One of the most emotional chapter in this series... well I tried to make it that way anyway..

Please enjoy it for what its worth.

Gokudera Hayato wanted to drown.

If only this rain that thundered down upon his body would fill his smoke blackened lungs and take him away from the nightmare that had become all too real. Drop by drop, taking him farther and farther away from this horror that had enveloped his whole world.

He laid limp and battered, arms stretched out as though crucified against the steps of the Vongola Mansion. His eyes were open only just, mere slivers of ashen green streaming with thin rivers of pooled precipitation. A similar sight to tears, but there were none left. He'd run out hours ago, wasting his body's entire supply. Too many tears, in too fast a moment.

How long had it taken, for his entire life to come crashing down around him, separated only by a sheet of glass? His whole world, the center of his universe..

A hard, deep pressure had him pinned against the steps of the mansion. It started in his chest, bottomless and bestial, clawing and biting with claws and fangs, ripping what was already shattered and inexorably broken. The torn flesh of grief and hopelessness filled his body with acidic flames of putrid regret.

He could feel him all over his his skin and clothes; his hair and bangs dyed a dark rust orange-red as the rain washed away what was left. The center of his whole World dripped away from his body and ran diluted down the marble steps, a slow swirled red. Gokudera felt him. The dark cling of him, holding to his numb fingers and under his nails and on his abdomen under his shirt and everywhere, everywhere.

Even now, he was everywhere.

The Storm flinched. He kept still, perfectly petrified and limp, even when that heavy sound of hard shoes stepped passed him. The man appointed 10th generation Vongola Outside Consultant hardly glanced at him, and for the first time, it didn't matter to Gokudera in the least.

Hibari Kyouya, who had hardly expressed a reaction. Hibari, who could leave that person's side without batting an eye to go off on his own accord. Hibari, who knew that all it took was standing close (too close, get away from him, you're too close), a brush with his pale thin finger against a soft hand in the passing of a document, any small inconsequential act to send Gokudera into a fit of jealous rage.

He recalled all the times he'd scared himself with the thoughts he had toward Sasagawa Kyouko. The dreams he had of wrapping his fingers around her thin little neck and removing her from the picture entirely.

He's had hated himself for just grinning and acting the fool while she hung off His arm, kissed Him while dusty green eyes watched from the sidelines and all Gokudera could do was bite the inside of his lip and flood his mouth with the warm taste of iron.

He could never look Him in the eye while she was still around. His guilt from the dreams and thoughts of killing the youngest Sasagawa off to eliminate the threat of her would increase whenever he saw the two together. Every assassination mission he went on, every enemy he mutilated, had that woman's face. He killed her a thousand times in his mind, and it left him bitter and undeserving of the smiled greetings he received when returning home.

When finally, finally she was removed from the picture by Tsuna himself, 'broken up' as it were, Gokudera hadn't felt much better. It gave him little satisfaction in his heart.

Because the jealousy was still there when they'd decided to remain 'friends'. When she'd stop by the mansion, and he'd see her look at the small back of his Boss with eyes Gokduera knew all too well. It never went away, the all-consuming jealous rage.

Jealousy. What would become of his jealousy now? It's what had made everything worse in the end. And indeed, this was that 'end'. His flaming, scalding jealous fury that enveloped his heart like nothing else when those copper-penny eyes looked at anyone other then him. All it did was build each passing year (months, weeks, days, every minute, every second), making his bond to that person stronger and stronger.

It didn't matter anymore. It was for nothing.

What had he to feel that sensation over now? Hibari Kyouya, the honored Outside Consultant, a rival for Right Hand Man if anything at all, meant absolutely nothing now. So Gokudera did nothing; no reaction as the man stepped down past him and into a waiting car. The sound of the engine growling low into the distance before the roar of the downpour took away everything else once again.

This rain... Where was Yamamoto, anyway? Was he crying yet? Was it his turn to drain his tear ducts dry and empty his stomach contents upon re-living everything that had just happened, over and over and over again in his head? Or was he keeping it in, until, knowing him, he'd implode upon himself and head for the nearest roof top just like so many years ago?

How dare he. What did he know. His shit eating grin that had always made that person smile and laugh so lightly, the way his damned arm would pull him around the shoulders innocently enough on the outside, but Gokudera had always been able to see it.

So then what was supposed to happen next..? What was left?

A violent tremor -shocking and unexpected- shot through Hayato's body, and, as though the domino had been tipped to set off the others, the edges of his soul curled inward, and shattered.

"I'll be... okay."

