Chapter Twenty-Two : in the absence of breath
This time when Tsunayoshi wakes up, it's to a ridiculously opulent room and bed, instead of being hidden away in a corner in some kind of office. His heart jumps and races like a rabbit trapped behind bars while a dog snaps and snarls and bites that cage, trying to chew into it and rip him into nothing but blood and fur. His hands sweat. His limbs shake. The vastness of the bed terrifies him for a moment - the utter certainty of being a frail child and struggling so hard to make it through every day while unseen shadows lurk and threaten him and his friends and family in ways he couldn't begin to understand.
Turning his arm, he stares at the familiar needle marks in his arms. There are only a few, but it's a pattern that he's seen before. How could he have seen them before? He-
He forces his panting breath to slow, sucking in as deep of breaths as he can and holding them until he can't, and the next breath comes deeper. Tsunayoshi flings the blankets and sheets back and rakes his shaking hands through his hair, and with every quivering breath he takes: that ember inside him that never extinguishes like a guidelight on a cooking range: it begins to kindle and spread fire and light and certainty through his bones until finally quiet and conviction soothe his frantic thoughts.
That's a bit strange, isn't it, though? Shouldn't his head be aching and his stomach clenching in the face of it? Shioya's breathing exercises - every time he's had to use them to calm himself down, they've always made him crushingly sick in return. Actually, come to think of it: Tsunayoshi feels kind of great regardless of his weakened state. Without his fears clouding it, he can tell that his ability to think has gotten a bit more streamlined. He feels - warm.
Not unusually so - or yes: unusually so in that Tsunayoshi only rarely feels like this. Feels truly comfortable inside his own skin. He'd thought until now that the only way to feel anything was to burn alive.
Judging from the state of his body, his conditioning has slipped somewhat, but - ahh, that's to be expected, isn't it? That guy with the milkspill hair had tried to warn him, to let him know. Tsunayoshi is no longer trapped in some kind of hellspace where he's thirteen again and being chased through the streets of Namimori - he can say this with confidence. There had been a slight uncanniness to the dreaming that he'd slowly become aware of, and besides: he hadn't been thirteen at the time of Nerina's Sports Festival in real life.
But like in a dream, going a year and a half without celebrating anyone's birthdays hadn't seemed like an odd thing. As if Haru or Takeshi would have ever left it at that! They've celebrated every year: everyone's birthday without fail, although Tsunayoshi had always been made the delivery person when it came time for Kyoya's.
He still doesn't remember being abducted, though. 'Other worlds' - huh? Well, meeting another person with his name and some uncannily familiar mannerisms is pretty strange, but that person had been oddly transparent. Not 'incapable of duplicity' but 'flying in the face of it'… maybe.
He can only hope that everyone behaves themselves while he's gone and don't come running in after him like a bunch of troublesome idiots. Although of course they will. And Kyoya will bite him to death for being an idiot who can't even rescue himself.
"It shouldn't count if I'm being used as an escape route, though," Tsunayoshi says, shifting to sit on the edge of the bed. Amazing. He doesn't even feel weak - it feels like of course his legs will hold him, no matter what. Although he won't be kicking anyone in the face soon. Everyone will be disappointed about his conditioning for sure. He'll have to work hard to become the kind of person that can continue surviving on his own again.
Ah, no, wait: 'used as an escape route' - why had he thought that? No, hadn't he thought something similar the first time he woke up, all dizzy and sick with whatever sleeping aids or drugs that he'd been kept sleeping with? It's just that the guy with white hair had made such a big thing about meeting someone, and even called that guy by that nickname before Zunetto even have a chance to say it himself. And Zunetto was the one who got Tsunayoshi out, so. That had been the feeling he had about the whole thing.
So are they saved, he wonders? It'll trouble him if they're not.
He's not some helpless thirteen year old kid, and the ember inside his chest that refuses to be put out: it crackles and dances along his carbon bones. He swore to become a kami once - not at the time that he'd felt like this: but the current seventeen-year-old him who had been forced to look back at the stressful, scary things he'd had to face when he was a kid, all by himself. The person he is now had been looking back at then and decided at that point: if the situation is impossible to survive as a human being, then surpassing that- or failing that, and becoming inhuman, that's fine.
There were so many things about his youth that he'd wanted to forget about.
People aren't bonsai, content to be trimmed and forced to grow into certain, squat shapes for other people's amusement, and they're certainly not finely burned bits of charcoal to be used as fuel for machines, either. Whatever terrible purpose 'she' had to do that thing to him that had caused him to suffer like that - 'she' had done that same thing to the guy with the white hair, and to that little girl, that child, hadn't 'she.'
Something like that is unforgivable. Becoming 'capable of anything' for those children's sake - well, they're all comrades in this anyway. Tsunayoshi can be good for this, at least.
First thing first, though: Tsunayoshi smothers his hand over his uncomfortably hot breastbone, looking around the room. It's still as opulent as ever, although there isn't much furniture: the bed that he's sitting on, with a nightstand beside it. He wishes there were a glass of water waiting there, maybe an aspirin. A chest of drawers. A painting of some kind of rolling countryside, with some kind of crops, although Tsunayoshi isn't familiar enough with farming to say with any confidence what it is. A table with some chairs, as if it was expected for whomever had these quarters to have visitors to entertain in their bedroom, or - possibly a place for everyone to wait while someone slept, sick in bed?
Tsunayoshi remembers that the inferno inside him had subsumed him, but hadn't there been - something?
Obviously, his attempts at taking retribution had been halted, but - if the current reality isn't a dream (and it's not, he knows it's not, he won't ever be fooled by a dream ever again) and this obviously isn't the facility where he woke up last… then where is he, and with whom?
Whoever it was dressed him in some pretty fine pajamas, he notes. Cotton, but soft, and not from age and wear like his sleepwear at home. Tsunayoshi resists the urge to be embarrassed about it, given the fact that he's fairly certain that the guy who resembles him had taken him out of that hospital gown that matched the one he always saw the white haired boy in, and put him in those medical scrubs. As he expected, his legs hold him without complaint as he stands. There aren't any windows in this room, and though there's another doorway, Tsunayoshi chooses the one that he suspects leads to a hallway.
He doesn't quite hold his breath when he tries the knob, but some kind of tension eases when it turns without resistance in his hand and the door opens onto the hallway he expected. So. Not tied down, not sedated, and not even locked into the room he was left alone in.
Either he's in the grasps of someone truly unpleasant, or somehow he's managed to catch a break.
Tsunayoshi pauses as he steps into the hallway, shutting the door carefully behind him. There's the distant sound of angry shouting, but he makes note first of the fact that there aren't any windows on this hallway at all, although it's lined with doors. This kind of place… it's a lot like the Tomaso residence, isn't it? It has a very similar style and aesthetic. So this must be some kind of resident wing.
He thinks briefly of Naito Longchamp and the wing that isn't shared with anyone else, so Naito had gradually taken up all of the rooms and filled them with this and that and made Tsunayoshi heart hurt for some reason. Naito isn't the kind of person who'll die if left alone, but Tsunayoshi is well aware that his own friends have a difficult time being around him. Hopefully he hasn't been lonely.
As for that shouting… Tsunayoshi looks that direction, listening for a moment. Although it sounds angry, it's hardly urgent; or at least that's not the feeling he gets. Still, it sounds a bit familiar. Ah - that's right. It sounds like that him from another world. That's the sound of his voice, and that language he'd first tried speaking to Tsunayoshi. Italian, right? Tsunayoshi has heard it from time to time. It's not uncommon in Namimori, although everyone more or less behaves themselves and appropriately speaks Japanese as they should.
