So, you know the drill. Here's the chapter of the day. Maybe tomorrow there will be another.
Il Maestro
Second Arc
VI
They went on their missions again, only this time Reborn was the one jumping in the fray and Tsuna was the one with the sniper riffle.
However, even if their missions went without a hitch and they had an almost idyllic relationship, Reborn always noticed his lover's increasing pale skin and worrying slow movements.
Then, one night, his worst nightmare happened. Reborn came back to their hotel room with bags full of food, his mind absentmindedly going over their mission (which was about finding and killing some drug dealers in a backwater Chinese town, so they would find the main producing place and destroy it) and let the bags fall from his hands when he noticed the unconscious body laying over the dirty floor of their room.
The eggs cracked open and their mush started to seep through the rest of the food but Reborn didn't care. He quickly went to check his lover's pulse and sighed in relief. Then, going as fast as he could, he took his body in his arm and rushed away.
During one of their brief excursions outside, Reborn had noticed an acupuncture shop, maybe this would help Tsuna. After all, the closest (and cleanest) hospital was at three days on car from this town, he didn't have any other choice.
The stressed hitman opened the door with a well-placed kick, startling the man standing at the counter who had been enjoying his opium pipe. Reborn ignored that and, after shifting his hold on Tsuna so he could have a free hand, he took his favourite gun out and aimed at the stranger's face.
"I want your best man on him," he calmly told the man with an unaccented mandarin.
The man nodded quickly and called with a high-pitched voice one of his men. The latter arrived with haste and Reborn watched him, quickly looking over his calm brown eyes and kind smile, before he decided that the newcomer was the best he could get for his lover. The hitman followed him and softly put Tsuna on a cot.
"What happened to him?" the stranger asked him while softly perusing the unconscious body.
"I found him like that," Reborn told him quite tersely.
The man nodded and took out of his brightly red sleeves some pins that he quickly sterilised before he planted them softly on Tsuna's body.
"This is strange," the stranger muttered with a small frown as his pale fingers checked some pressure points on the brunet's body.
"What is?" Reborn asked.
"His nerves," the man briefly moved his hand to open Tsuna's shirt and show the pale and skinny chest under it. "they are slowly collapsing."
"What did you say?"
"It isn't new," the man added without caring about Reborn's increasing murderous aura. "It must have been happening for months… He must have suffered so much…"
Reborn groaned and glared daggers at his lover's almost see through skin. Why did the latter hide his condition? Why didn't he tell him anything about it?
A groan startled him away from his dark thoughts and the young hitman glanced at Tsuna's slow awakening.
"Should I leave you alone?" the stranger asked him while hiding his hands back in his long sleeves.
Reborn shook his head and observed attentively his lover's tense face. The latter blinked slowly and finally opened his amber eyes.
"Reborn," Tsuna whispered weakly. "What… Where are we?"
"Acupuncture shop," the stranger who had somewhat relieved his pain answered.
The brunet startled and tried to move his head, so he could see the one who had spoken. Once he finally caught sight of his saviour, Tsuna widened his eyes in shock.
"Hi-Hibar-" he spluttered as his eyes began to water with emotion.
"I am named Fon," the man greeted him with a slight smile.
Tsuna gulped loudly and nodded quietly. Then, he glanced with a lost look at his lover who raised a brow.
"I found you unconscious and brought you here," Reborn told him quietly.
Tsuna nodded absentmindedly and then noticed that he was half naked and covered in pins. He immediately tried to take them off.
"The treatment will soon be over," Fon assured him calmly while pushing away Tsuna's hand.
The latter grumbled under his breath and thanked him in a louder tone while he avoided his lover's dark eyes.
"You hid your condition from me," Reborn whispered in Italian.
"I didn't want to make you worry," Tsuna muttered back.
Fon seemed to understand that he wasn't welcome for the rest of their conversation and quickly walked out of the room to make some tea. He sincerely hoped the foreigners would come to an understanding.
"What's happening to you, Tsuna," Reborn asked in a low voice, his hands clenched so tightly into fists that he broke his skin.
The brunet turned his head over and looked intensively at the door where Fon had escaped.
"Nothing."
