And here we are, the third and final arc of this god forsaken story. Have a nice read.
And for the nice guest, I hope this chapter pleases you as much.

Il Maestro

Third Arc

Maestri

Laying on the ground over the water dyed red, his body broken by the many fights he'd had to fight without ever taking a break, the young boy, not a kid anymore and yet far away from being an adult, kept a tight grip on his consciousness under dark and inscrutable eyes. A weak and brassy cough bubbled out of the young boy's pallid lips and he laughed weakly before he tried to turn his head to glance at the man with the dark and mysterious eyes.

"Reborn," the young boy whispered as he closed his dulled eyes with an unworldly tiredness.

The man didn't move and kept observing silently the broken body lying on the muddy and bloodied ground. His dark eyes went over the young boy's reddening clothes and paling skin, and he pursed his lips.

"Reborn," the young boy repeated with a stronger voice. He tried to stand up, to at least raise his chest from the muddy and unforgiving ground but couldn't do it.

The man took a step, his feet touching the ground without making any sound, and stopped at mere inches from the younger man, his lips still pursed and his face blank as he kept watching over the laying boy.
The teenager creaked his lips open, ready to call his name again and Reborn broke.

"Enough."

His stern voice whipped in the silent glade where only raindrops made noise, and everything seemed to stop. The dull brown eyes opened suddenly and searched silently his own. Then, his lips, so pale and yet so coloured by the viscous blood covering the whole clearing, slowly stretched into a happy smile.

"Enough," Reborn repeated with a harsh frown and ignoring his increasing watery eyes. "You have done enough, Tsuna…"

The teenager, still a mere child to his eyes, kept smiling at him and stopped trying to raise his chest. His dull eyes, once a kind and warm brown, kept looking at him with an untold warmth and the same weak laugh came out again from his bloodied mouth.

"Reborn," announced what had once been the smiling and happy Sawada Tsunayoshi. "I have done it again…"

"Enough," Reborn almost begged him. He still did his best to keep a blank face and to ignore the running raindrops falling over his covered face. "Get some rest, you deserve it…"

The teenager opened his mouth again to speak but was stopped by another gritty cough. Reborn watched over him, startling and tensing slightly when he noticed that the red puddles under his student were growing at a scary rate and that he had been coughing blood for the last minutes.

Suddenly, there was silence. The rain was still coming down, but the Arcobaleno of the Sun couldn't hear it anymore. He couldn't hear his student's guardians crying and breaking down, he couldn't hear sweet Uni's horrified sobs, he couldn't hear his cursed friends' desperate screams. He couldn't hear because the world had stopped for him.

In fact, the world had stopped moving moments ago. When his student had fallen, when his eyes had closed, and his blood had started to fall and dye the green grass around him.

"Reborn," Tsuna whispered softly while giving him such a warm look it made Reborn's heart break. "I've always lo…"

And the world broke down into unforgiving pieces.

.

.

It all began with a simple question.

"Say, Reborn, have you ever fallen in love? Been so much in love that you'd throw everything away just to stay with your loved one?"

The baby stopped reading his newspaper and slowly put down his coffee cup on the table before he looked with his dark and inscrutable eyes his student. The latter was still playing absentmindedly with his scrambled eggs, his brown eyes almost glazed over as if he wasn't even conscious he'd spoken.

"And why are you asking me this, Tsuna?" the baby tutor asked while carefully folding his newspaper.

"I was just wondering," the future Vongola Decimo said before he shrugged to show how little importance this subject was to him. "A silly question…"

Reborn went back to his newspaper while his student quickly ate his breakfast because the brunet just had noticed how late he was. Then, just as Tsuna was getting out of the house while screeching his habitual complaint and stumbling over nothing like always, the cursed baby harshly pushed away his newspaper and jumped from his high seat. He walked to the room he shared with Tsuna and frowned heavily while he jumped on the unmade bed and stretched over his abandoned pillow.

Why did such an innocent question frazzle him so much? Why was it that Tsuna had suddenly thought of asking about his former love life just when Reborn had been so distracted? Why did it matter so much to the baby?

Was it because he couldn't answer? Didn't even know the answer?

His hands clenched on the pricey silk of his tie and he closed his eyes, took a deep breath and forced himself to stay calm.

"Be classy," he reminded himself with another deep breath. He tried to calm down his mind which had been running in circles since Tsuna had asked him his innocent inquiry and tried to find an answer through the fog laying across his memories.

Why did it seem like he always hit a wall whenever he tried to answer Tsuna's question?

Suddenly, the cursed baby understood and laughed grimly. Of course, the memories he'd tasked Shamal to erase had been about a certain someone.

Someone he'd probably loved with all his being and then has wished to erase everything, even his memory from their existence, so he wouldn't suffer anymore through the heartache.

Reborn jumped away from the bed and swiftly went over the windowsill so he could lean his fever hot forehead against the cold window. His chest hurt.

The baby took his pacifier in an unforgiving grip, hating the silent reminder of his cursed existence, and sighed softly when he noticed the darkening sky. A storm was coming.

It was a sign. And a bad one.

"Reborn. I lov- "

The ghost of a baritone that seemed strangely familiar to his ears floated in the room and the baby startled slightly before he gritted his teeth. The dam against those hated memories was slowly weakening. Well, Trident Shamal's method had worked for a decade, the Arcobaleno couldn't really complain, he just had to wait and ask for another appointment once the memories were back and forget again.
However, he knew that remembering those memories was going to be hard. He hadn't wanted to forget them for nothing, after all.