Ahh. He probably should have tried picking that up, but for a kid like him who can't even string together a single sentence in English?
Instead of investigating that immediately, Tsunayoshi takes a moment to check the nearby rooms, which are also unlocked. They're all a match to his room, and they all lack windows, too. So. There's not an easy escape route, even though Tsunayoshi isn't inclined to try running away quite yet. Just recklessly doing that when he doesn't know the situation… of course he can't.
There's still that matter of the white haired boy and that child to see to, after all.
The shouting is louder already, and not quite as one-sided as it had sounded from further away where the room Tsunayoshi had woken up in is. Tsunayoshi can hear that someone is snarling replies right back, with a deeper, harsher voice than the higher, sharper quality that Zunetto has. Even at seventeen, Tsunayoshi's voice hasn't gotten very deep, he reflects wryly. It suits his purposes from time to time, but…
The larger part of Tsunayoshi would prefer not to open the doorway into whatever lobby it was that those two are arguing in, but - well. He can't stay here forever. The sooner he has the lay of the land, the sooner he can address the matter of those comrades of his, and get back to his household; hopefully before any of them commit to anything dangerous. The heat in his bones stills the tremor of his hand, and so Tsunayoshi turns the knob and slowly cracks the door open, peering through the gap.
Wow, he thinks first: the hallway and rooms he came from are nice, but this lobby? It's a little - ah. Unreasonable in its excess. Although more important than the room design, as dazzling as it is, are the people in that lobby. There are the two who are arguing in vicious Italian, of course - that's almost escalated into a physical disagreement. Some boy with black hair and red eyes that literally snap red like Hibari Ikumi's eyes do has Tsunayoshi's look-alike by the collar of his shirt. Unlike himself, those two and the blond boy they seem to be fighting thanks to, are dressed in day clothes - pants and shoes and button up shirts. It's only barely not a servant's uniform, isn't it? It lacks the finishing touches of that.
Across the room, there's an adult man who looks way too much like the blond boy for it to be pure coincidence, considering Zunetto. He's dressed in expensive, fashionable clothing - or at least, Tsunayoshi suspects it's fashionable somewhere. It's not fashionable for Namimori, though Tsunayoshi imagines that his long legs and exotic looks would draw plenty of positive attention regardless. There's a seven year old kid beside him, who looks like a perfect little doll made out of flesh and bone, dressed to the nines in a a schoolboy uniform that could have come out of some kind of questionable comic.
Sitting at a table at the opposite side of the lobby is a man, tall and lanky and exhausted, with heavy bags beneath his eyes that aren't quite hidden by his glasses, and dark hair that shimmers green like a duck's feathers. He's wearing a white lab coat. He's the one that notices Tsunayoshi first - or the one that acknowledges him first, anyway.
"Hey, you," he says, sitting up slightly and losing some of the weary irritation he'd directed at the two bickering boys in the center of the room. "What are you doing on your feet, you troublesome little monster? You owe me a free examination."
Of everything that Tsunayoshi imagined might be aimed his direction, that hadn't even appeared anywhere near the list. "Eh?" he says, caught flat footed. Come to think of it - doesn't he recognize this guy a little bit? Isn't he the slightest bit familiar?
"Nayo!"
Tsunayoshi is still blinking in shock at his reception when Zunetto carelessly shoves his opponent away, staggering him as he hurries over, hands already thrust forward as if Tsunayoshi will topple over at any minute. Tsunayoshi kind of remembers something to explain that kind of reaction, but - he feels fine now?
At the last second, Zunetto seems to manage to get his initial reaction under control and doesn't actually grab him or anything. He comes to a stop just a step too close and seems to vibrate in place, wringing his hands and peering down at Tsunayoshi with wide brown eyes. "You shouldn't be up yet," he says anxiously. "After everything that happened at that facility-!"
It's so much like Haru getting in his face about something that Tsunayoshi already has his hands splayed out and is saying, "I'm fine, I'm fine," soothingly before he can think twice about it. The tremble threatens to come back into his hands, so he breathes to fan the flames that will steady them, held out on display the way they are. "Sorry that I worried you over something like that," he adds with a smile to distract from it. "Flipping out so easily… I guess I still crack easily under the slightest bit of stress."
The look that Zunetto gives him is a bit complicated and disbelieving. Tsunayoshi isn't sure why. He saw the same things that Tsunayoshi did. What the hell was Tsunayoshi trying to prove by losing his cool so dramatically? He can't just blow up and expect to achieve anything the way he had as a child. The drugs and those memories must have really messed with his head.
Still - in this scary situation, not knowing where he is or whom he's with and for what reasons… the way that Zunetto has come to his side again: it definitely gives the feeling that Tsunayoshi can at least rely on him, no matter how comfortable he is in the presence of these other people that Tsunayoshi doesn't know. Being under their eyes is making his stomach cramp a bit, but it's such a minor discomfort compared to his usual episodes that it's easy to ignore.
"Even though it's a bit unexpected," the older blond says, looking at Tsunayoshi with a surprisingly gentle expression, "it's good to see that you're well! There was some question about that."
"Don't dismiss it as a done deal," the man with dark hair says, a bit sharply. "Just because he's stable for now doesn't mean that it'll stay that way. Hey. I said to come here." He points expectantly to the floor beside where his feet are carelessly sprawled. However exhausted or drained that he seems to be otherwise, his eyes are sharp and alert enough to be troublesome as he looks at Tsunayoshi. "This is your doctor demanding your compliance."
"No way!" Zunetto barks, scowling at the man in the lab coat. In two steps, he has physically taken Tsunayoshi's side, going so far as to reach across him with his own arm the way Tsunayoshi himself might do with Haru, including the light touch to the far forearm as Tsunayoshi still has his hands up. As if such a blatant display of his loyalties was really required… although it does make Tsunayoshi feel a bit better. "After everything, you really expect to be trusted like that?"
"Ah," Tsunayoshi says at last, blinking at the man in the lab coat. "Weren't you - someone we met there in the halls?"
Only now that Zunetto is bristling that way against him does Tsunayoshi remember something like - he was burning inside, but the world beyond him was freezing, and then there had been a man and something like a clap of thunder. Or maybe a nuclear detonation, which had snuffed the greatest part of the inferno out, down to the unsteady flicker of the guidelight.
"You can't really call a knockout like that a 'meeting,'" the man scoffs. "You've been fighting below your weight class for so long that you never stood a chance. Now, come here. You owe me. If I hadn't gotten involved, you would have killed everyone in that place."
Brow pinching incredulously, he huffs "As if I could have," even as he thinks: so what if he'd had? It's true that his response had been a little ridiculous when there weren't any enemies standing right in front of him, but that had rather been the idea. Scum like that had definitely happily forfeited their right to live as human beings.
"I don't really understand," he adds, "but - if I could have done something like that, I wouldn't have been taken in the first place, I think. This isn't a movie where one person can just fight their way out, you know."
"And just where do you think the people making those movies got the idea?" the man in the laboratory coat says, unimpressed. "But in real life, recklessly slaughtering lackeys is something you have to answer to, you know? Or didn't you realize that there's no way that normal people could survive being stuck in that ice? What did you think happened to all those people you froze solid?"
