AN: ...I was going to make Tsuna hug Gokudera...but didn't get the chance *hangs head in despair*. I overdid it. Too damn long now...

Beta: Unbeta'd

Chapter 20: Tales lost in the Storm

It didn't take long to find Gokudera. Tsuna just had to follow the sound of yelling, exploding bombs, and crashes. This inevitably led him to a half-destroyed training room that looked like a bulldozer had come and decided to play whack-a-mole.

Gokudera was in the center of it, sitting on the floor cross legged, his silver hair falling over his eyes and covered in dust and sweat. His clothes, a Namimori Middle School uniform, were torn at the edges and looked like he had just rolled through mud.

"Gokudera" gasped Tsuna from the doorway, eyeing the balent destruction of the room with a wary eye, "You do know that the blonde idiot is going to stalk you for this?"

At this, Gokudera looked up, his normal ferocious green eyes dull. "What?" said Gokudera in confusion, his anger having settle down, with the appearance of his role model.

"You know. Blonde, wears a suit constant, has a boy following him around, gets kick by Reborn?" smiled Tsuna, his eyes flashing with playful bather.

At Gokudera's blank look, Tsuna rolled his eyes, "Iemitsu, Gokudera."

"Oh."

Gokudera promptly returned to his depression. Tsuna twitched at the negative energy just radiating off the boy. Maybe this wasn't as easy as he thought it would be. Hopeful a good whack would snap Gokudera out of it.

And he did.

"Ow! What was that for!" cried Gokudera, holding his head with his hand. A large bump was visible. Tsuna snorted.

"Snap out of it already" scolded Tsuna, kneeling down next to Gokudera, glaring at Gokudera with a mix of disapproval, understanding, and expectation. "Will moping fix your family? Will it get you to be the Representative of the Tempesta?"

Gokudera opened his mouth to argue but no sound came out when he realized that what Tsuna said was indeed true. He closed it. Clapping his hands in delight mentally, Tsuna was happy that something had gotten through Gokudera's thick head.

"No, it wouldn't, would it?" said Tsuna softly, his eyes looking straight pass Gokudera, like he was seeing something entirely different. "Even if you did it for the rest of your life it wouldn't change a thing, because you didn't do anything. I learned that the hard way."

Tsuna took Gokudera's limp hand and touched it to the spot right above Gokudera's heart, and said, "Do you feel it? This thing that keeps pumping and pumping until there's nothing left, and you're dead?"

Gokudera nodded, his voice mute. To him, Tsuna had always seemed normal, his age, with the only difference being a goddess that never really appear and a knack for magic-Gokudera still couldn't believe it, he was a scientist and he was damn sure that magic did not exist-but now, he seemed almost inhuman yet human at the same time.

"That's what it would do in a couple years if you spent the rest of your life like that. It'll keep pumping and pumping and you'll live a mockery of life until you fall dead"said Tsuna sharply, "Then you'll probably spend the rest of eternity with some horrible punishment or wander the fields of the Asphodel, unsure of who you even are. Helgardh has no love for those that waste's life's precious gift. Especially since she was never allowed such a luxury herself."

Gokudera blinked, "Helgardh?"

Tsuna chuckled, "I keep forgetting that in this era, the old religion has been replaced by christianity or whatever except for the ones who we, vessels, carry. Helgardh is the goddess of the dead, the ruler of the underworld, and judge of the deceased."

Gokudera cocked his head, and for an minute, Tsuna swore he could see a pair of fluffy grey ears and a wagging tail. A question shoned in those green orbs, and Tsuna answered them without waiting for Gokudera to say anything.

"According to what, My goddess tells me, Helgardh was the child of the goddess of the moon, Rhiannon, and the mortal prince, Parvento. Now Parvento was a well sought after prince, so when Helgardh was born, a jealous maid slewed Helgardh and accused Rhiannon of the murder of her own child" told Tsuna, his eyes glowing as he remembered the old tale.

"That's...sad" said Gokudera quietly, "Now that I think about, it's what would have happened to me if my father didn't take me away..."

Tsuna smiled sadly and continued, "Now Parvento was enraged, and sent his servants to chase Rhiannon out of his lands. Rhiannon, estranged with grief and hurt at her lover's betrayal, cursed Parvento into a beast and his lands to never prosper. She then raised Helgardh from the dead with black magic.

"But upon the sight of her deceased daughter, Rhiannon became terrified of her own child's appearance, for the jealous maid's mortal wounds had not healed, letting all see her ghastly white bones and red flesh. In disgust, Rhiannon committed the deed that she was accused of."

Gokudera's eyes widen with horror.

"Understandable, the King of Gods, Caelus the sky was horrified. He banished her to the darkness of the night for before this, the moon and sky set and emerged at the same time, leaving the night sky bare. As for Helgardh...Caelus granted her immortality despite the fact she was a demigod, a child of a god and mortal.