Cold, wet silver rings braced as his fingers pulled into fists against the marble steps. Skin split as fingernails dug into the pale flesh of Gokudera's palm, his knuckles turning ice-white. Slowly, he let his left fist rise and hang in the air for a moment, suspended in the rain, shaking, and then it was brought down hard and sharp. There was an audible 'crack' as his clenched fingers slammed against the polished stone. Again and again until his arm would no longer lift itself to continue.

Physical pain ate its way up his nerves. It was nothing, the pain paling in comparison to everything else, even though his fingers were now bruised and split and bent at unnatural angles.

It had only taken fractions of one second for everything Gokudera Hayato lived for to be taken away from him. What were left of promises now, in the world that he no longer cared to hold a place in. He didn't want to live for anything else but that one purpose. Not for his half-sister, not for the memory of his mother, and not for that man who he'd idolized as a child. Not for any of them.

But for Tsuna.

Tsuna was all he had ever wanted to live for.

"...Jyuudaime..." the whisper left his pale lips and fell to the rain. The precious tittle whispered softly and broken, containing all the misery and sorrow Gokudera could fathom. The tears came, but at the same time, very much didn't. Couldn't. His eyes burned hotly, staring into the swirling, undulating darkness of the storm clouds, but couldn't do much on their own with the rain that pelted down.

The sky was crying in his place. Golden, copper-penny eyes shed tears for his sake.

He always had, hadn't he? Tsuna had always been the one that would make sacrifices, despite having Gokudera by his side willing to do anything anything to make him happy. But still, it was always Tsuna and his smile (the way his lips pulled up just slightly, in a simple way, but brilliant), his smile and lasting innocence that stepped in to be the lamb that would go to slaughter without a second thought. The only difference now, was that that 'slaughter' was now no longer metaphorical.

Anything and everything that was good in the world had been utterly slaughtered before Gokudera's stormy green eyes.

And still, that smile had lasted until he had been torn away with clawing fingers and thrashing limbs, screaming his throat to tatters. The smile that knew of sacrifice and knew of loyalty, and fit so perfectly into the silver haired Italian's heart it could be said he'd been born to bend at the knees and offer his everything just to receive that smile and have the honor of being graced with such an angelically innocent and pure being.

Gokudera's tweaked and bent fingers, tinted in a mixture of red yellow and blue from bruises and the cold, twitched in wanton grief.

"...Please..." The word was hushed from the back of his dry, rough throat, as weak and useless and pitiful as any of the words that tore from him hours ago, when he'd screamed and torn raw his vocal chords the same name over and over again. Denial and insults he'd screamed too, threats of death to those trying to pry loose his fingers from thin blood spattered hands that were limp in his own. At one point he was sure he'd switched back into Italian as his mind unraveled.

An acidic pool built once more in the pit of his stomach as a memory of dark red and white rushed through him.

Red on his hands. Red on his cloths. Red on that beautiful face. Red around those breath-taking copper eyes. Red on trembling fingers that very briefly tightened with a soft pressure, then went still. Red on the white marble floors, white petaled lilies, white knuckles clutching fist-fulls of white pinstripe suit. A world of white stained red.

"I'll be... okay."

Finally Gokudera moved from his crucified position on the steps, wrenching himself onto his hands and knees to purge the rising acidic denial and self-hatred that filled his stomach. His shoulders convulsed and shuddered until only the metallic taste on his lips remained dripping away with the falling deluge. He'd wanted to vomit at the images that burned into him forever, but nothing was left.

His stomach was empty. His tears were empty. His heart was empty. His World was gone.

Gone.

"... Please don't leave me..."

Forever.

The rain fell hard on the Storm Guardian's body as it laid still against the steps of the Vongola mansion. The sky mixed with its sad colors, crying and mourning in its dark greys and blacks. Time eclipsed, and there was nothing more that could sum up the man who laid face down in the rain. He simply lay there, images of his world all he had left in an existence that he no longer could find a place in.

A world that was filled with warm coppers, oranges, honey-golds, and soft pink lips that only just barely lifted at the corners.

-

-

"I love you, I love you, I love you, more then anyone, I'm so sorry, I'm sorry, please please forgive me, I love you-"

Words, too many words all at once rushing, thundering through Gokudera's head in the small forest clearing. His chest -empty and vacant for days he'd had numbered, but now couldn't recall- burned hotly and savagely for a reason he never thought he'd ever be able to experience again.

"Eh... that face... can it be..."

The voice was higher pitched, wavering and prodding with that familiar curiosity. Gokudera fell apart at his seams.

"Jyuudaime!!" he gripped hard at the small arms in his hands that were so large against the tiny frame. His knees collapsed under him, the soft grass crushing under his weight. His fingers held tightly on to the warm flesh of this thin, teenage body, hard enough he could feel the bruising as he pressed soft muscle and sinew against bone.

