OpalescentGold: I do not own Katekyo Hitman Reborn.
Warning: suicidal thoughts.
Breakdown
This is how things catch up to them.
Disappearance
"Juudaime! Juudaime!"
In Tsuna's experience, the front door opening so hard it slams into the wall and a voice shouting his name at six in the morning never means good news.
"Gokudera-kun?" Tsuna clambers down the stairs, frowning, already rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and pulling on his sweater. "What's wrong?"
Hayato is breathless and sweating, hands braced on his knees. "Reiki - "
Tsuna's blood runs cold. He runs down the rest of the stairs, grabbing Hayato's shoulders urgently. "Nori-chan? What happened to Nori-chan?"
"Reiki - she's not in her hospital room." Hayato looks up, gasping and pale. "She's gone."
Inquiry
By six-thirty, Tsuna has woken up all of his friends, including the Simon, and they're combing through Namimori, looking for her. Tsuna doesn't disturb Nori's parents, because he knows she wouldn't have gone to them, but he also doesn't know where she is.
They've been to their rooftop, the hill where they watched fireworks, and the sakura trees. She isn't at Takeshi's, isn't with Hibari, and Tsuna is running out of ideas on where to look.
It doesn't help that it's started raining.
Blowing out a breath and shoving his wet hair out of his hair, Tsuna glances up at the gray sky like it holds the answers he needs. Where is Nori? She can't - after such a powerful Judgement, she must be exhausted, and that's not even considering whatever it was that happened with the Vendice.
Normally, she wouldn't even be awake yet. Before, she always slept for days and days until Tsuna was worried she wouldn't wake up. Now, it's been a mere two days, and she's left her hospital room as pristine as if she was never there in the first place. They can find no trace of her.
It's as if she's a ghost, having twisted herself into thin air and smoke along with Daemon Spade.
Altitude
There's but one water tower in Namimori. She dangles her bare feet off of the ledge and doesn't flinch from the ground below.
The rooftops all look so small from up here.
The entity with too many names and not enough people to call her by them shivers. It's cold up here. She's wearing nothing but a soaked hospital gown; there are cuts on her feet and she can't remember how they got there.
It doesn't matter. What does it matter? Nothing matters, really.
She...shouldn't be here. She should be a skeleton resting in the ground, dust on the wind, a phantom forgotten by history. What reason does she have for existing? Why was she reincarnated in the first place?
Noriko wants to sleep. Cynthia wants to rest.
The Arbiter may be eternal and unchanging, but its host isn't. She's lived through a lifetime and a facsimile of a second one. If she was brought back for Daemon, to make right her past mistakes, then she's done so. What keeps her here?
She could fall. It would be so very easy. The ground is faraway and docile beneath her dangling feet. Rain drips into her eyes. She blinks it away, lovesick and homesick.
If she closes her eyes, falling is almost the same thing as flying, isn't it?
Angel
Without a sound, without a warning, glorious wings of flame cut through the rain so a cursed god can land a few meters away from her.
"What's this?" Far from concerned or alarmed, Byakuran of the Millefiore Famiglia sounds nothing more than amused and curious as his wings dissipate in flickers of blinding white. "Are you going to die again, Nori-chan?"
"Don't call me that," she says. Even to her own ears, her voice is bland and soft, the last mournful croon of a fading spirit.
"Oh? Would you prefer Cynthia-chan? But you're not really her anymore. And I guess you're not Nori-chan either." Byakuran pauses. From the corner of her eye, she watches him cock his head with a mocking smile. "I wonder if any of your friends would still recognize you?"
She doesn't respond. Whether that's because she sees no reason to interact with a mad Sky or because she has no answer is left up in the air.
"Come on!" Byakuran whines when the silence drags on, starting to pout. It's a disturbingly childish look on a man who almost ruled a universe, but she remains coolly unperturbed, untouched by everything in this world. "I saved your life, you know. Before you undo all of my hard work, you may as well talk to me."
"I'm not obligated to do anything."
Something dark casts its shadow on his face, something familiar. "Not even give an apology for condemning me to an eternity as a specter, unable to move forward but invisible to everyone around me?"
"It was what you deserved," the Arbiter replies. Past the rain, past the wind, small figures approach the base of the tower. "The Judgment does not lie. And the fate of another you does not impact the you of today. Your complaints are groundless."
Byakuran just looks at her for a few long moments. "You can't die, old girl," he says with an eerie gentleness that pulls at her attention. She turns to blink slowly at him. "You can't die."
"Why not?" she asks and it's almost curious. Almost.
"You're meant for more than this." Byakuran tilts his face up towards the rain, water dripping from his clothes. "You have a bigger role to play."
"I don't care."
"Ah." He grins. "But Tsunayoshi-kun does, doesn't he? And look, there he is!"