Tsunayoshi says: "What?"
That's justified, he thinks, because what. What is this guy even trying to say, but - no one is looking at that man or reacting to what he's saying as if he's crazy or being nonsensical, no matter how exhausted he looks. What does he mean? What is he talking about, that it's such a reasonable thing to say, and-
But maybe it's not as crazy as that. Tsunayoshi's memories of that part, they're a little bit disoriented, but even Zunetto himself doesn't seem this man is really being all that unreasonable in asking something like that. And Tsunayoshi remembers then, that the inferno inside him? When he'd woken up, it was suddenly acting strange. And he certainly hadn't meant to overreact the way he had. And he remembers burning, but the world outside him was freezing, and-
He feels the blood drain out of his face, and the flames feeding on his bones flicker, and his hands begin to shake. "What are you talking about," he adds.
"Hey, let's stop," Zunetto says, suddenly anxious, and all Tsunayoshi can think is that he was right there beside him that time it happened. Even as Zunetto's hold makes a shift from shielding Tsunayoshi to becoming a bracing grip, he thinks: that must have been scary. To the others, Zunetto complains: "You think they could have done any of that without drugging everyone enough to keep an elephant down? That he was even as capable as he was is amazing, Verde! Expecting him to know or remember something like that-!"
"Ice?" Tsunayoshi's mouth says from a hundred miles away. He remembers something like that. Maybe. It doesn't make any sense though. "What are you talking about? I don't understand. What do you mean by 'froze solid?' How could I have - I really don't get it. Did I - did I break something?" He doesn't remember breaking anything, let alone something as dangerous as - what? Dry Ice, maybe? Were there pipes? Chemicals? He doesn't remember anything like that, or doing anything that could have-
There's something sharp and sneering said from the direction of that dark haired guy with the eyes like Ikumi's, and Zunetto protests sharply in Italian more to the room in general than to anyone in particular. It all filters in from a distance as Zunetto pulls him insistently away from the door and toward the chairs by the table Verde is at, while keeping himself between them.
"Are you okay? Are you sick?" he asks, awkward and urgent and frustrated with his own limited vocabulary made worse with worry. "Drink? Food?"
"It's not his health," the doll-like boy says, "he's in shock. Being accused of witchcraft by some stranger he's probably at the mercy of would do that."
"Witchcraft?" Tsunayoshi croaks, barely feeling the way his body falls into the chair. His fingers tingle as if thawing from some terrible cold in Zunetto's hands, although there's no ice. There's no ice. For the first time in Tsunayoshi's life, he thinks, he's not numb at the core of himself and so accustomed to it that he didn't realize to think it should be different, but he knows now. He knows, and the room looks strange - unreal, in a very different but no less upsetting way than the dreaming.
"Hey now, this is getting way out of hand," the blond man says, raising his hands. "No one is accusing anyone of witchcraft. There's no such thing as witchcraft in the first place. Have a little consideration for the person whom you're dealing with here."
Though he says that, the boy standing beside him coughs suspiciously, head dipped just so that the sailor hat falls over his face and hides his expression.
"That's a strange personality for the person I met in those halls," Verde says. He hasn't sat up so much as he's redirected his slouch over the edge of the table between them, remaining in his chair but still studying him closely. "There's no accounting for how you were raised, though. It's interesting."
What does how Tsunayoshi was raised have to do with somehow killing a lot of people on accident? What happens when he takes a knife or gun or something heavy in hand, that's a forgone conclusion whether anything happens or not, but he hadn't meant - but he doesn't even remember.
He doesn't remember, not clearly, but - all those people in that room? What about them? Isn't it there that he- turning his attention back to Zunetto, he says: "it wasn't suspended animation was it? Those people in the pods - that girl. Everyone is okay, right?"
Zunetto blinks down at him in surprise, and then his worried expression blossoms open into something gentle and a bit warm. "The others that were also taken? They were saved."
"Thank goodness," Tsunayoshi says faintly, and finally finds the strength to tighten his fingers around Zunetto's. Whatever he'd done when the inferno inside him had become him, he hadn't managed to do something as terrible as hurting anyone he hadn't meant to - or at least, anyone that inferno hadn't meant to, anyway. And - and Zunetto seems to be okay, so, maybe it's not an indiscriminate kind of thing. Or maybe Zunetto is just strong that way. "But - 'ice'?"
He looks to Verde then, though his glasses are reflecting the light in a way that keeps Tsunayoshi from being able to see his eyes clearly. "Perhaps I misspoke," he says, although the feeling that Tsunayoshi has is that he's not a person who is as imprecise as that regardless of his familiarity of the language he's speaking. "Still, for the sake of your health, an examination is paramount."
"I'm sure it's fine," Tsunayoshi immediately demurs. It's a mixture of things that keep him from correcting himself once it's out - he doesn't want to cause a bother, but also - he isn't confident of this person's intentions. He feels fine, anyway, and between old man Yamamoto and Shioya, he's experienced a wide array of different problems, so he fairly confident in his own assessment.
"It's against my ethics to leave it at that," he insists.
"You can trust Professor Verde," the boy in the questionable uniform chirps. "He has a doctorate."
Is Tsunayoshi really supposed to take health advice from a child? But it's quickly becoming awkward to refuse, with everyone leaning on him this way. He casts a look at Zunetto, who quickly bolsters his support.
"Don't worry, Nayo," he says earnestly. "I'll be here the entire time."
That's - well intended, but the opposite of what Tsunayoshi wanted from him. He's feels a bit more calm now that he's been promised that the others are okay, even though there's still this matter of the 'ice' that was mentioned a few times, and the alarming new way that awful mess inside his head and heart is behaving. Somehow he has some terrible worry that Verde will manage to sense something about it.
If anyone back home had been able to tell about the way he is, they were at least polite enough to speak around it in vague terms without causing him problems. He has it mostly in hand, anyway.
"Saying he has a doctorate is fine, and all, but," he hedges, "I still don't know who any of you people are, or what's going on."
"Ah, I see," the boy says, a bit smug and condescending; he doesn't quite clasp his hand over his mouth, but that's the manner of the gesture. "Some people are still cautious of a strange old man putting his hands on them."
What kind of alarming things is this child trying to say?!
If not for the artifice of the gesture, Tsunayoshi would be a lot more alarmed, but - he's really only noticing it now that this kid has a similar air to Fon, despite being at least a year younger since Fon must be eight by now. That, and the adult that the boy has been remaining beside has a look on his face as if he's being tormented, and not in a way that suggests that he's hiding something shameful. And somehow Tsunayoshi is pretty sure that something as despicable as that is far beneath that blond man's capacity to tolerate.
Zunetto doesn't get the message since he responds by unconsciously gripping Tsunayoshi's hands too tightly. "What," he says, twisting awkwardly to stare. "Kid…"
"Don't pay any attention to him," the blond man says firmly, and Zunetto's face twists in some kind of crushed betrayal with big kicked-puppy eyes. He clearly means to have some kind of big blow up about it, but despite sympathizing with the obvious - if mistaken - conclusions that he's drawing about the situation, Tsunayoshi tightens his grip on Zunetto's fingers and ends up nearly jerking him a bit off balance.
The blond man seems to take no notice of the byplay, saying, "My name is Cavallone Dino, and this is my house. You and the others that were rescued were brought here, since there wasn't anywhere else to take you and the facility wasn't stable anymore. There was an internal reactor that they were using to power it, and I guess it wasn't properly maintained, since it blew out that way."