"I'm sorry..!! I'm so sorry!!" in the end, apologies won out over his desire to act upon the feelings he'd been left to fold inward into the back of his dark mind.

He was sorry.

So sorry for everything.

Sorry for the dark cherry wood coffin with its tarnished silver 'X'. Sorry for isolating himself from the Famigilia after that night that had shattered everything he believed. Sorry for never understanding. Sorry for failing. Sorry for letting go of that thin hand in the world of red and white. Sorry for his jealousy. Sorry for loving his Boss so intensely that it made everything the more excruciating, even now, when big brown eyes under tawny bangs stared at him with shock and confusion.

"Wha-?! Hey, it really hurts!!" Tsuna cried (Tsuna, it was Tsuna). Gokudera released his grip with a muttered 'sorry...', and inwardly he wondered how it was so easy to do when the last time he'd let go, it nearly destroyed him.

"I'm sure it's going to be hard to believe, but I was hit by Lambo's Ten-Year bazooka by accident." The smaller version of the 10th Vongola sky said with a blush of embarrassment. Gokudera's hopes were crushed at those words.

"I see.. then, only five minutes..."

Only five minutes. Only five minutes, this one chance he had to say anything, do anything he wanted with his Boss's younger self here in front of him. He could do anything.

Anything.

He could take the opportunity to change things forever, tell him how much he loved him, and change the past in his favor. But, alas, he'd have to change his past and present; this Tsuna's future. He had to put aside the burning acidic feelings in his stomach for the sake of ensuring everything would be okay when the five minutes were up.

"Listen carefully, Boss..." he began. "Please, when you go back to the past, remember this moment and do exactly as I say."

He could see his words were only startling the young boy in the polished wood coffin.

"There's no time for details." Stop looking at me with those eyes, or I wont be able to... "When you go back to the past, you must eliminate this person imediately!"

Here he pulled out the photo he'd stored in his poket. The man with rusty red hair and thick coke-bottle glasses.

"What-?! Eliminate?! By that you mean..?!"

He'd predicted that the younger version of his Boss would react in horror-struck surprise at the thought of taking another's life. But god if he could do it just this once..!

"This is Irie Shouichi. This is a picture of him from my time, but you should have met him in your freshman year of middle school."

Big copper eyes stared with dilated confusion. The darkness in Gokudera's heart, all that was left of himself after being pried away from his sole reason for existing, flared upwards. His eyes contorted with hatred at the thought of flickering hazel eyes behind thick glasses and orange-red bangs.

"If only that person didn't exist..." then you'd still be by my side "Then Byakuran wouldn't be like this."

"Eh? Byaku...ran?" the young teen repeated. There was silence for a moment, and those golden eyes flickered down to the wood his small hands were gripping.

"The next thing I'm going to say is a precaution-"

"Wait! I want to ask, why am I in a coffin?!"

"JYUUDAIME, NO!"

"Don't leave me! Please don't leave me-!!"

A world of red stained white bit into the center of Gokudera's eyes, and he felt himself crumbling all over again.

"Why is the future me... in a coffin?" said copper-penny eyes under tawny bangs. Gokudera's eyes were hot. His stomach churned. Why did it have to be him? Why did that idiotic cow brat have to shoot Tsuna at the exact time Gokudera was paying his daily respects? Why couldn't it have been when any of the others had been visiting?

Why did he have to have his unhealing wounds ripped further open by such an innocent question?

"Thats... because..."

He couldn't say it. He couldn't say the reason.

And then there was a pull and tightening over every inch of his body. He immediately recognized the feeling, and was at ease. He truely could no longer keep staring into eyes that made him fall apart any more. He couldnt answer a question that was asked so innocently of him. He hoped, in the last seconds before light colored smoke filled his senses, that he would never have to answer that question again.

That whatever world he returned to, wouldn't be stained with white and red.

He prayed to be returned to his own World. The center of his Universe.

-

-

Short but to the point. I didn't know if I should include the meeting with 14-year old Tsuna, since I preferred leaving it off with Gokudera's thoughts in the rain.

True there is no proof that Gokudera loves Tsuna romantically in the manga, but I think he's got to. It's something I want to believe in, and can't really imagine Gokudera not having deeper feelings for him.

I hope you enjoyed this chapter. It was very touching to write, since its a very direct-from-the-heart feeling of loss that had to be conveyed. (I must have listed to 'Only One' by Yellow card about a thousand times while writing this, and I dont even like Yellow Card...).

Next chapters will be around in a couple of days or weeks, I'm not sure. The next character is a little tricky to describe, since his intentions are always mysterious.

Thank you for your reviews and support.