" One last thing ," he says, pushing the idea away.

He pulls her sideways now, searching for the seam, if it's there. He finds it, and they slip in. There's names and names for it, conceptions and misconceptions. Mukuro hasn't honestly been in many. The mental-physical representation of someone's memories, for them to recall by navigating to - a method of loci, a memory journey, a mind palace, a Roman Room. Mukuro still can't really access the memories himself. His presence does not prompt the reconstruction, this is not his mind. If Sawada was here, he might beable to promt memories by asking questions and watching the reaction, but he's not. Besides, Mukuro's always found it interesting to see what people build to associate the world with.

And Mukuro opens his eyes to find himself in the Don's bedroom in the Vongola Mansion. It takes him a moment to recognize it. The furniture has changed somewhat - a couple new pieces, and the ones he remembers look even older than they had already been. New sheets. New curtains. It's been thirty something years, a lifetime, and a death, since he's seen the room, so he thinks the time it takes is very reasonable. And besides that, he'd been distracted at the time by the birth of his great-grandson. He looks around slowly.

Beside him, the girl's brows are furrowed. "But he's Japanese," she mumbles.

Mukuro thinks . . . everyone knows that whatever heir Timoteo found wasn't within the Vongola. And Reborn was so concerned about Sawada that he pulled Mukuro in, there's no way he would have taken Sawada anywhere near Vongola's main operations where a possessing spy might steal valuable information, let alone the Don's room.

Mukuro's eyes linger on the bedpost. Then he lowers himself down to lay on the ground and checks the underside of the foot board, ignoring the girl's protests as he drags her with him.. There, staring back at him, is the crude carving of a lion he'd done almost two hundred years ago, bored as he waited for his grandfather. It's not the kind of thing you'd learn about from a picture of the room.

The room shifts slightly, gaining life. The quality of the light on the floor changes, the light on the floor changes, no longer coming from a still image outside the window.

Mukuro scrambles hurriedly back to his feet, and stares at the man pushing himself upright in the bed. Then the image flickers, and he's a child, maybe five years old. Then the image flickers, and it's Sawada as Mukuro had met him. The image flickers, but stays this time, though it keeps flickering in and out like static.

Sawada looks tiny, practically buried under the sheets, even though the bed truly isn't all that large. The way he hunches in on himself doesn't help.

Mukuro watches as his fingers brush across the sheets and the quilt on his lap. He can't tell what memories Sawada is experiencing, looking where he does.

He looks up. "Mukuro. Chrome."

He says Chrome with a Japanese accent, adding vowels. Ku-ro-mu . Like that, it sounds a little like Mukuro's name, with all the same syllables. It makes Mukuro want to shift nervously. He doesn't like coincidences.

"It's Chrome," the girl says, sound firm. Or desperate. Or lost. She says chrome more in the Italian way, though she doesn't quite manage the double consonant combination of 'cr'. Ku-ro-mo . "That's how you- that's my name."

"Chrome," Sawada says again. Or rather, kro-mo . The Italian way, no trouble with the 'cr'. His tone makes Mukuro pause and look at him more carefully. He sounds bland, exhausted.

"Yes," Chrome says. "Like that."

"Did you want to find something?" Sawada asks. It's not the same blankness from before, when he'd walked into the examination room. "I know places like this aren't very useful without me here."

"How do you know this place?" Mukuro asks.

"Reborn showed me a picture," Sawada says. He's the kind of blank that comes with overuse of Flames. An emotional exhaustion, usually followed by depression if not managed carefully.

Mukuro thinks about the lion.

Mukuro wonders if Sawada really expects him to believe that. Even if the lion hadn't been there, it would have been suspicious. Why choose a space that he couldn't possibly be familiar with? Why choose a space he could have known about for a month at the maximum?

Sawada's not possessed by definition - there's no one else lurking around in his mind. He's apparently got the same flames on average as other 'Sawada Tsunayoshi's across dimensions if the current holder of the Mare Sky Ring is to believed. He's got the Vongola Hyper Intuition - which Mukuro knows only works for the person its intended to work for.

But something is wrong with Sawada, and it makes Mukuro wary.