"But despite his powers, Helgardh's mortal wounds would not healed, thus the other gods and mortals feared and avoided her for this. In despair and loneliness, Helgardh asked Caelus to return her to death. Now Caelus felt great sympathy towards the young goddess, yet he also did not want her to roam the underground, lost forever as she had no life to be judged, killed as she was with her first breath.

"That's when Caelus decided to grant her the throne of the underworld, making her it's ruler, as the old god of the dead had long since faded. Thus, Helgardh became the goddess of the dead, Queen of the Underworld, and Judge of the deceased."

"That's an interesting tale" said Gokudera.

Tsuna smiled, lay and lopsided, and said with a wistful drawl, "Who do you think was the villain of the story, Gokudera? The jealous maid? Rhiannon? Parvento? The other gods? or perhaps something else?"

Gokudera put a hand on his chin and thought. He thought and thought, analyze each character and what their actions did. Tsuna waited patiently, wondering what the young lad's answer would be.

Suddenly, Gokudera snapped his fingers and said with his eye's a piercing beam of green, "I got it. It's human, or godly, fear."

Tsuna nearly fell forward in shock but stopped himself with a arm. His eyes wide with surprise and something else, Tsuna asked, "Why?"

"Humans and gods fear the unknown, the dark, anything that threatens them, anyway. What you described, did the gods not fear Helgardh? Did Rhiannon not fear her own child's appearance? Was Parvento not chasing Rhiannon out for fear of her murderess ways? Did the maid not kill Helgardh for being the symbol of the thing that threatened her love for the prince" questioned Gokudera, his voice strong with belief, "The answer is yes, they did fear."

With his long, earth brown hair casting a shadow over his youthful face, a smile was clear on Tsuna's face. "You know, you remind me a lot of your ancestor, Gokudera" Tsuna said.

"Ancestor, Juudaime?"

Tsuna almost sighed with relief. It hadn't escaped his notice that Gokudera hadn't called him that title throughout the whole time they had been talking. This was a sign that Gokudera was feeling better.

"His name was Geomar Furioso of the Noble House of the Tempesta, or as it was called back in the old days, Trastamara, though everyone called him G since he hated his name" whispered Tsuna. "When I asked him the same question I just asked you, he said the exact same thing; just with a lot of cursing first."

Gokudera choked, "Geomar Furiosos! He's my 1st Cousin 3 times removed as well as Vongola Primo's Temesta representative! He lived in the 1680s to the 1740s! Just how old are you?! Nevermind that, how are you even alive?!"

Tsuna snickered, "About the same age as your '1st cousin 3 times removed' if he was alive today. And only alive because of Gaia. What year is it, anyway? I never got around asking that."

"2137..."

Tsuna whistled and put his arms behind his head, "I sure got locked up for a long time, didn't I? I think I went in, in 1701.."

"What do you mean locked up?! I'll blow them up for you if you want, Juudaime!" said Gokudera, while he mentally subtracted, "That's 436 years.."

"Good thing, I'm not scared of small spaces, right Gokudera" laughed Tsuna lightly, as he flicked the silver haired boy's forehead.

"Juudaime..."whispered Gokudera, upset at his friend's days in imprisonment. "Don't worry, Gokudera" mumbled Tsuna, using Gokudera's horror to lay down on the boy's lap, "I'm just happy to see the sky. G reacted the same way when he found out."

"Huh?" Gokudera cocked his head in confusion. As far as he knew, Tsuna hadn't had any human contact besides the kings for apparently, the last 436 years.

Tsuna seeing Gokudera's confusion, decided to explain. "The vessels were normal humans once, Gokudera" said Tsuna quietly, "And in my original life, I was the same as you. An illegitimate child born out of my father's tryst with a maid."

Gokudera's eyes widened. Never had he guessed that Tsuna was the same as him.

"Back then most illegitimate children would have then thrown away, unacknowledged, without an inheritance. But my father's wife was found to be infertile after an accident with poison, so he kept me around but toss my mother out the backdoor with her tongue cut off" said Tsuna, ruthlessly.

"As you might have guess, My father was a noble of an important trading town in Sicily, in which at that time, G's House ruled. A lot of important people came over a lot, so in order for the legitimacy of my birth to not be questioned, he locked me in a tower, out of sight. I was too young to be disguised properly as a child of him and his wife.

"But then something absolutely stupid happen. Your" Tsuna pointed at Gokudera, "1st Cousin 3 times removed, climbed up the bloody tower when his family visited once."

"What?" gapped Gokudera, stunned.

"When I was 13, He climbed up the tower. That's how I met up. Just think. I was just innocently reading in my tower when BAM, some kid pokes his head inside my window. As you probably guessed I freaked and threw the book at him. Once he got inside, he cursed at me for a full minute and dragged me out thinking I was just an agoraphobic bookworm.

"He gave my family a heart attack, but they couldn't do anything since G belongs to the house that pretty much rules them. G found out eventually and his family adopted me. Since my dad hadn't legally acknowledged me as his son, my father couldn't do scat. Thank Gaia for that!" laughed Tsuna, his eyes flashing with delight.

Gokudera sweatdropped, "My ancestor is really strange..."

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