Chapter 8

The curtains close for the next opening act

Kusakabe looked up as the door to the disciplinary committee room opened with a bang as an irate Hibari Kyoya marched right in before unceremoniously dumping a bruised Tsunayoshi who looked like he was beaten to an inch of his life. He gave the slumping brunette a look of utter distaste before turning around and leaving the two alone in awkward silence.

'I guess Kyo-san finally got tired of waiting for something to happen.' He looked at the kid who excluded gloom and doom, which was atypical of the people who Hibari came after. Usually, they'd look like an utterly spooked cat, zapped with enough electricity to bring Frankenstein to life. Instead, the kid seemed way too lost in his own thoughts and that could be the reason why Hibari was so irritated after being belittled that way.

"So… do you know anything about the recent serial targeting of Namimori students?" Kusakabe was a bit curious to see what kind of 'mastermind' the kid, who Hibari seemed to be advocating for, was. That and there were clear ties to Tsunayoshi that was hard to ignore.

The kid simply shook his head, no form of recognition flinting across his eyes. The older teen sighed in disappointment before asking, "What about the guy who's living with you? Do you what he's up to?" that silver-haired guy was the one who picked a fight with Kyo-san before losing horribly right? It was worth asking to see if he had any hand in the case.

Tsuna's auburn eyes grew dull as he remembered raising an uncertain hand to grip the other's shirt when he was close to the door. Gokudera looked at him apologetically before saying that it was only a quick errand and that he'd be back soon, before his eyes focused on something beyond that door, likely entering a world that was far from the one that Tsuna himself lived in. The shirt wrinkled slightly as it freed itself from his touch as Gokudera turned completely around, his form no longer reflecting in those emerald eyes as the former moved outside the house, the very place Reborn effectively called a prison, a gilded cage that now held no-one(but once held the silhouette of his mother).

The home tutor who harshly pulled the warm and comfortable carpet right from under him, leaving him to tumble and crash into the mud and earth of reality, was nowhere to be found. He simply left him to wake up in his own time, despite waking him up in harsh, death-inviting methods as a form of training. As if dreaming a bit longer would give him a bit of escape from the situation, even if it meant that he had to face the apparitions and warping reflections of his desires and hopes, the very ones which were dashed again and again. All they did was not even give him a place to stand, the floor under him crushed all the way until the foundations.

Seeing the state of the brunette in front of him, Kusakabe could understand why Irie was so worried for him.

Reborn looked at the black-haired girl in front of him who looked at him with a scrunched nose and a scowl. It seemed like she was not good with children, disliking them for whatever reason. It didn't matter, the toddler had things to do regardless, so he said,

"Kurokawa Hana, you might want to reconsider your options. Rather than asking me about my identity, I think the topic of interest might be whether or not you should commit a crime for your friend, don't you think?"

The girl flapped her mouth like a fish, conflicted about where to begin. Reborn inched closer to remove the listening bug from her bag to show it to her. "Looks like someone already got an eye, rather an ear, on you. It's not an issue anymore" he said, crushing the device and showing a part that could be used for picking up sound as proof.

"Wha- when did that get placed there?!"

"Would you believe me if I said that was your friend, Yamamoto? He's placed on Tsuna too. I was able to notice it since we live together." He said showing an identical device which smelled a little burned. The Sun Arcobaleno had fried the circuits so that it wouldn't be able to turn on.

"That idiot?! There's no way!" she screeched, suspicious eyes that roamed around his tiny figure.

"Hmm. I think you're in for the shock of your life when Hibari finishes his investigation. Or if you're curious enough to approach me later, I can reveal things since I'm a really nice and cute kid.

But right now, don't you think you're being a bit hasty? I've heard that your dad's a doc in Namimori Hospital, and one high enough to warrant you moving around there and having access and knowledge to the medicine stored there along with patients' rooms and information. Well, the hospital itself is pretty lax in security, but you have an advantage in information."