And Sawada sees right through him, his Hyper Intuition ticking away. "You don't like me," he says. And it's clear that he's making an effort here, he manages to force some life into his voice, if only to make it sad, and he managed to pull his mouth into a painfully acted frown.

"You're kind of creepy," Mukuro says lightly.

Sawada blinks at him, then makes a noise that would have been a laugh if he hadn't still been so blank.

"That's a first," he says.

Mukuro remembers the man who'd been the first to appear on the bed.

"Who do you remember being?" he asks, because that might be the answer. Sawada's mind is set up wrong for what he should be, this room shows that he remembers things he should not. Mukuro died and he died and he died, and he got a life for each death. He knows it doesn't happen to everyone - in the same way that Vongola's manifestation of Dying Flames doesn't happen to every desperate, willing soul, ready to put their life on the life for something. but there's always a chance of something similar - new magic has to come into the world somehow.

"Oh, Mukuro," Sawada says, and he's still blank, all Flame exhaustion, but this time he managed a flicker of genuine warmth for a moment. Chrome is clutching his hard hard enough that he'd be worried about her breaking it like his wife had once while giving birth. "I only remember ever being Sawada Tsunayoshi. I'm sorry."

"Don't say that," Mukuro snaps, pushing down the hurt that wells up. He'd only thought it for a minute, it's stupid for him to feel anything about the denial. "Is there anything you want to show us?"

"I don't have to go," Chrome says quickly. "I could-"

"You're not ready yet," Sawada says to her. Then he holds out his hand. A flickering fire forms over his palm, and Mukuro's eyes catch again on the scar on his wrist and along his arm, the scar he'd noticed earlier in the real world.

And Mukuro feels .

He takes a deep breath, trying to pull his attention back to Sawada, but for a long moment all he can hear is static. For a long moment all he can think is that they're really ruining this boy.

What would you die for? everyone must be asking him, but Sawada obviously already knows the answer to that. They really don't need to give him more reasons.

The phrase is shorthand, backwards logic when what they really need is to keep him alive.

What do you live for? he wants to ask. What will you fight to keep living for?

He'll tell the Mare Sky Ring holder when he gets out.

But for now . . .

"Here," Sawada says. "It's a memory."

"Are you sure you want to share it?"

"It's for you," Sawada just says "For both of you."

Chrome moves their linked hands, pulling him around to the side of the bed to reach, and Mukuro lets her, for all his apprehension.

It brings him to his knees, even though the filter of someone else's mind and body.

There's so much trust in the memory. So much warmth and love.

Mukuro's gasping when he surfaces, and he feels wrong, feels like he's intruding, feels like he just witnessed something . . .

Chrome's hand in his stops him like a planet's gravity tethering a moon close. And in this metaphor, Sawada is the Sun she's leaning towards.

"Why would you show me that?" Mukuro asks, gasping. He grabs Chrome's shoulder with his free hand and ducks down, utterly shameless in hiding.

"It's yours ," Sawada says. "For both of you."

Chrome's hand tightens again, but then she turns and looks down at him.

"For both of us?" she asks.

"Yes. Sorry."

Mukuro flees Sawada's mind.

He dumps himself back into his body in a rush, and nearly has a panic attack at the state of his defenses before he realizes he's in the wrong body and he pours himself out and back into his body.

And Chome is in there too, past all of his defenses and examining his fingers because he'd been dragging her along.

He nearly has a panic attack over that before she gently extracts herself and settles back into her body.

"He's not possessed," Mukuro says, refusing to look at Sawada, because for all the . . . the everything, that's at least true. He's swaying a little, but that doesn't stop him from shouldering open the door and rushing away from the hospital room. He doesn't stop moving until he's huddled in Lancia's shadow where he's standing, keeping an eye on people in one of the outdoor food courts.

"Kid?" Lancia asks when he notices him almost an hour later. "What's wrong? I haven't seen you like this since I picked you up. Didn't you have-" He pauses. "Did Vongola-"

"No!" Mukuro says quickly, because he's not actually trying to start an inner-Mafia war at this point in time. "No. Just. Can I stay with you for a bit?"

Lancia smiles and reaches out to ruffle his hair, though the concern lingers in his eyes. "Of course!"