"I hope you won't get in trouble, Tsuna," the baby whispered as he closed his eyes. Rain started to softly hit the window and he sighed tiredly. "Because I won't always be there to save you…"

.

.

Sawada Tsunayoshi felt a shiver run on his back and his heart missed a beat. His suddenly shaking hands let go of his pencil and it fell over his desk before it rolled away from his grasp and noisily landed on the class floor. The soft ping it did as it clattered on the floor seemed like thunder to Tsuna's ears and he cringed. The teenager closed his eyes and tensed when he heard a faraway thunder roar through the closed window next to him.

He had a bad feeling. And it became worse when the brunet noticed his tutor's absence.

"Tenth," his best friend (and also his self-proclaimed right hand) asked him in a whisper. "What's going on?"

Tsuna shook his head to reassure his friend and gave him a weak smile.

"No-nothing, Gokudera," he assured him while pushing back his dark foreboding and feelings, so he wouldn't worry his Storm Guardian.
However that feeling of impending doom kept nagging him during the day. And, once the bell rang for the end of their classes, Tsuna was already at the door, his schoolbag still open and full of his ruffled notebooks, ran to go home and he didn't even notice his friends calling for him.

All would be better once he'd see Reborn, the teenager reassured himself while trying unsuccessfully to calm down his increasing fear.

He ran faster and faster, his heart madly beating in his chest as he arrived home. Tsuna pushed the door open, not even caring where he sent his shoes as he ran through the stairs, ignoring his mother's worried voice and the children calling for him.

Tsuna panted softly and opened his bedroom door, his brown eyes looking frenetically for his child tutor. A horrified and choked moan came out of his parted lips when he realized the baby wasn't there.

"Re-Reborn?" he called weakly as he wiped the cold sweat away from his forehead.

Suddenly, Tsuna felt his body tense and try to roll away. As he didn't really understand the message his instinct was trying to send him, the brunet stumbled and tripped on his own feet and fell down on his bed while a light weight ended up on his chest. The teenager blinked twice, slowly realizing what had just happened, and the terrible grip on his heart finally went away.

"Reborn!" he screamed while fighting against the relieved smile that threatened to slip his face. "Stop jumping at me!"

The baby tilted his head, his dark eyes inscrutably gazing at the brunet, before he slapped him with the strength no baby should have had.

"Stupid Tsuna," he cackled while he kept hitting his student. "I didn't do anything. You fell with your own clumsiness!"

Tsuna wanted to protest but a sudden and burning pang of pain scorching through his chest stopped him right on his tracks. He even stopped trying to avoid his tutor's hits and closed his eyes with a pained groan. His bad feeling had increased.

His brown eyes opened, and he glared at Reborn's chubby face, eagerly looking for the slightest hint that could show him the origin of this bad feeling.

"Reborn," Tsuna asked once the heavy silence between them became too much for him. "How are you? Are you injured?"

The baby's dark eyes slightly widened, showing proof of his great surprise, and Tsuna felt the grip on his chest as well as his bad feeling increase. He had been right, Reborn was closely tied to that bad feeling.

And suddenly, that horrible feeling that had persecuted him the whole day and caught his heart in a merciless grip vanished while the baby let out a mocking cackle.

"Hurt?" Reborn repeated. "It's true that I'm terribly hurt that you dared to get such grades while you have me as a tutor…"

Tsuna's eyes widened in horror and he watched the sheet of paper covered in red and a big zero that Reborn was holding over his head with a sadistic smirk and sparkling eyes that announced his future tortures by his own tutor's hands.

Sometimes Tsuna really wondered how he ended up with a demon. Sometimes, he really wondered if that Mafia story was worth so many suffering, torture, enemies and even the duty he'd have to shoulder as a boss.
And sometimes, Tsuna realized that, thanks to his infernal tutor, his life had changed for the best and he couldn't help but smile at the baby.
And there were also times when, just as he was under his bedcovers and sure that Reborn was sleeping soundly, Tsuna spoke in hushed whispers and slowly stated all the reasons he'd to be grateful to him.
And then, there were times where the brunet merely took the baby in his arms and put him on his shoulders. As simple as that could be.

However, that night wasn't one of those times. Tsuna was stretched on his bed and turned his head so he could watch over his tutor. The latter seemed to be having a nightmare and the young Vongola hesitated between waking him up or letting him sleep. After all, Reborn didn't like to be awakened in the middle of the night for no reason…

"N-no!" the baby mumbled in his sleep while weakly fighting against his covers. "Non lo rapita!"

Tsuna slowly got up, pushing his bedcovers away in a fluid move, and walked silently to his tutor's side. He watched over the baby's shaking and moving body, visibly trying to catch something, or someone desperately.

"Tell me, Reborn," Tsuna whispered while he softly ran his fingers through the baby's dark hair. "Have you ever loved someone that you'd throw everything away just to stay with them? Even if that means erasing your own memories so you wouldn't have to suffer through their absence anymore?"

Tsuna softly caressed his tutor's hair and sat on the frigid ground of his bedroom while he leaned his chin over the table where Reborn's bed was. His tired eyes kept their silent vigil over the baby's relaxed body, and a slight melancholic smile stretched the brunet's lips.

"I wonder what will happen once you will get your memories back…" Tsuna whispered as he softly kissed Reborn's forehead.

So, tiny translation:

"No, non lo rapita!": "No, don't take him away!"

.

So next chapter should be out next day? Next week? Next month? Who knows, I don't.