Seeing the knowing glint in the child's eyes, Kurokawa frowned as she accused, "What do you even know? You've not seen Kyoko and her big bro like I've seen. I won't be satisfied with that jerk benefitting from the situation."

"Do you honestly think that Mochida Kensuke's father can one-up Hibari?"

"But he's not doing anything right now. I'm not putting my faith in that violent guy. He's always been fickle, and he can act as the protector of Namimori, but he might as well be the resident Yakuza. He and his stupid food pyramid hierarchy with herbivore this and herbivore that."

"Then it's even more strange that he's not preserving that hierarchy with one trying to usurp him, don't you think? Why do you think I brought up the listening bugs? I don't think it's a stretch to say that the culprit and the committee are in an impasse with each other watching the other's movements."

"That Hibari playing a waiting game? Pfft, that'd be the joke of the century."

"It's because he doesn't know who's listening in."

"And you know and are not informing them for…?"

"He's got his own intel. I've got my own plans with how to approach the situation. I wanted to tell you all this so that you can decide your own stance instead of being pushed around according to someone's whims. You're smart after all."

Kurokawa huffed a tired sigh as she put things into perspective. With how Yamamoto was egging her on by saying things that painted a bleaker and bleaker picture, never once trying to dissuade her from what would definitely be a crime… Then there was this kid who popped into her life out of nowhere and bombarding her with shocking information, but not giving her any suggestion on what to do despite commenting on her intended course of action.

"…I take it you'd not like it if I spilt the beans to Hibari?"

"They're playing a waiting game for a reason after all. The stakes of it don't lie on who gets caught so simply doing so won't give Hibari the satisfaction. In fact, I don't think Hibari can gain any of it by beating up the people who've caused the situation and ones before it."

Kurokawa chose not to hear more about the situation. There seemed to be a story, but she'd have her plate full from trying to protect what she has right now. She had to think more about how she'd approach this situation, especially since there was a possibility that she was being manipulated. Not that she trusted the kid in front of her.

"I think Kyo-san caught you and brought you here to apprehend you for killing your mother. Why did you do that?"

"…crime… Right. That's what you'd normally call it, right?

Somehow, nothing really worked out."

"For all that's worth, it's pretty hard to call it a crime too, since I'll bet if Irie-kun hears this, he'll immediately try to take the blame for it. Also, it was your mom who lived through it, despite suffering during it. Maybe she was ignorant of what was causing it, or maybe she didn't want to acknowledge that it was her son who was knowingly poisoning her."

"It would have been better if she was doing that for my sake, but until the very end, she didn't really put me in her eyes.

Did you know? She always saw dad through me and had this look of disappointment when I started being so clumsy and incompetent in ways that dad could never be. Dad was pretty sloppy too, but I guess, since love's blind, she could only see that as pretty loveable."

"Did you do that for attention? I think she loved you in her own way."

Tsuna grimaced at the idea of calling her for attention, for all her airheadedness. That willful ignorance that she carried around with her to warp her world into that filled with a positive take of any situation. "The things which stuck around with my world were the ones that were filled with violence. Dad's painful 'expressions of love' as mom called it, Nedzu's harsh reprimands and punishments for being a bad student.

Mochida and the others who beat me up for my weakness that I could never hide. He taught me many things, that people could understand what I got because of what I am. It was always natural, but I never reciprocated and then it went away, from Mochida to the other friends I had.

When I tried to reach out for the kindness that was extended to me, it never could stay with me. Because that wasn't natural progression of things as Mochida taught me. Without violence, things would never stick with me, because everyone had their own agendas and I've never provided the incentive for it to stick around."

Reborn, who needed a successor to the most violent organization and didn't stick around when he was here, far too shaken to be the person who inevitably hurt those dear to him for a chance to be loved so deeply. His mother who loved his father so doggedly, leaving him behind for a broken heart. Those days where she had wallowed in grief and self-pity for not even realizing that her lover had left her far behind- those were the days where she truly only had him and wouldn't be able to survive if Tsuna(clumsy, useless Tsuna- what were the chances that an opportunity like that would ever happen again- where Tsuna was so important and relevant to a person's life) didn't completely take care of her needs. Before that, she might even be happier with him out of her hair.

