Warning: Character death. Non graphic suicide and mention of suicide.
Please prepare yourself for a very heavy chapter. Gods, this chapter was so hard to write.
Chapter 4: Discord
"Let's go straight to the matter at hand." The young boss spoke slowly, standing at one head of the long table, his hands propelling his upper body up "I want names."
A little behind his back was the nervous presence of his external advisor- Basilicum. To the right of his hands were his Storm, Sun and Lightning Guardians. To the left were the Rain and the female half of his two Mist Guardians. Hibari Kyoya- the infamous Cloud Guardian was off to the far end of the room behind the young boss, not wanting to crowd himself with other herbivores that were way underneath his class. At the other end of the table were the appointed seats of the twelve underbosses each of which represented an independent branch of Vongola, and all of them together were called the Vongola Senior Council. They were all the senior members of the Famiglia whose histories and backgrounds intertwined with those of Vongola since Ottavo's reign. In other words, their decision-making power on the fates of Vongola are fourth in line, after Vongola Decimo himself, his Guardians and the CEDEF.
Yet in the presence of the young man who they had previously deemed unworthy of the Vongola Decimo title, none of those seasoned mafioso dared to make a wrong sound.
"I have given all of you one month, and none of you even came close to give me what I sorely miss. Do all of you no longer value your life or something?"
The suffocating silence in the grandest meeting room of Vongola Mansion seemed to be the only thing that answered him.
Some of the underbosses swallowed thickly, and the others held in their breath hoping that somehow the terrifying Decimo would overlook their existence. Gone were the 'experienced and powerful people who did things the right way' that repeatedly and openly voiced out their doubts and objections against their leader's methods and mild-mannered way of running their organization. Now in their place were instead twelves trembling and quivering grown up men and women yielding under the pressure of the young Vongola Decimo's power and will.
Finally, one of the underbosses who was a stocky man in his early 40s with jet black hair and black eyes shakily spoke up. His name was among the more popular and forgettable ones, something Russo that the young boss never bothered to learn. He was one of the younger underbosses and actually the one in charge of the investigation on Sawada Nana's demise since the location where it happened lay inside his territory.
"I- we had succeeded in catching the sniper who was responsible for your m- her death. However, he killed himself with poison as soon as we took him into custody. He hid a special tooth filled with poison in his mouth, everything happened too fast and we weren't able to resuscitate him in time."
"What about having one of our Mists to get into his head? Our Famiglia has 3 of the most powerful Mist Flame users in the world and none of you could even extract anything remotely useful?"
Another one, who was a female Mist user in her late 30s answered readily.
"I'm truly sorry sir. By the time Russo contacted me it was already too late. He was braindead before I even arrived. I could not do anything more."
"What is the autopsy result? Which kind of poison did he die from? Can we trace backward to the supplier with that?"
"What he used was very common and fast acting, Decimo sir. I'm truly sorry, we could not get anything more." The first one who spoke immediately replied to his inquiry.
And the silence stretched out once again.
"How… awfully convenient." was the man's cold remark. Everyone shuddered at the sudden temperature drop in the room.
"It was as if someone from the inside, from my side, had tied up all those loose ends." The cold eyes swept over the room felt like an anchor dragging them to the abyss where they never saw the light again.
When he finally looked away, and they could finally breathe again, one of the braver, and stupider, underboss spoke up.
"I don't like what you are insinuating, Decimo sir. Are you saying that there was a traitor among us Council?"
"I know what I said, Giuseppe Antonelli. I wasn't merely insinuating. I was stating a fact. You might want to relearn your Italian lesson, Antonelli. Even though I'm not a native speaker, my knowledge of Italian seems to exceed yours."
"Decimo-"
"Now, I do believe that whomever you are bursting your asses to cover for will eventually play an important role in your plan to overthrow me at any moment, isn't it? Is my mother's death collateral damage to you in your plan, or is it intentional?"
The emphasis on the last word of his sentence had all the occupants of the room frozen in terror as the dangerous undertone in his indication promised a very painful and long death in the near future. And they more than anyone knew the young man was not one with only words for show. Taught by the greatest hitman in the world and carrying in his vein the blood of the greatest Sky in the history of all Mafia, the young man had the power to back up his words.
Yet one of the greatest thorns in Decimo's side, the oldest, meanest of the Council- that Giuseppe Antonelli- continued to prove himself to be a bull headed and stubborn moron who could not get his head out of his ass and tried to go against the man who could literally move mountains with his hands.