"Although I wasn't working with those people, I was present in the facility," Verde adds. "Following a lead when I got side tracked by everything that happened. Since it wasn't likely that anyone would get you guys out, I stepped in and lent my aid. So. About that examination?"
What a relentless guy.
Still, that 'child' has a point about being at the mercy of these adults. Even though they haven't really satisfactorily explained the situation, Tsunayoshi doesn't want to make enemies if he can avoid it. Giving Zunetto a glance to determine that he'll stay put, Tsunayoshi releases him and gets to his feet so that he can go where Verde pointed to earlier.
He feels steady again, anyway. Even if the inferno inside him, which has recklessly altered his configuration on the inside and blackened his heart with soot, has begun to do something unpredictable and scary - even if this is so much like being thirteen and suddenly realizing just what lengths he's capable of: Tsunayoshi still has a household he needs to get back to, so he has to find some way of surviving no matter what.
This close, Verde looks really, truly exhausted: drawn and worn thin by something or another. It takes effort for him to sit up out of his slouch against the table and lean forward, and he's such a tall, gangling person that even though he's seated and Tsunayoshi is standing, he meets Tsunayoshi's gaze without having to tilt his head all that far back.
He squints at Tsunayoshi from various angles, and then reaches out and makes Tsunayoshi move his head or arms in this or that way. Zunetto makes a noise of protest at the manhandling, but doesn't actually say anything, thank goodness. It's not as though Tsunayoshi hasn't ever been through school examinations anyway, so this isn't too uncomfortable.
At last, Verde taps one long, strong finger against the center of Tsunayoshi's breastbone. "What a true monster," he muses, lifting his glasses off his face to rest them on his hair.
He doesn't look at Tsunayoshi's face; it's almost like he's not looking at Tsunayoshi at all, his eyes drawn and squinted. He mutters to himself in some language neither Italian or Japanese, making some kind of observation - it's troubling to be talked about when you're the only one who doesn't understand. Verde taps him again, this time as high as the dip of his collarbone, which is bared by the pajama top. It's much more personal than his breastbone, and Tsunayoshi flinches away.
"This part here is troubling," he says. "You broke through at vishuddha, instead of ajna, and the part where anahata is? That's weak, too."
Sitting back as if to see Tsunayoshi as a whole, Verde says, "that's a very unstable configuration. I'm really quite curious as to how something like you was raised. It's considered bad form to try raising anyone without using the ajna gate, so for something like this to occur… how old are you, by the way?"
"Um," Tsunayoshi says, taken aback. Isn't gathering patient information something that is done at the start of a meeting, rather than this late? Although he's really not all that fooled on the subject, it's just - appearances are usually important, aren't they? "Seventeen. I think, depending on how long it's been."
"I see. Considering your age, and physical development… without knowing your original state, I'd say three to six weeks." He glances to the side suddenly. "And that's your age as well?" he asks of Zunetto, who gives a startled affirmative. "Hm. If we use this other you from another world as a baseline, given his more average health compared to the signs that you were held to peak physical performance before this… then it's obvious that somehow, your physical development was hampered. That's likely connected to the nonstandard gates you have open. In collaboration with data that's already been collected…" Verde trails off with a vague look on his face.
"So, it's not going too far to say that those useless pieces of trash are involved with my father," the guy with the dark hair says, bitterly amused. "After all that idiot mouthed off about, and considering that… the old man in this world must be really desperate to make something like that."
"Hold up," Dino says. "Let's not be hasty. That's presuming that Timoteo is involved in this at all. The circumstances here could be very different than your world. It's obvious from the start that they don't even share a time frame."
"Time is a relative term," Verde says, waving the protest away. "It hardly flows in a line. There's nothing wrong with the rest of what was said, however. Although that's the obvious answer at this time, there may be more data to gather."
They're being far more straightforward than most of the conversions that Tsunayoshi has had to sit through for years - they're actually giving relations, and names, instead of saying 'that person' or other such vague terms. Maybe it's just because they're not accustomed to the structure of Japanese, but- "What are you talking about?" he asks, looking between them - Verde, and those two boys, and Dino and even Zunetto, who uneasily and guilty looks at him. "Who is Timoteo, and why would some Italian's father want anything to do with me?"
"What are you, an idiot?" the dark haired boy demands, the reflexive way his classmates would when he misses an obvious answer to a problem and they haven't quite reached the stage of sneering at him or taunting him about it. "Our world is dangerous. Even an old, aging out snake like him wants to diversify his investments. If it would be to his benefit to cultivate whatever it is that has to do with you, then he'd do everything he could to secure it."
And, ah, but that way of thinking is familiar to Tsunayoshi. He'd grown up with adults treating him the same, cultivating his good will for some reason that as a child, he couldn't really understand. Looking at Dino, and this boy who said 'my father' and talked about diversifying his investments… Tsunayoshi is starting to fathom the shape of it.
Hadn't that guy said this and that about a bloodline that had abandoned Tsunayoshi, and that he understood it better than those born into it?
"…that's not a bad guess, probably, from what you understand of the situation, but," Tsunayoshi says, thinking that, "you're likely wrong."
"And what would you know of the situation," he says, and this time he sneers about it and then turns his back, dismissing Tsunayoshi from the conversation entirely.
"No, wait, I want to hear this out," Verde says, slouching back into his chair. Folding one arm across his chest, he braces his chin between forefinger and thumb, squinting at Tsunayoshi and actually looking at him this time. "What is your take on this? As a brat who almost faints when accused of witchcraft."
As if that had been the problem. "Um - no, I think that's a normal response," Tsunayoshi says doubtfully, giving him a reproachful look. He hesitates, though, now that he's been invited to share his thoughts. He doesn't know what Verde or Cavallone Dino want from him, is the thing. He doesn't know how to safely navigate this situation in order to be returned home to his household the fastest. He's being treated as a guest, and not with honors, and not as a peer to these men, so he's not sure how much is safe to say.
He has no wish to drag down an army of demons on his head, honestly.
"Well, based on what's been said so far - you seem to think there's something weird about me, but it's not something that could have happened by accident," he says slowly, avoiding looking at anyone in particular and anxiously pressing on his scarred lip. "If it's not 'by accident' then it has to be done 'on purpose'… following from that, it's somehow stunted my physical development-" He does glance at Zunetto then, who stands a few inches taller and broader than Tsunayoshi does. "And also somehow made some part of me unstable."
That part of everything, Tsunayoshi doesn't really understand, except that his gut says that it's true. And well - not everyone can possibly have a heart as sick and twisted as his, isn't that right? Charred into soot and tar the way it's been, devoured again and again to feed that relentless inferno inside him that won't die or kill him.
Following from that: it's not weird that there's parts of Tsunayoshi that are scary.
You must have felt it start to happen, the guy with white hair had said, and: your instincts are quite terrifying.
"That Italian guy somehow seems to think that his father is involved, but - ahh, being approached on some foreigner's behalf was never a thing that happened to me, so," he says, "supposing that it was him that did this thing to me, then it had to be for someone else's sake, right?"
It's true that it's not rare for there to be people who speak Italian in Namimori, but they're not any more unusual than anyone else who arrives as a newcomer. But no one has ever paid Tsunayoshi any special attention until he 'saved himself' - not after that first time, but only after he'd managed to bring Haru back to his side. He never would have remembered it so clearly if he hadn't just relived all of those bad memories.
