OpalescentGold: I do not own Katekyo Hitman Reborn.
Waning
This is how a centuries-old feud is buried.
Regrets
Enveloped in a silver light that dazzles the eye, that hurts and burns and scorches, Noriko's face is blank and unreadable, but as she approaches, Daemon's tired, cold eyes soften with nostalgia.
Mist swirls around the Arbiter, and a faint pink tint slides into her hair, her black dress turning white and shifting into Grecian robes. Subtly, her facial features are altered, her figure changes, and her eyes turn silver, pure silver.
Tsuna's eyes widen with recognition even before Daemon greets, "Cynthia."
And these two, these two exist in a bubble outside of space and time, where Tsuna and Reborn and Enma have not yet been born, where there exists a large mansion they helped to build and a vigilante organization beginning to spread its wings, where betrayal and hatred have not been given years and years to grow and bloom.
It's heartbreaking to watch.
Wraith
She gazes at the man before her, beaten and bruised, defeated and defiant, and sighs. "Cynthia died a long time ago, Daemon." There is no echo of power in her voice now, but nor is this Noriko's voice, young and bright and wild.
Cynthia's voice is weary and sweet, wise and sad. The dissonance makes Tsuna wince.
Daemon laughs, mocking. "Don't deceive yourself. You'll always be Cynthia at heart, no matter your chosen appearance and name. The past cannot be changed." A pause, his words lined with something poignant and quiet. "Not even by you."
"If I had the power to change the past, I would have done so already." Cynthia shakes her head and peers down at her would-be killer. "Are you done, Daemon?"
"...the Vongola - "
" - will be fine." Her tone brooks no argument as her eyes flash dangerously. "And do not, for one second, think that a weak Vongola is in any way worse than a Vongola that continues to thrive on the blood and despair you feed it."
"Elena - "
" - is not here," Cynthia snaps, voice rising, soaring suddenly, and Daemon flinches. "She isn't here. You've distorted her memory into a ghost that needs to be pleased at all costs, but she isn't here to tell you that this would not have made her happy. Daemon - "
"The Vongola must be strong, strong enough to do what needs to be done!" Daemon spits, but he's started to shake now, composure cracking like she's taking an ax to the ice. "Elena's dead because Giotto was an incurable fool and the Vongola was weak, Cynthia! How could you - "
"No, how could you!? You're controlling people through fear, through money and power, and you think this is what she meant? You aren't protecting the weak, you're oppressing them, you would have been our enemy - !" There is nothing objective about the Judge now.
Only fierce pain and helpless turmoil.
He isn't any better, face contorting into denial and anguish and maybe even a whisper of repentance. "You don't understand! You didn't even understand back then! She asked me with her last breath, she asked me to protect her dream, and I know her! I was her lover - "
"And I was her sister!" Cynthia cuts herself off forcefully, visibly struggling for control. Whens she speaks again, she doesn't sound angry and upset and grieving anymore. Just exhausted. Mourning. "It's time to stop, Daemon. Stop."
"What difference does it make?" he demands. "You're going to Judge me anyway."
"Yes. But when the times comes, I want to be able to look Elena in the eye." Cynthia chooses to believe that there will be an end to this, that one day she will be reunited with her sister of heart, that there is peace waiting at the end of the tunnel.
That she will not be stuck in this cycle of past and present and future forevermore.
Cynthia smiles, disconsolate, and shakes her head slightly. "She's waiting for you, you know," she whispers.
Daemon blanches, looking positively devastated for a moment that stretches out to eternity before closing his eyes, face smoothing out to something alien and eerie and vulnerable.
"Do you think it's enough? Is Elena satisfied?"
Her eyes burn, and she laughs, helplessly, humorlessly. "You were always enough. She was satisfied with loving you, just that."
Daemon struggles to his feet, and the smile that stretches across his lips is that of a man liberated, his self-imposed rusty shackles pleaded away to leave a hollowed out husk.
And he laughs, tender and heartsick. Hesitantly compliant.
"Alright," Daemon says and holds out his hand. A familiar pocketwatch slips free from his fingers to dangle gently, their shared treasure. "Alright."
Tsuna inhales sharply, eyes widening.
"Do with me what you will, Cynthia."
Purgatory
For his crimes, Daemon deserves nothing less than wandering the Earth as a sprite until the apocalypse arrives, never to see Elena again, devoid of hope and joy and reprieve.
That's what Noriko should sentence him to. That's what Cynthia would do were it anyone else.
She can't do it. Kami-sama help her, she can't.
It starts with Giotto, because it always does. The Sky Ring on Tsuna's hand glows a soft orange. The Storm and Rain follow because that's what they do, and one by one, each of the Vongola Rings bar the Mist Ring light up the fog in a dreamy array of color.
Please -
"What a time for a reunion," Daemon breathes. "Just have to get the last word in, eh, Giotto?"
No, no, no, not like this -
Cynthia closes her eyes and lets the Eclipse take her.
"Daemon Spade." The Arbiter's voice is little more than a whisper in the wind, the sharpest icicle in a wasteland, a ghost of pasts long gone. "It's time for your Judgment."