"With all due respect, Decimo sir, could you please stop making such ridiculous accusations in this meeting? We are at a tentative period at the moment and the wall got ears and eyes. What if the words got out that there are internal conflicts among us, the biggest Mafia organization in the world? The rumors about Veleno Famiglia's disappearance are still flying around and have no sign of dying down anytime soon. I strongly suggest that you should not be too hasty on your next move. After all, it would immensely affect the position of Vongola in the hierarchy of the Underworld. We cannot risk that over the death of one mere civilian."
"THAT MERE CIVILIAN. IS. MY. MOTHER!"
A dark but powerful orange Flame burst into life in front of the man's forehead and his eyes abruptly turned into molten lava. The sheer force of the invisible Sky Flame that filled up the spacious room in waves, inadvertently choking all the occupants with its power and pressure, worked a thousand times better than the worst threat they could think of. They could neither move nor even lift their head up to look at the man under the mass of unrelenting Sky Flame. If the man did not let up soon, it was only a matter of time before they all keeled over and frothed from their mouth from the sheer pressure of the Flame surrounding them.
Then what felt like eternity later, the man promptly put out his Flame, both the one in front of his forehead and those that were pressing down on them, and his eyes turned back to chocolate brown. He smiled, a frosty one although, at them.
"Honestly, since we are all family here, I truly don't want to go too rough on any of you. But time is not a luxury I have."
"With each day passed with no further development, I will. Shoot. One. Of. You."
"With this method, I will eventually get the one who stabbed me behind my back in no time. What do you think, my dear Council? After all, what's the need for someone who could not even do his job right in our Famiglia?"
"It would not be the first time, would it?" The young man's lips curled into a small, cruel smirk and his eyes flashed orange dangerously, clearly challenging whoever dared to defy his will. "These hands had already put down thousands. What stopped me from adding a few more deaths to the list?"
The occupants of the room quivering in fear as waves after waves of killing intents poured out from him like a tsunami trying to drown all of them in one swoop.
"You are dismissed." The young boss waved his hands dismissively, and the twelve grown up men and women scurried away as though they were on fire.
The only people who remained in the room were the young boss himself and his dear Guardians.
"What are you still doing here? I have no more use for you."
SMACK!
A sharp resounding smack jostled all of them out of their stupor. Head snapping to the side from the sheer force of the slap, the Vongola Decimo looked at the one who backhanded him from the corner of his eyes, his face was cold and ruthless, completely void of the warmth and kindness he was well known for.
"Stop it." In front of him was his beloved female Mist Guardian who was trembling in fear and what's more, anger. Her voice shook from the strong torrent of emotions that none of them ever thought the usually timid and soft-spoken girl could possess.
"This isn't you! Stop it!"
"This is the real me, Dokuro Chrome. Haven't all of you already dubbed me for what I was? Are you all forgetful or just in denial?"
"Didn't you call me a monster behind my back? Didn't you get all chummy and cozy with Federico and all too ready to call him your new Sky? Haven't all of you severed our Harmonization in cold blood and left me in pain and suffering for several days afterward without any remorse?"
"No-"
"HAVEN'T I DONE ENOUGH? WHAT'S MORE COULD YOU BE EXPECTING FROM ME? IF YOU HAD GONE AND ABANDONED ME ALREADY, WHY CAN YOU LEAVE ME ALONE?"
"Tsuna-"
"WE DID IT BECAUSE YOU HAVE CHANGED!"
"... How have I changed, Dokuro?"
"Y-you used to value life, no matter how small it is."
"If it was because I have killed, do I need to remind you that we are in the mafia?"
"But thousands, boss! You killed thousands! The Storm man found the files in your hidden drawers, and the number of casualties, it exceeds our imagination!"
"And why would you use Nana-san's death as a tool to achieve what you want like that, boss? She was innocent and she did not deserve to be taken advantage of in that way! We know you did not see eye to eye with Federico-san, but going so far as to frame him for your mother's death-"
"SHUT UP, DOKURO! What would you know about me and my mother? Your mother doesn't even love you!"
The young woman was so shocked by her boss' hurtful comment that she suddenly forgot how to breathe. The man in front of her was no longer the gentle boss who worried over the smallest any time she went out for a mission, gently holding her hands through hardship and pain. It was as if someone had replaced him with a doppelganger, wearing his face but existing with rage in his blood and ice for a heart. Her fellow Guardians, namely Yamamoto and Sasawaga, seeing how their confrontation took a turn for the worse, were quick to her defense. Gokudera was too stunt to say anything. And Lambo, Lambo was simply too much of a coward to confront the brunet when he was furious like this.
"That's EXTREMELY MEAN!"