No one had ever tried cultivating Tsunayoshi until he'd run into Shioya Tadamasa, sworn brother of Sasagawa Naoko, who had been in a certain line of business with Iemitsu. After that, everyone just took it for granted that Shioya was the one guiding his growth - 'raising' him, so to speak.
But even so, that's not what Verde and that dark haired guy mean at all.
"But even though you guys seem to think that I was made into some kind of dangerous person to be used for one reason or another, that's - not right," he says. "Although 'something' was done on purpose - I think that 'something' was done for the sake of cultivating another person. In other words: at that time, I became 'payment.' Ah." Something about that fits, like some piece of a jigsaw puzzle locking into place even though he hadn't thought the picture matched until it fit. "Yes. Putting it that way - that's definitely how it was."
"No way!" Zunetto protests loudly, startling him. He turns, seeing just how incredibly unhappy he looks about that statement, which is - Tsunayoshi isn't sure what the problem is with that. He's right, but - well, actually, looking at the others, they don't seem pleased either. What did he say or imply?
"That's bad," the young blond boy says when their eyes meet; he's been quiet all this time, standing back from everyone like he's been trying to merge with the walls. His expression looks remarkably like Zunetto's. Kids like those two being upset, and for what reason?
That boy's older self, that Cavallone Dino, gives a somewhat incredulous, somewhat uneasy laugh. "Wow," he says, impressed in a bad way. "That's a really calm way of saying something as shocking as that. Is it really okay? Calling yourself 'payment' so confidently."
A bit nonplussed, Tsunayoshi blinks at them for a moment. "Well," he says eventually, "there are worse things to be called, I think. I'm not sure what one person's low opinion of my worth has to do with me, really, so getting upset is…"
"As if I can accept that!" Zunetto bursts out, upset. "I don't really get anything anyone has been saying, but - basically, you're saying that to form an alliance, the price was doing something bad to you? And you're really okay with that? I can't leave it at that!"
"Ehh? But what could really be done about it at this point?" Tsunayoshi wonders, a bit bemused. It's not as if he's suffering anymore; it was never an urgent issue, since he's managed to live well up to this point. "I think the matter of this 'other world' business is more pressing than something that must have taken place a long time ago. It's been bothering me, after all - the question of how I ended up in this situation, I mean. I still don't remember that, or the time around it very clearly."
"There are various kinds of drugs that could interfere with the formation of short term memory or lead to memory loss if used carelessly," Verde offers. "It might bother you, but it's not surprising at all that you don't remember that event. Actually, it's great that you were willing to show that your brain is still working in peak condition just now, since there was some question of it thanks to the techniques used at that place."
"A guy that almost faints at witchcraft but accepts the ideas of other worlds - this sure is getting interesting," the boy at Cavallone Dino's side says. He really does look like a perfect doll that some rich widow would commission out of the best materials just to dress and tend to it carefully each day, but it's obvious some kind of horrible spirit has possessed it.
Or to put it in the way that Tsunayoshi feels most comfortable thinking it: he's clearly some kind of demon.
"It makes everything a bit easier to explain, at least," Dino says. "There's not much for you to do though. Before we can send you back to where you're meant to be, those specialists that we called have to arrive. Unfortunately, the machines and the data that were used… well, they were destroyed, so we'll have to figure out a way of sending you home from scratch."
"… I see." It suddenly occurs to Tsunayoshi that he doesn't actually know whether or not the world he's currently in is his own, which… that complicates matters, doesn't it? Zunetto had figured out that he'd arrived from another world by himself, but also: he had just arrived himself. There had been no dreaming for him.
Actually, thinking of that- "Professor Verde," Tsunayoshi says, turning back toward him. "Could you explain a bit more about everything that happened there? It's just - it's a bit disorienting, because I don't clearly remember the events that lead to me being there, and then while I was there - and then being here…"
Verde observes him with those sharp eyes for a moment before reaching up and lowering his glasses over his eyes again. "Think of this as the plot to a comic book," he says. "That place was harvesting people's 'life energy' - although some people have much stronger 'life energy' than others. With something like that, miracles can be performed, so it's natural that people will get greedy." He pauses and adjusts his glasses, which reflect the light. "Understand that this is merely speculation on my part. Although they wished to recruit me, I wasn't actually involved in anything there. In moments when a person's life is in danger, that life energy becomes even stronger. Impossible feats become possible - mothers lifting cars off their children, defeating wild animals like lions or bears without a weapon, surviving plane crashes without a parachute or a parachute that fails…
"Of course," he continues, "gaining the resentment of a person capable of scary things like that isn't desirable. So it seems like the solution that was arrived upon was to construct a 'false reality' through the use of some kind of virtual reality component, coupled with some scary cocktail of drugs that would work despite that 'life energy.' You had some kind of unhappy dreams while you were there, I bet. Upsetting things that would provoke your 'life energy' to increase in order to protect yourself.
"The thing is, though, that people with strong 'life energy' - they tend to be well looked after, for the most part," Verde adds, crossing his arms over his chest. "That's where this mess with 'other worlds' comes in. The disappearance of many people with strong 'life energy' would attract the attention of people whose job it is to monitor them. Allowing people capable of miracles to run amok is impossible after all. The solution to that seems to have been to use those she could get from this world to summon those from another world which wouldn't be able to fight back against the theft."
"Spending a lot at first in order to gain more power faster for later," Tsunayoshi says, "like a game. Using VR - ah. I see." Hadn't that white haired guy shown up then, too? Ahh. Unexpectedly, his home town has had a lot to do with that scary outside world full of monsters that Yekaterina had warned him about. No. If he takes the example of Yekaterina, and Naoko, and various other things… "Zunetto-kun said that those people were saved, so… I'm curious… would it be possible to meet everyone?"
It really is as he thought. He has to meet with that white haired guy if he wants any real kind of answers. That guy also sucks at being straightforward, but Tsunayoshi thinks that's not a willful decision on his part like it is on these people's, and even Zunetto's, although that guy probably thinks he's saving Tsunayoshi by keeping him in the dark.
As if anyone could be saved that way, stumbling around where they'll break their leg or their neck tripping on unseen things.
"Well, you already met most of them," Cavallone Dino says, a bit amused. "Xanxus of Vongola, and that kid who I used to be over there, plus yourself and Zunetto Tsuna - that's the bulk of the people who were saved. The other two aren't conscious yet."
"Ehh? Are six people really the only ones who could be saved? But there was that big room, full of those pods - it's true that they were dark, and their pressure was strange, but…"
Dino blinks. "Pressure, you say? I'm not sure what you mean about that… but those dark pods. They couldn't really be helped. It wasn't anything to do with the rescue procedure, or the collapse of the facility, though. The things inside those pods arrived into this world that way."
"Those weren't people," Zunetto agrees cautiously, his brow still troubled. "I mean, they may have been people at some point, but - ah, you'd probably call something like that a 'ghost' rather than a 'person.'"
"The process of removing someone from their own world into another isn't an easy feat, even if you gathered a group of people and thought that calling them the 'World's Strongest' was appropriate," the demon child says, the sudden shift in his manner startling but - appropriate, given the subject. "Perhaps the success also depends on the strength of the 'life energy' of the person being summoned. Well, since that place was destroyed before we could look at the information, perhaps we won't ever know."
