meant what he said – that it wasn't the ranking prince's fault.
And Futa de la Stella, physically weak but mentally determined enough to close off a part of his heart from even Mukuro's reach, froze.
The vision he saw through the perspective of the Ranking Prince wavered, like a reflection on the surface of water being broken by the toss of a stone.
"None of it is your fault," the Vongola Decimo continued, not even raising a hand to take advantage of the enemy's frozen state. "We're all on Futa's side. You don't have to worry about a thing. Come back home with us."
(What pretty words – as if there was anyone in this world that was free of fault or sin.)
Through the wavering, broken vision of two different and not-fully-stable viewpoints merged together Mukuro saw the ranking prince grabbing at his head with the hand not clutching the trident, and the action was not something Mukuro ordered.
In the clash of wills, Mukuro had lost. He released Futa de la Stella from his control, and whatever composure had seized the Vongola Decimo evaporated as the young boy collapsed and fell unconscious. It could also have been the blood from his nose and ears that pushed him into panic.
"I believe he hasn't slept at all in these last few days," Mukuro recounted, as his vision cleared. If anything, there was the due respect he had to pay to the boy. Fragile in body, but not in heart. Mukuro of all people knew just how difficult such a feat like the one he accomplished was.
He would pay that respect by letting Sawada Tsunayoshi know of Futa de la Stella's devotion to him shortly before he possessed his body.
"We came to Japan to find the whereabouts of the Vongola Decimo but lacked a specific location."
And all of Japan was too big a place to search from top to bottom without a clue.
How fortuitous for them, then, that they also learned of the ranking prince's whereabouts as well. The ranking prince had no associated family, because by the nature of his powers he was too wanted, but also too dangerous. Being seen with the Vongola's men meant the young merchant of information had at last chosen a place to control him.
And with the Vongola holding his reins, Futa de la Stella would have information about them by the necessary closeness.
Mukuro was correct. Futa de la Stella did have information about the Vongola Decimo. The payload, however, was beyond reach now and forever because he was far more loyal than Mukuro had expected.
"We caught him, but he invoked the omertà and refused to speak, even going to the length of closing off his heart and losing his ranking abilities."
Admirable. But, at the end of the day, not enough to stop him. If one path was blocked, then he would simply have to go through whatever tried to stop him or make another way.
(Six paths and yet not even one led outside of an abyss of despair, the hells that existed in this wretched cycle.)
"Our plan was a success," he said. "The Vongola Decimo, here right before me, is proof of that."
"How could you do this to Futa . . .?" The Vongola Decimo didn't seem interested in any of the devotion or the plan Mukuro explained to him. His focus was on one thing, as he finally turned around to face him.
"Rokudo Mukuro!" he shouted. "What do you think people are?!"
He wasn't really in the mood for a philosophical discussion explaining to Sawada Tsunayoshi the wretched evils of mankind's very nature. He didn't expect for someone who didn't know true suffering to ever see past the false blanket of security he had grown accustomed to, not until the Maginot Line was broken by the harsh assault of reality, the reality that was actual hell.
(How many times had he died on that cold, sterile table, the metal surface dirtied only by his own blood? How many times had he seen the glimpses of hell, known things of lives that was not his own until he was lost?
Six? Only six?
No. One was too many times to go through such a thing, and six –
Six was enough to create a monster who didn't see a difference between hell and reality, because they were one and the same.
Enlightened to, not from suffering, Rokudo Mukuro was born from the corpse that had walked the six paths, and he knew the truth – that humans, and the path of humans, made up the worst hell.
The right eye that could call up the hell he'd seen for himself, the power he gained after his repeated trips to Hades, was proof of that.)
A simple answer, then.
"Toys, I suppose." Not that he had much experience playing with actual toys, but Mukuro assumed that was the approximate feeling he had towards others. It would be for the best if those that he used weren't broken, but if they were, then they could be replaced. One day, when he was ready, he would have no more need of them and discard his toys.
Simple.
"Damn you, you bastard!"
Time for the invasion to breach the Maginot Line, then.