"Stop it, Tsuna. How could you-"
"SAWADA TSUNAYOSHI!"
Suddenly out of nowhere, an disembodied voice growled out his name like a curse, and the shocked and terrified Chrome was pulled back into the arms of his male Mist Guardian. The heterochromia eyes glared at his supposed boss with such hatred that the brunet was forcefully snapped out of his blinding rage and back into his senses. He then realized the the one who he had aimed his razor-sharp words at wasn't neither his enemies nor his foe, but one of his closest, most trusted friends who was supposed to be on his side.
"M-Mukuro-sama?"
"I could care less about you and your merry band of mafioso, but if you hurt Nagi, I won't stand by and watch!"
"I-I…"
The young boss' head hung in defeat, as surrounding him at the moment were his Guardians- his friends, his family, his almost everything- 's distrustful and hurt expressions. To know that he was the source of their ailments was like getting stabbed in the heart a thousand times with a jagged skewer.
"…Would you believe me if I say that everything I did was for your sake?"
None of his Guardians answered. Can he even call them his anymore? The terror and suspicion on their faces were the loud and clear enough message of how exactly they thought of him. He stumbled back and turned around to search for his Cloud Guardian's eyes, his only anchor. What met him was the complicated expression on Hibari Kyoya's face.
His heart skipped a beat as he felt one small fracture coming to life in his and Kyoya's Harmonization.
NO! Please, Kyoya! It was our Harmonization, my last Harmonization that kept me sane! Please don't take it away too!
His plea was not heard as the invisible tendrils that hold their bond in place were forcefully wrenched apart with a resounding bang in his head.
He and Kyoya had fallen into Discord.
"WHAT-? HOW?" Hibari Kyoya, who stood a foot away from the others suddenly shouted in alarm, very much out of his character while the rest of the Guardians looked back and forth at both the pair of boss and Cloud Guardian in bewilderment, clueless on what just transpired in front of their eyes.
Like a marionette got cut off from its strings, the man dropped to the marble floor like a stone. The last string that held his sanity together had broken apart and the world around him including his Guardians blurred together in a combination of sounds and noises, of fractured shapes and colors.
When the smoke was finally clear, he found himself no longer in Italy, but Namimori.
Why is he here? What is his future self doing here? Did he go to visit his mother?
His heart skipped a beat when he recognized the place he was in front of to be Namimori Funeral Parlor, where most of his town's funerals were held. He was just outside of the side door of the venue, to be exact, as though the Tsuna of the future only stepped out for a moment to take a breather before the main ceremony of the funeral began prior to them being switched. His Intuition then whispered quietly to him from the back of his mind: That's exactly the case, Tsuna. Well guess!
'Do I even want to know whose-?'
But he opened the door that led to the inside, anyway. And he felt his body move on autopilot, leading himself closer and closer to the reality that he dreaded to see.
Stop it, turn back before it's too late! His Hyper Intuition kept warning. You won't like what you'll find.
He knew it, of course. But he could not help it when what stood between him and the truth was only a thin and ancient-looking door.
Hand touching the doorknob, Tsuna still found himself hesitating.
He was too scared to know. Maybe it was best to let things run their course. Maybe he should just stand there until the five minutes were over and he would be back on the land of blessful obliviousness. But what if he could change it?
Howerer, the Universe had pitied him somehow and spared him from the difficult choice, as voices could be heard clearly from behind the closed doors.
"-ere is Tsuna, anyway? I swear I saw him leaving the apartment way ahead of us."
It was Yamamoto's voice but It sounded strange to the brunet. It was lower, rougher of course, considering the ten-year difference. What felt strange to him was how strained and wheezy the man sounded, as though he got hurt in the throat not too long in prior.
"Stop straining your throat, Takeshi." Gokudera's reply confirmed the brunet's suspicions "He went ahead to check the spot where we'll bury him."
"…I see." The other man replied. Tsuna could sense at least 3 other presences inside the room that he suspected to be his other Guardians. He could not make out whose those. Other than that, they had complete privacy as the other attendants were all on the other side of the venue.
"Yamamoto, Gokudera, what exactly happened? Sawada has hoarded all the reports and files on that mission and we haven't spoken for months ever since, well, our fight at my wedding."
"… In truth, I did not know the details either. We arrived at the scene much later than the Tenth. When we arrived, the building was already in ruins. An-and not much of him survived from the blast. It was- it was bad."
"What about Sawada?"
Tsuna could imagine the wince on his right hand man's face at the moment.
"He wasn't hurt badly but he was not in his right mind at that time. When we arrived, he was trying to dig him out from underneath the pebbles. Well, what was left of him…"
The stretch of silence strung the brunet's nerves like a rubber band while he was awaiting the revelation to his unvoiced question.