Tsunayoshi has the feeling that he's being scolded for the actions that they're saying he took, but from what he understands of the situation, he'll stand by whatever they were. It's best for certain things to be left a mystery. Even if more than most things, he wants to return home to his household and that facility had the possibility of getting him there… there's no way that Tsunayoshi could have left it at that. A child was used for it.
Not a single member of his household could expect him to put himself before the good of a child. No, wouldn't they lose respect for him if he did? Well, in the first place, it's not something he could do, so there's no point in worrying about it.
"I'm glad to be alive, but then… I have to wonder if that guy I was looking for made it out okay?" he says, looking to Zunetto.
"Ah - I don't know," Zunetto says regretfully, looking almost miserable about it as if he's taking the failure personally. "The only people who were saved were the ones in those lit pods, like the one that girl was in. There wasn't anyone else to find."
It's a bit of a surprise that Zunetto is already making that kind of face when Tsunayoshi hasn't even done anything worthy of it; that's a bit troubling. Is it really so easy for him to get attached? He doesn't even know what he should say to put that fretting to rest.
"Then - the guy that I'm looking to meet," Tsunayoshi says, returning his attention to Cavallone Dino, who is giving Zunetto a complicated look. "There should be someone there who was important to the operation of that process of looking through other worlds. Although I haven't seen him in person, I think he would have been thin and badly mistreated, with pale hair - maybe something you'd even call 'white.' Perhaps albinism?"
"And what would you want from someone like that whom you've never even met?" Dino asks, looking slightly amazed in a bad way by Tsunayoshi's request.
It's a bit embarrassing to be looked at like that by someone that Tsunayoshi thinks is probably a reasonable adult, so he smiles self-consciously "It's not that big of a deal," he admits. "I only wanted to ask him a question or two. Ah - although, he seems to have some kind of business with me, and I'm curious so I want to hear him out regarding those matters."
"Are you sure you really almost fainted over witchcraft?" he asks incredulously, laughing a bit. "You keep saying some crazy stuff with complete sincerity, you know."
"Those two things have nothing to do with each other," Tsunayoshi protests, a bit resentfully. He's slightly tired of the weird way these people keep responding to him. "Obviously I won't be happy if I'm accused of doing something I don't understand. But if it's a matter of hearing someone out and considering their requests, or sharing information and helping each other out, then isn't that just business as usual?" He reaches up and uneasily tugs at the hair behind his ears. "I don't get the feeling that you're a bad person, so despite having a precarious position at this point, and no power of my own or influence to bargain with, I'd like to work together with everyone to reach a satisfactory solution, you know?"
"Are you for real?" Cavallone Dino sputters, his expression really, honestly shocked.
"Well, he said it sincerely, didn't he?" the demon child says, patting Dino's thigh. "Let's get along well, then."
"…you know," that blond ikemen says, glaring down at the child, "you're not my tutor anymore, so you can't just go around accepting alliances on my behalf."
"Oh?" The child tips his head back to peer up at Dino. His eyes are large and black and ringed with long lashes. "So you were planning to reject such an earnest appeal? After he even said that you're not a bad person."
Dino doesn't look at all impressed with that argument, nor with the blatantly transparent manipulation. "It's a bit early to be talking of alliances, you know - although," he amends, glancing at Tsunayoshi; his brown eyes are sharp and intelligent and focused in a way in this moment that he usually doesn't bother with, "I'm not against forming a temporary agreement for the purpose of getting along. But as you said, there's not a lot I get out of it in the end, right?"
"That's right," Tsunayoshi agrees promptly, blinking. "The current me has nothing to offer you. I guess it's up to you if you want to risk making an investment. I can't promise it'll pay off or anything, but I'm not so troublesome of a person that it'll cause problems. I think."
"Haah. Well, that clarity sure is nice," Dino says, by which Tsunayoshi supposes he means 'honesty.' He looks a little troubled, raking his hand back through his wavy hair. "Well, if you're really okay with waking up suddenly and making an alliance with a person whose name you didn't know an hour ago, then I'll accept making a temporary agreement to work together with you, Nayo-kun."
Regardless of how he puts it, that's the way Tsunayoshi feels about it, so he dips into a brief bow. "Thank you very much," he says, since that won't hurt either.
"There's no need for that, but thank you," Dino says. "In the meantime, you wanted to see those other two, right? As I said, they're unconscious, but if it would help you relax, then I'll be willing to show you the place where they're resting. Before that though… if it's fine with you, we'll have you dressed in actual clothes." He smiles wryly. "It's a bit strange to conduct business with someone in their pajamas."
"Ah." Tsunayoshi glances down at himself, all the way to the floor where his bare feet anxiously twist toward one another all of a sudden. "Yes, please, thank you very much."
"Zunetto Tsuna, you seem to know your way around, so please take care of that while we deal with the matter of my younger self and Xanxus of Vongola," Cavallone Dino says.
"I will, thanks!" Zunetto says, seizing Tsunayoshi by the arm and tugging him back toward the door he entered the lobby from. It really is like having his household around, he thinks as the door shuts behind them and they start down the hall.
"Ah - I wonder," he says, earning a curious look from Zunetto. "I don't mind, but - do those people even know my name beyond 'Nayo Tsuna?'"
"I wouldn't!" Zunetto protests, shooting him a startled look with wide brown eyes. "Even if you think they seem like good people… they're actually really dangerous, you know? It's not that they're bad guys, but - ahh, how to say it?" He frets and worries at it a bit.
"But," Tsunayoshi says, "they have a way of living that makes it dangerous for me?"
"Yes! That's it!" he agrees brightly, apparently relieved enough that he flashes Tsunayoshi a surprisingly bright smile. For some reason, Tsunayoshi suddenly remembers Haru meeting him for the first time and going on about some kind of Prince.
Haru honestly has the worst tastes in men.
In other words though, this is more or less like Namimori all over again, with people talking over his head about things that - well, after a while, there's enough context that it's impossible not to figure it out no matter how many times a blind eye is turned.
Zunetto seems to be in a good mood, so Tsunayoshi lets it go for the moment while he's escorted back to the room that he woke up in. Actually, it's a bit worrisome how directly Zunetto arrives at the right door and carelessly barges in, pulling Tsunayoshi with him. "Dino has allowed us to have this wing for the time being," he says, going immediately for the chest of drawers that Tsunayoshi had disregarded the first time. "And he even lent us some things for while we're here."
"That Cavallone Dino sure put himself out," Tsunayoshi says, "taking in a bunch of kids who got snatched from different worlds. If there's not a way to get back home, then I wonder what will happen to everyone."
"Don't say that! Of course we'll get everyone home!" Zunetto protests, straightening with a shirt grasped in his hands. It's the same kind of shirt that he and the others were wearing. Generic copies, more or less, but - well, depending on how long it's been since they arrived, or: no, the fact that they're even getting clothes at all is generous. Expecting anyone to cater to personal tastes is too much, right?
"I'd like to think so, too," Tsunayoshi says, stepping over to take the shirt away from him. He bends to take a look into the other drawers, and comes up with a pair of identical pants. "But that's just a best case scenario. It's a bit short sighted to focus only on the desired outcome and be caught off guard, I think."
Harm befalls the family that way. It's Tsunayoshi's job to think carefully of all outcomes and be prepared as much as possible. None of these people are his family, but - well, they're comrades of a sort. The moment that Tsunayoshi had stepped into that room and felt the pressure of all those people… it's not like they're his or anything, but they're all in this together, after all.