Slipping into the path of the Asura, Mukuro met the Vongola Decimo's attack with his own.
A mere human could never hope to last against the assault of a battle-hungry asura. Sawada Tsunayoshi fell to his knees, clutching at his wounded body, confused on what had caused him all the pain and injuries in one single moment.
"What's the matter?" Mukuro asked slowly, as if he didn't know perfectly well why.
But cursed to be infants as they were, the Arcobaleno were truly impressive, and no mere humans. "He unleashed an onslaught of strikes the instant he passed by you."
"Very good, Arcobaleno," praised Mukuro, picking up the three-pronged spearhead and attaching it to the pole, completing his trident. "That's exactly it."
Feeling magnanimous, Mukuro explained to the boy that could see the aura in his right eye. "This is the aura of the fourth path, the realm of the Asuras. It gives me great skill in hand-to-hand combat."
"The path . . . of Asuras?"
Perhaps it was too much to expect for him to keep up. "Do you know of the six paths of reincarnation?"
The lack of recognition in his future puppet didn't disappoint him, or please him. What was he supposed to have felt, if he expected nothing from the start?
The Arcobaleno, however, answered. "The cycle of death and rebirth, you mean? The realms of hell, hungry ghosts, beasts, asuras, humans and devas."
"Correct. As with all souls in the cycle of death and rebirth, mine has been through all six. The difference is that unlike most, I have all six paths of Hades engraved into my memory."
(Painstakingly carved into him, into his skin and veins and bones. The memory of his deaths that melted together in the inferno of hell flames, the living proof that life was worthless, that humanity was vile and hellish.)
"What . . . are you saying?"
It was neither fortunate nor unfortunate that intelligence wasn't a field Mukuro required of his soon-to-be flesh suit. If he was intelligent enough to understand, the horror was realized as soon as Mukuro spoke. If not, Mukuro could spare the patience to explain and watch the horror dawn on his face.
Both were fine options that would eclipse the light of hope in his eyes with despair.
"If that's true," said the cursed baby, somber as the clothes he wore. "Then you really are a monster."
His mentor was a little better than Sawada Tsunayoshi himself was, in that regard, even if a little hypocritical. "You're in no position to talk of monsters, cursed baby of the Arcobaleno."
(But he did not deny it. He was, after all, the monster in the most terrible of all the hells, about to cleanse it with blood and fire.)
AN: Mukuro is one of the two edgy characters that's difficult to write and the whole time I thought my hands were going to shrivel up.
Originally my plan was to have Mukuro have remembered five previous lives, with this one being the sixth, like I did with Saturnine. The other five lives would have been short and miserable and painful and he wouldn't have remembered much from them except that he died in suffering.
But then I decided I wanted to take it a different way.
So here instead of having been a beast, a hungry ghost, a deva, a soul in hell, and an asura or whatever, Mukuro is a human guy who has been through experiments, with fragmented but traumatic memories of having seen the different parts of the samsara. Essentially while he was on the table, the experiments and the near-death experiences pushed his soul into 'flashes' of its past, and got him to witness the samsara / six realms. Through the experiments of the Estraneo he nearly died six times, and on the sixth 'revival' his powers came to be, and he massacred the Estraneo, hence, 'six lives'.
It's like in shows when people on the surgical table or in a coma are having the dream where they see their dead loved ones (wife, father, friend, whatever) and they talk and are healed, before the loved one tells them to go towards the light or get on the train or leave the otherwise empty movie theatre where they just saw their life because it's not yet time for the protag to join them, and then their heart starts beating again or they wake up. Except with Mukuro it wasn't nearly as nice an experience, and it was just as bad when he was resuscitated.
TL; DR: Mukuro doesn't remember 'six lives', per say. He remembers some but not all memories from his previous lives, mostly of suffering, and glimpses into hell, but he nearly died (did die, in a way) five times, and was revived six times. That was more than enough to change his sense of identity forever. Whoever the quiet boy before the experiments was, he does not exist now.
+ﾟ*｡:ﾟ+
Sweet Dreams~