Who was it? Who was it that he held dear in his heart but did not even get to die in one piece?
"…sometimes I just wish that I never got tangled with Vongola to begin with…" He immediately recognized this voice to belong to the older Lambo.
"Lambo, don't speak like that. Boss will be sad…"
"Chrome-neesan, you won't understand! The Bovino Famiglia got annihilated for simply being the former Famiglia to Vongola Decimo's Lightning Guardian!" The more he spoke, the more agitated he sounded. And Tsuna was pained to see the reasons in his surrogate brother's argument. "You-you had not a family before therefore you got nothing to lose, but I did. I had mamma and papa and my older brothers, and now they're all gone because I- I became Vongola's Guardian…"
"YOU UNGRATEFUL BRAT! HOW DARE YOU SPEAK OF THE TENTH LIKE THAT AFTER EVERYTHING HE HAD DONE FOR YOU."
"AT LEAST I HAVE THE GUTS TO SPEAK ABOUT IT! WHAT ABOUT YOU THEN, AREN'T YOU THE ONE WHO RESENTS HIM THE MOST FOR HAVING INVOLVED HARU-NEESAN? IF IT WASN'T FOR VONGOLA SHE WOULD HAVE NEVER GOTTEN CRIPPLED!"
"You-"
"Hayato, don't be too harsh on Lambo." Yamamoto's voice was small, but if he strained enough he was still able to make out. "After all, Lambo does have a point."
"Our life would be much different if we hadn't met Tsuna."
Time seemed to have stopped when he heard those dreadful words coming from the mouth of one of his two best friends.
"Takeshi-"
"Each of us has already lost too much to this lifestyle. I mean, if I weren't in the mafia, maybe my dad would not have picked up the sword again. He would have had his peaceful retirement and not had to live on the run like he does now. And your sister, maybe she would have another chance to live."
"Ane-aneki would have been… And Haru too, would be able to walk again?"
"Would Kyoko be happier? Had she not met Sawada? Would she still rather kill herself?"
"I don't know, Sasagawa-sempai. But at least she would have a rather normal life."
"My Famiglia would still be alive, right?"
"A-a lot of people would still be alive! Like Chikusa and Ken! Mukuro-sama would have never gone on a rampage for losing them and got put down by the Vindice!"
"And him, too. He would never end up like this, and has barely left of himself to be cremated. If only he never left Namimori."
"If only Hibari-san never met Sawada Tsunayoshi."
The brunet could no longer hear anything else pass the internal screaming in his head nor the blood roaring in his ears, or perhaps it was actually the sound of his heart breaking apart. He wished we could go back to the time when he was still oblivious. But now he could no longer pretend that everything was alright and go on with his life with a smile anymore, the illusion that his Family, despite all the suffering, would stick with him till the end and catch him if he should fall has completely collapsed. The bubble burst and left a gaping hole in his chest where his heart was supposed to be. He felt like a giant bruise, painful and unwanted, only served to make people suffer.
NO, I refuse to believe it! I have to see it with my own eyes!
He turned on his tail and ran, almost blindly to where he knew for a fact most of the Hibari Clan was buried. Hibari had taken him to visit his Clan's private Cemetery once, wanting him to pay tributes to Generations of Hibari that had been protecting this small town of Namimori.
"You have brought the mafia to our doorsteps when my Clan has tried to keep them off our town for generations. Might as well apologize to them while you still can, Sawada Tsunayoshi.
And now he was standing in front of a freshly dug grave with the gravestone made of white marble, the engraved on the brand new gravestone read:
In the memory of Hibari Kyoya,
The fiercest protector of Namimori.
5/5/199x - 9/10/202x
In his trance, the brunet never noticed neither the telltale pink smoke of the ten-year-bazooka nor the rainbow tunnel bringing him back to the present time. He was lost in his own head, too far gone in his own nightmares to register the sudden change of scenario. Only the hands of someone clamped down on his shoulders brought him back to reality.
It took him forever to finally snap out of his petrified state. However, he found himself quickly running away from his friends too as he had no heart to face them after all that transpired in the future.
A couple of hours later, when the young boss was sure none of his Guardians was around the general area of his office wing, he quietly returned to the room. He immediately noticed an addition to his office that was lying innocently on his desk. The foreign object was evidently added after he got hit by the ten-year-bazooka. Considering it was a Weapon Box of the Sky Attribute, he deduced that it was left there by none other than his future self: A message from the future that was meant for his and his eyes only. He didn't even need his Intuition to know that whatever it was, it would not be pretty.