"Speaking of things that are dangerous for me," he adds, straightening and pulling the pajama top off over his head. "That person who caused me to be like this - what are the chances you think of it being that useless man you went into business with?"
"W-well! In the first place I don't know that I really understand what those two were trying to say," Zunetto says, sounding weirdly flummoxed and suddenly like he's some distance away - which turns out to be because he's trying to give Tsunayoshi some privacy by turning his back. Tsunayoshi's not sure why, nor why he seems tense about it, but there's no point in dragging things out. "Um… that thing that you did at the facility - the 'ice' I mean…"
Tsunayoshi straightens from putting on the pants. "The 'witchcraft,'" he says, watching Zunetto's back closely. "Which no one in that room seemed to think was an unreasonable thing."
"I - I can't really talk about something like that with you," Zunetto says anxiously. "It's dangerous. B-besides, just because it's known that Timoteo of Vongola can do that doesn't mean it can't be a set up. Even Xanxus thought of him first, which means that it's a good way of pointing the finger, you know? But saying that 'absolutely no one else can do it' seems like a good way of distracting ourselves from the possibility of a 'true culprit' - and anyway! Even if That Man is an idiot, there's no way that he'd stand for someone hurting us!"
Force of habit has Tsunayoshi saying, "that's some sharp thinking," even though he's a bit distracted by the borrowed manner that Zunetto used to say it.
It's only when he ends up on the wrong end of a surprisingly sharp, interrogative glance from over Zunetto's shoulder that he realizes what he's done, and well - no wonder. Now he can recognize that Zunetto does bare more than a passing resemblance to those hapless cases that Kyoya prefers to dump on his doorstep like a particularly overachieving tiger with hunting skills that are far too proficient for his needs. It's not a happy thing being the dumping grounds for Kyoya's castoffs, but it's not as if Tsunayoshi hasn't dealt with the situation to his satisfaction.
Ahh. It'll trouble Tsunayoshi to leave things like this, he thinks, watching how quickly Zunetto shunts off his shock for the sake of being relieved that he can safely turn and face him properly. Yes, that particular way that his eyes skate downward to avoid meeting gazes - he recognizes that look only too well. What should he do?
Well, that aside, Tsunayoshi is stuck in a fairly difficult position. He can't learn more about this 'witchcraft' situation, nor does Zunetto hold any answers for his problem regarding whatever was done to him that caused him to be like this, or for whom he was made this way. Furthermore, there's definitely no point in stressing Zunetto out by arguing with him regarding their differing opinions regarding That Man.
"Who knows, I guess," Tsunayoshi sighs wearily. "I just hope that guy wakes up soon. I'd like to hurry up and resolve our business."
He'd like to hurry up and go home, if only to get bitten to death, and go and see Takeshi's baseball games, and eat Nana's meals, and have cake at a cafe with Haru while she talks about some scary subject or another, and go to TakeSushi and listen to the troubles of all the people there who will call him 'senpai' and 'taichou' and 'niisan' as they please. Although he normally hates that, at least it's something he's accustomed to and their problems are something he can do something about.
But he can't just leave Zunetto alone, and that guy with the white hair who clung to him so much and wanted to be peers and join his noisey world, well - he can't ignore that either. So.
"It's only been a few days," Zunetto says, obviously wanting to reassure him. "If he's in the Cavallone medical ward, then it might be pretty bad… I didn't know, but sleeping for weeks on end seems like it's bad for the body. Even the younger Dino and Xanxus had a hard time of it."
He hadn't even seen those two being held. Ahh. That place had definitely been bad. It's one thing to abduct a seventeen-year-old, but the younger Dino - he was only a bit more than a child himself. That could have been Tsunayoshi those years back, except that it's a bit hard for him to accept that he'd ever been so baby faced and small with such big eyes.
If only it had been a matter of getting rid of those scum with his own two hands instead of doing something scary that he doesn't know how to use or control.
"I see," he muses, reaching up to touch at his breastbone, even though the place Verde had indicated was a bit higher; it doesn't feel particularly hot anymore, but he can sense the guidelight which continues to burn inside him. "I'll try to wait patiently and find something to pass the time with." And then he looks at Zunetto and smiles his best 'getting along' smile. "Say, Zunetto-kun, you'll help me get back into shape, right?"
For some reason, he finds this incredibly alarming, jolting back an entire step while flushing and shouting: "As if I could!"
-0-
No sooner does the door close behind those two identical kids than does the fifteen year old Xanxus turn on Gherardino with a snarl. "Did some Vongola peon really just make a deal with some no-name idiot?" he demands harshly.
Gherardino sighs heavily. He'd forgotten what a massive brat Xanxus had been at this age, and before certain unfortunate events took place. He deeply pities his younger self, especially since his hatred of his job had persisted up until he was sixteen or seventeen and Reborn had beaten it out of him. Or, actually, Reborn had really only managed to beat the complaining out of him.
"Do you really want that a guy like that running around stressed out?" Gherardino asks him evenly. "The report you gave made him sound a little bit scary. For all that he's pretending to be level headed at the moment, going on a rampage isn't exactly what a reasonable person would do, right? It was a very small concession to make him feel better without obligating me to do anything I wouldn't anyway."
"I see," Verde muses. "Yes, pacifying a monster like that is a smart move."
"It's not as though he's immune to sedation," Xanxus says darkly.
Ah. The simple solutions of bratty mafia princes, Gherardino thinks wryly. He can't be happy about everything that's happened since the Decimo Vongola was so young, especially since it's made things difficult for himself as well, but it certainly led to Xanxus growing up a bit and controlling himself better.
"Even though I'm a Vongola ally, I won't drag that house into this mess if it turns out badly," he promises easily. "Vongola will be spared any fall out."
That just earns him Xanxus' signature 'lower than trash' look. "Even if the Cavallone house is so weak it can't do anything by itself, its strength still belongs to Vongola."
Behind Xanxus, hiding back toward the shadows, Gherardino's younger self grimaces miserably. Although he's a bit jealous of his position, having somehow managed to snare someone like Xanxus as a Guardian… the person he was a thirteen is the least capable person for handling someone as rebellious as that.
Although Gherardino isn't sure that at any stage of his life would he ever have been able to cope with the situation those two are in. No one would blame Xanxus for hating the situation - as a matter of fact, he's shouldering something that unnatural - that abhorrent - incredibly well. At least he's able to relax a bit while everyone has been pretending to ignore it, and that Tsuna Nayo hadn't blundered into it, so they'll keep on that way for a bit.
If they put it off long enough, Gherardino wonders if they can just wait until they send those kids home again and let their world worry about it. Ah. Too bad for that world's Vongola. Will the Cavallone Famiglia survive when its shelter has been demolished?
Gherardino is not so encompassing a Sky that he could save both Families himself.
"Well, for the sake of Vongola, let's hope that temporary agreement works out then," Gherardino says dryly. "Now, I promised to take care of you two, so Ghera - the kitchens or the drawing room will be fine while I take care of the other two."
His younger self startles a bit at the name before quietly agreeing, "okay."
"Well, he's not wrong," Reborn acknowledges after those two kids have left as well. "Cavallone is only supposed to use its power for Vongola's sake."
Waving the remark off, he says, "the way that you and Verde made it sound, that's exactly what I did."