Turns out, it was the worst way he could have treated her. But the way he had been, chasing after that fleeting emotion, was the version of him that was able to get people to look back at him. Reborn, who couldn't take his eyes off his prone being, observing him from the time they met. Then, there was Gokudera, who gave him the warmest hug he'd ever experienced (It was truly rare for him for someone to touch him without giving him pain). He reached back, not knowing what to do to get him to stay, frayed around the edges like he had been only to watch him leave right out the door. Was it wrong to grip his clothes? It was always fists that shoved him right against the wall to pin him to a place. His mom's angry gaze and sharp tone, when he scored horribly. He should have known better- her soft tunes and cheerful expression always bid him farewell for a 'good day at school' or a type of signal to get him to go back to his room or do errands for her and such (far from her physically). If he had lingered, that smile would drop as she would inquire, puzzled "What're you still doing here?", "What're you waiting for?".

His feet were to keep moving, a destination in mind. It simply wouldn't do to wander aimlessly and fruitlessly. His friends would catch him and teach him a lesson and the pain always stuck with him, berating him for doing so. But Tsuna was always a lost child, his mother's disgruntled look of exasperation as she nagged him to not do it again.

Yamamoto, whose figure didn't enter his field of sight since the time he offered friendship with him.

"…If you have to ask why I did it, it would probably be… because I was lonely."

Tsuna had to hide choked laughter after seeing Kusakabe looking at him, aghast. He supposed it was something that couldn't be attributed to a person like him. A reward that anyone would be reluctant to award him since it'd be akin to punishment to themselves.

After all, any form of company that he could earn for himself was one that was manipulated by the leaking, pathetic flames of harmony. Gokudera mentioned that he could possibly get his mother back by some means, but what Tsuna wanted… was an eternal, unchanging, unbending, pure form of love. When his mother died, she wasn't present to correct his misunderstanding that she was the person who Tsuna kept alive. They were everything to each other at that point. After all, even if she could have misgivings about it, he was the love child of her darling and herself, a proof of their love.

It made him bitter, how a person who didn't have any presence in their home, didn't leave anything behind to remember him by would be the one that occupied her mind so thoroughly. Tsuna was once stricken in jealousy by the friendship and tokens of love that people bestowed each other. Tsuna himself loved and pined after people who spared him glances. But the ones that stood by him, burrowed itself into the skin as bluish and blackish, burn and scar marks remained with the blood that poured out of him (the liquid that his choking heart pumped). It was ungrateful of Tsuna for trying to ignore what he already had- his privilege.

His friends themselves up and vanished from him, landing themselves in hospital having become victims of violence- the very same that had gotten sick and tired of him taking it for granted. His bruises even started to heal, a pleasant blankness that surrounded him.

Hibari had found him in front of the garden, away from the empty house that held no-one prisoner and complied with his dirty, defiling wishes, and proceeded to raise his tonfa to rain upon him. His every complaint, every misgiving and the traitorous part of his mind that wanted to be coddled escaped him with wheezes as the tonfas knocked the wind of his sails. He crouched and curled into himself to protect himself from the pain, but Hibari placed a kick to break that stance before uppercutting him to a broken standing position. Then as if mocking him for holding those thoughts ready for release through the wind along his voicebox, the steel rods descended upon his ribs like a hawk going for the kill. The tears that flood his eyes as a response to the blinding pain invoked a "Tch" from the demon of Namimori as he neatly finished that move with an elbow to his face.