His answer wasn't louder than a mere whisper but to Reborn's ears, it rumbled as loudly as thunder. He dug his nails into the soft skin of his palms and gritted his teeth.
"Rule number one," he whispered to himself.
Always be classy.
"He said your nerves have been collapsing," he added in a louder voice.
He noticed how Tsuna's body tensed and felt like a sudden weight had been added to his stomach. This didn't look good.
"What is happening to you, Tsuna,"
Reborn's voice broke as he whispered his plea.
"Reborn," Tsuna answered with a voice as soft. "Do you remember this mission in the Caribbean two years ago?"
The younger man furrowed his brows and suddenly remembered the stranger he'd met going out of their hotel room when Tsuna'd been injured and stuck in bed.
"What happened when I wasn't there?" he asked.
"That… man," the brunet answered. He closed his eyes with a tired sigh and kept talking. "He told me how long I had to live."
"How long."
"Well, what month is it?" Tsuna opened one eye and glanced at Reborn with a somewhat happy glint.
"April."
"In that case, I have six months left."
Reborn was the one to close his eyes this time. He took a deep breath and kept his tight control over his emotions. He wasn't going to break. He wasn't going to scream, or even argue with his lover.
He wouldn't cry. Because he had to follow the first rule.
He suddenly opened his eyes and met the stranger's, Fon's eyes who had come back with teacups. He had been a mere worker in an acupuncture shop set in the middle of the most corrupted little town in China, but he'd treated somewhat successfully Tuna. But then…
What would happen if the greatest scientific mind of the century was the one to take care of Tsuna?
A toothy grin slowly appeared on the dark-haired hitman and Tsuna felt his heart squeeze over that sight.
He looked down at his slowly decaying body and began to pray. He didn't want Reborn to suffer too much when he'd die.
.
.
.
.
They started to travel once they finished their mission (or rather, once Reborn decided he'd had enough of this corrupted town and marched guns blazing into the place housing all their targets) and went to Italy. Right where Reborn had caught some rumours about a scientist who was like Leonardo da Vinci's reincarnation and invented day after day all kind of powerful weapons. The best hitman of his generation listened to all those rumours with an almost famished glint in his decided eyes and quickly found out where the genius lived so he could pay him a little visit.
They travelled to a little Italian town near the mountains, following one of Reborn's intel information, and quickly settled down in a hotel room. Reborn made sure that Tsuna was comfortably laying in bed as his condition has taken a turn for the worst lately, and then left the hotel. He straightened his back, carefully put his hat over his gelled down hair and narrowed his eyes. He had a genius to meet.
The hitman couldn't help but feel ripped off when he saw the genius' house. The main façade was in rumbles, the windows were all broken and covered with cardboards and Reborn couldn't even count all the holes over the walls.
Without missing a blink, he opened the front door with a kick and walked in, uncaring of the noise he was making. His eyes quickly went over the walls covered in humidity as well as the many vivarium placed in the holes on the wall.
"What the…" Reborn muttered to himself.
"That's what I should say," a bored voice corrected him dryly.
Reborn turned around and looked at the man standing in front of him. He was quite tall, wore a lab coat and had ruffled bright green hair. The stranger pushed the round glasses over his nose closer and quietly patted the pockets of his white lab coat before he took out of one of them a syringe that he quickly threw on the ground. Then, with the same bored expression he'd had since Reborn had infringed in his home, the man crushed the syringe with his right food and a yellow smoke began to raise from the broken syringe.
"I'm not here to kill you," Reborn sighed before he held his breath to avoid breathing in the yellow smoke.
"Then why would the best killer do in my home?" the scientist asked while walking in circles so he wouldn't be an easy target.
"I have a problem you might like to solve."
"Oh? I'm listening."
"A degenerative disease, the nerves are all collapsing, the skin is becoming see-through and he can't move anymore."
The smoke vanished and Reborn noticed that the scientist was still standing in front of him with a fascinated look on his badly shaven face.
"What do you think, Verde?" the hitman asked with a smirk.
"I'm in," the green haired scientist nodded. "It sounds interesting."
The next chapter should be named The END. But alas, Tsuna's suffering will end. But Reborn's wont.
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