It's been about a day and a half after the impromptu rescue from the alarmingly well build facility that Verde had called Reborn about. It has been difficult for Gherardino to find a moment to sleep - though of course, much easier for his new wards to do so. Between their efforts to stabilize the less well off abductees, and recover something from that place, they really hadn't had a moment to sit down and discuss what had actually happened there. Now that the most troublesome of the abductees is awake and wandering around so quickly after being subdued by an Arcobaleno, the chances of them finding time now are nearly none.
Granted, a Lightning's Will isn't something that can really be used to subdued someone, let alone a Sky, but it's alarming all the same.
"It's true that Timoteo is the only known user if that technique, but while a canny man, he's no inventor. He lacks the imagination. He would have learned it from someone else," Verde adds, looking to Reborn.
But Reborn only shrugs insolently. "My honor requires me to keep Vongola's secrets," he says. "Even so, it's not as if I've had a chance to study that technique. I can say that the use of it at that place was sloppy - so even if I had, I wouldn't be able to say who taught it."
"The thing that worries me the most is that the kid is definitely a civilian, just as his counterpart said, so what business does he have knowing or using a technique that could have been Timoteo's signature, and - why is it that his Will has become deformed that way," Dino says, cutting in before Verde and Reborn can get into yet another fight over knowledge and who has the right to it.
"If it's what we think it is, then that technique is a bit crazy," Reborn says easily enough, but he quickly sobers, growing a bit grim. "He's not completely clueless, but he's definitely no mafia brat. The idea that maybe he figured it out on his own…"
"The Harmony aspect may be in play regarding that," Verde muses. "Depending on how it was done. That part of being a Sky tends to get down played in the Underworld, and given how it seems like that brat has decided to champion the others…"
It certainly can't be dismissed. Reborn did his part in hammering a Sky's duty into Gherardino's head, but to be honest… as clever as Reborn is, he's not a Sky. He knows the habits of a Sky but not the whys. Gherardino had been left confused and in the dark many times, knowing that he felt a certain way but not knowing how to answer to it. But it's become increasing impossible over the generations for Skies to tolerate their own children as everyone continues to grow stronger than their parents and their grandparents before them, so people like Reborn are in high demand.
"I did wonder about that a bit," Gherardino admits. "After everything, I half expected to have a fight on my hands when he came in the door, but I don't think he even took notice of anyone at all - and now that I think of it, I didn't sense him coming, despite you saying that he was at full power." He looks to Verde.
"There's no doubt about that," Verde agrees. "He more or less showed up ready for a fight himself."
"Perhaps, but the rules of the surface world are different than here in the Underworld," Reborn says, tugging thoughtfully on a curl, his head tilted in that annoying artificial way. "Although both might strive to avoid coming to blows, in the Underworld if you show weakness it's a death sentence. It's not strange that a civilian from that more gentle surface world may choose to humble themselves and take a weaker position as a show of good faith."
"Can I really trust something like that, I wonder," Gherardino says, but he's thinking more about Reborn at the moment, who likes to play tricks.
"Well, he's not yakuza, so he probably hates confrontation," he answers, giving a sly look. "He's two-faced, but he's small fry on our scale. Besides, there's only one of him. Are you saying the Cavallone Famiglia can't handle one super-powered brat?"
"One, perhaps," he says dryly, although he's not so sure as that. Even though Reborn had seen the facility right alongside him, the idea that any one Sky would be able to do something so massive with just his own Will? "But that double of his is certainly acting like an insecure Guardian with a new bond and no comrades to back him up."
It's just a joke, but now that he hears it out loud, an awful jolt goes through him and his hand flies up to his head. "Please tell me those two idiots-"
"It's impossible for a Sky with that configuration to make anyone into a Guardian," Verde says, unconcerned. "Even if it weren't, his Flames couldn't sustain a bond. There's no way he's newly emerged, but the edges are too soft and new. It's like a lizard, constantly shedding its skin. It has no time to harden before it peels off again."
"Hmm." Reborn twirls the curl he's been playing with around his finger, appropriately childish for his appearance. "As for that double, he's Sky-shy at best, but I'd put money on late term Flame Rejection. There's no way he could get on the same level as a pet rock, let alone anything as demanding as a Sky." And then he glances over, expression blank and eyes dead: "You'd know that already if you were wake for my lessons, stupid."
It's probably a sign of how twisted Gherardino has become during their association that the idea of Reborn revising some of his lessons just causes him to laugh the idea off. "I thought better of testing the Flames of those kids. I didn't want to trigger some kind of belated fight-or-flight reaction, after all."
"It might be interesting, though," the thorn in his side says with a smirk. It would be more worrisome if hadn't already been made plenty obvious earlier that Reborn isn't interested in scaring the kid off quite yet. If the biggest prank he pulls is the usual gags and convincing the kid that Verde is in any way educated in biology or human health, then he's being practically obliging.
It would take a person far more stupid than himself or far less familiar with Reborn to feel any jealousy of that. It would be like feeling envy of a cat's favorite toy: it may look cute that the cat carries it everywhere, but no one thinks of those needle-like teeth or those claws and how they dig in for countless hours upon hours. Over the years of their association, he's become reluctantly fond of Reborn like one does any generally well meaning but incredibly annoying family member.
Or it's stockholm syndrome. It's almost definitely stockholm syndrome, come to think of it. Gherardino is self-aware enough that even though he can't complain of Reborn's presence, he'll be happy to see his back at the soonest convenience.
"I'll trust you to keep the carnage to a minimum, given the circumstances," he says dryly. "Go ahead and play to your heart's content. Just try not to break the boy, you know?"
"Don't alter the boy at all," Verde says sharply, sitting up and exerting his Sway. Even in his adult form, and having been drained by his activities a few days ago, it's impressive: a crackling tension that physically makes Reborn's curls tighten enough to snap free of his finger. "I'm still interested in him as a test subject."
Gherardino laughs, only partially out of nervous energy. "What an unfortunate child he is," he mutters, since Reborn just gives Verde a deeply unpleasant and smug look.
"I don't intend to train him, if that's what you mean," he says. "I'm interested in what he's made of himself, that's all."
The look that Verde gives him is justifiably distrustful, but he doesn't pursue the subject. "Then, I'm off to bed," he announces. "I want at least a little sleep before having to deal with that lot."
"Ah. Good night. Rest well," Gherardino says, since as far as he's aware, this is the first time that Verde will have slept since this whole fiasco has began. Verde moves like his entire body aches, heaving himself to his feet and making his way gingerly toward the guest wing - separate from the wing that was given to the children.
… what an ugly mess this is. Will Timoteo's sins never stop revealing themselves?
-0-
NOTES:
Tsunayoshi: [Does the Hyper Intuition thing]
Xanxus and Reborn: aw, iemitsu reproducing, no :(
just to give you an idea of how much obfuscating Reborn does in this chapter, while Xanxus just refuses to participate on principle
* Here we have Tsunayoshi just having relived his entire life in the space of a month, putting that Hyper Intuition (advanced pattern recognition) to work. Also, having been raised in Namimori, doublespeak and talking around the subject are native languages?
* This chapter was a while in coming because despite feeling empowered and writing a lot immediately after finishing the last chapter… I ended up losing confidence, so four chapters worth of writing got discarded, and then I agonized over this chapter for some time and I still don't like it. I decided to post it to get it out of the way.
* don't think too deeply about the chakras. it's appropriation.
if you're enjoying Chroma Diamonds, please consider cheering me on!