Unsatisfied from seeing the crumpled form of the brunette on the floor, Hibari lifted him up via the collar and inspected his face. It was always like this when he got used to peace. When something happened, his body would be so unused to pain that everything would hurt twice as much. Breathing was a struggle when suspended mid-air like this and his arms scrambled to the lithe, yet powerful arms holding him up. Hibari looked disgusted as he flung the brunette towards the wall and his head banged against the wall- with that, the circling thoughts vanished as pain bloomed all over his body. His vision was dimming, the world around him dampening in colours, becoming utterly stale. His ears were ringing, washing away the pretty birds' songs and the rustling of leaves.

'Ah… that's right, isn't it? This is friendship.'

Look, the red that was leaking out of him was the same colour as those hearts in Valentine, the day of love.

Reborn came across Irie who surprisingly didn't seem that shocked to see him. He clicked his tongue, realizing that Gokudera probably got to him first, seeing that they were acquainted once before. The bomber should have come directly to this place to talk to him. The signal was weak around this room, probably because the group were using signal blockers to prevent Yamamoto from somehow wiretapping them.

"I'm Reborn, Tsuna's tutor. I think it's only fair to introduce myself since I've already heard of you, Irie Shoichi."

Irie looked at him with the bewilderment an adult would have finally seen Big Foot or Santa Claus. He was surrounded by monitors, probably supplied by the disciplinary committee, with a wired encrypted connection for communication. The displays had CCTV recordings of probably the time Yamamoto contacted the guy, which were being restored and matched against to narrow down on the suspects. There were files with photos that could contain biometrics from the scenes, ones that they would have rounded up. There was also signal tracers from multiple bugs to triangulate the location where the mastermind was found. And as he thought, it narrowed down that Yamamoto was their guy.

"Now that you guys found him, what are you planning to do?"

Irie spoke wryly, "They're going to do a pincer on Yamamoto-kun and Mochida-san's dad to appease Hibari's rage, what else? I'm not interested in what those guys do with those two. At least there was one who can be left out of this whole mess. I don't like Mochida-san from personal grudges, but he didn't deserve that."

"Oh, I've made sure to wrap up that end. I wonder why you're being so open with me. I don't think Gokudera would paint me in a favourable light."

"Don't bother sussing me out for my 'allegiance'. I'm not on your or his side. The information here has been sent to Hibari already."

"That'll make things proceed pretty smoothly then."

"Wasn't he the precious candidate for the rain guardian?"

"He still is. The choice is based on who Tsuna accepts to clear things up. This was just necessary to prevent him from going over the rails. Vongola's not as bad as Gokudera's painting it to be."

"The Mafia's justifying itself? I can't trust the standards of the guy who's renown as the World's greatest hitman."

"And your alternative is listening to the guy who's the Mafia's lapdog?"

"…I don't think you two understand me. I'm not on either of your sides, so trying to win me over as a pawn to play against each other is not going to work out for either of you. I'm willing to make a statement with my actions if that's what it takes to make that clear."

"Your move against Gokudera has been made right now. I think I can still convince you to stop making one against me after all that title's not just for show.

Vongola's not looking for another generation of a bloodbath. Despite what it became, it was once a Vigilante group. The current generation's vision is to revert back to its roots."

"I'm thinking you want to convince me to take your side so that you have a way to control the three, and potentially four from going against your plans. Are you that impressed by the way I've been able to track Yamamoto?"

"For an aspiring musician, that's a pretty impressive feat."

"You shouldn't be. Frankly speaking, shouldn't you be suspicious at how I'm able to do all this? Speech matching and video reconstruction along with other technology. It's a bit disheartening, but it's revealed things at a bigger scale than what's happening right now.

For this time only, I'm taking quite the pleasure for being the bearer of the bad news. I don't think you've prevented anything, Reborn. Also, if it's not feasible for me to have this level of technology and skill by myself, who do you think helped me?"

Reborn's countenance turned sour as a murderous aura started leaking out of him.

"I didn't think that you would establish contact with him." Faced with such intimidation, Irie's face was a deadpan as he continued with a grave tone,

"We met up due to similar interests. There are conferences, online meetups and hackathons and projects and such. But to be precise, I was introduced to him through Spanner-kun and Giannini-kun. Fascinating how by mentioning you, he went out on a limb to help me set all this up to catch Yamamoto. It seems like the actions you've taken up, given the situation has made him realize that this is as good of an opportunity against you as any.

Gokudera sacrificed a couple of pieces for a checkmate against you after telling me about you, going so far to explicitly mention that you were trying your best to control them. That was just this morning and the results are before your eyes. Until then the committee only thought that these pieces of evidence could catch him, but no way of actually doing so.

It seems that Yamamoto picked up quite a bunch of nasty tricks from his father. I think his father is more interested in protecting and preserving his family rather than in doing what's right.

Gokudera intended on revealing the information to me to make me turn a blind eye against the crimes because of its close links to Tsuna and that Yamamoto and he were friends. I've simply revealed all the information."

"Aren't you playing right into his hands by bringing Verde into this?"

Irie gave him a crooked smile as he replied,

"I've said it before. Verde's my gift to you and Hibari getting to rain on Yamamoto's parade is my play against Gokudera" his voice bled anger as he continued, "Honestly, what's with you guys? Don't you think Tsuna-kun's already got enough on his plate without you guys selfishly dragging him into your matters?

You guys trying to fix him is utterly ridiculous. What can the Mafia fix? It's been unbearable to just watch him have all this happen to him and you want me to help you?"

Reborn looked at him with his beady eyes that sunk in all light as he said, "If you're making things this clear, it makes things much simpler for me. While Verde is a pain in the ass, I can still handle the situation. There's only so little you can do when all your moves whittle away as they're dealt with.

When it comes to that, you won't even be able to plead the fifth."

Meanwhile, in the Namimori Hospital, a bemused Hibari stood in front of the bed of Mochida Kensuke. Kusakabe was on the phone line mentioning that they were able to successfully apprehend Yamamoto and bring him to the disciplinary room, asking him repeatedly about their next move.

Hibari closed the call immediately as he stared at the scene in front of him. He didn't like to admit it, but his town was changing, and he was being shoved into new territory. It seems like what was needed right now was to win the war of information.

Mochida Kensuke was dead in front of him, stitches made of beautiful satin as they wove beautiful designs in the places where the previous victims were injured, like badges of honour. In fact, on closer inspection, that was the case. The kendo captain had become the living analogy of the Theseus ship. The beds of each of the victims were the crimson of a red carpet, dyed in the blood that would have come from the transplanting processes.

Each and every one of them was heavily drugged with morphine to simply allow this to be done to them. They were then sown to fluff up the bed where Mochida lay upon, his expression indicating how aware he was about the contents of his resting place. Maybe he had personally witnessed the dyeing process of his bed.

There were eerily realistic-looking dolls on the beds of the others, realistic enough that it wouldn't arouse the suspicions of the nurses and staff. On closer inspection, the dolls seemed to have been made and perfected for months or even years.

Three days. That was all it took for things to progress this far. The medical staff were too busy to check in with the guests, answering the disciplinary committee and busy with the plan undergoing on Kurokawa Hana's side to see this coming. Seems like the two sides getting suspicious of each other and maybe even looking into Yamamoto and his lackeys were intentional. It kept them all busy enough to let something of this scale slip right through.

It didn't help that the patients were originally drugged with painkillers due to the severity of the crimes – but certainly not enough to warrant live, open 'surgery'. The soft and aromatic scent from the candles around the bed was a poor replacement for respecting the dead with incense.

It wasn't like the crimes that Yamamoto had committed that easily showed his ugly jealousy, but it was one that displayed a great deal of showmanship, eager to depict death as something beautiful, as each and every part was decorated to distract people from the underlying gruesomeness of the corpses. There was even care to prevent maggot infestation.

Hibari wondered what that made Tsunayoshi if he triggered violence strong enough to metamorphose herbivores. Or maybe it was Hibari who had the misunderstood view that herbivores were utterly harmless.

It seemed like this time, it was a win for Yamamoto. Especially since now, everything was going to be swept under a rug.