With much reluctance, he lit up his Ring with a small Sky Flame and put it into the box.
The box opened with a flash, temporarily blinding him. Suddenly, the scene changed. He was no longer in the safety of his office but digging through the fallen debris of what used to be a building with bare hands. He felt like an outsider in his own body, helpless to control his own limbs. He could only watch as the sharp edges of the rubbles and broken shards of glass tore his skin and dug into his flesh, the heat of the prior explosion burnt his aching hand and any exposed skin available. The smell of smoke and burnt flesh, combined with the iron scent of blood assaulted his nose. The ringing in his ears told him that his eardrums had been damaged, however, it did not spare him from the sounds of blood curdling screams and pained groans coming from all directions.
Pulling to the side a piece of what used to be an intricate-looking column, he hastened his moves once he saw the flash of dark colored cloth, the special material that was designed by Giannini to make all his Guardian's clothes.
And the memory faded away, leaving the afterimage of what he pulled out from underneath the rubble to overlap with the identical object in the present that was just released from the box onto the desk in his office.
Right on top of his messy half done paperwork, laid a severed arm attached to a bloody tonfa.
And this time, he was the one who screamed.
In the future, the 31-year-old brunet poofed back into his own timeline surrounded in the familiar smoke. Waving all the smoke away, he did not seem surprised at all to find himself in a different location from before he was switched with his younger self.
Laying the bouquet of white anemone in his arm in front of the empty grave, the man straightened up with his head still bowing down.
"Not only did I let you die but also not put the only part left of your body to rest. But my younger self needs some strong motivation and by leaving something of the future in the past, now a new parallel universe will be created. A new world where none of you would be wasting your life over someone like me."
'I'm sorry' was what he did not say but trying to convey to the dead with his choice of flower.d
"See you soon in the afterlife, Kyoya!"
And with a smile, the man laid to rest beside his beloved Guardian's empty grave, the slow acting poison he took a week prior finally did its job.
And Vongola Decimo was no more.
o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o
He did not remember much of what happened after his Harmonization with Hibari was severed. The gist of it was that when his Cloud Guardian tried to reach him, he had somehow freaked out, his Flame reacted to the sudden burst of emotion and exploded. He briefly saw Hibari flung backward from the force and hit the wall, then dropped to the floor, completely unmoving.
He remembered being physically held back by someone's arms while trying to claw his ways out to check on his Cloud Guardians, the rough hands left bruises on his body. The relief when someone said Hibari was still breathing, the shame once he realized who was the one that hurt Hibari and how the others had looked at him afterwards. He fled immediately, to the safety of his own chambers as soon as the hands released him.
Double-locking himself in the safety of the ensuite toilet in his private chamber, the man kept trying to wash the imaginary blood of his hands, already reddened and raw from the boiling water he washed them with.
The air was stiff and choking, the sound of his own heartbeat was deafening. His skull was too big and too small at the same time, he felt too heated and somehow freezing under layers and layers of clothing and something slimy, cold and gross seemed to be trying to crawl out from under his skin.
He stared at the image of himself in the mirror, and man what a sight he made. He was pale as a corpse, thin and haggard with blood-shot reddened eyes and dark shadows under both his haunted-looking eyes. The redness from Chrome's slap never disappeared, somehow standing out even more on the whiteness of his sickly skin. The images of his horrified Guardians kept swimming around in his head and he could not shake it off no matter how much he tried. Their voices echoing in his head begging him to just stop, please stop hurting them, please stop tearing them apart, but also encouraging him to just keep keep keep on killing and destroying because obviously wasn't it what he was best at?
"No nonononono no no! This isn't me. I don't want to hurt anyone!"
He blinked and suddenly, the him in the mirror turned malicious with a poisonous smile.
Sawada Tsunayoshi. The man's pupils were blown wide and his breath hastened as he heard his name came from this twisted image of himself. The thing in the mirror continued to mouth something else to him, the voiceless words somehow were transferred directly into his head.
No use denying it, Sawada Tsunayoshi. This is the real you.
"SHUT UP! JUST SHUT UP! SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT THE FUCK UP!"
With each word, the man punched the mirror until his knuckles became a bloody mess of razor sharp shards of glass and raw flesh.
He only stopped once the image of himself became unrecognizable in the mirror. The young man slid down slowly onto his knees, his legs turning into jelly and no longer could hold his weight properly anymore. He hated it, he hated who he had become today, he would give anything to be able to go back to the way he was before. But the ship had already sailed, if he stopped now, he would lose far more than what he had chosen to forfeit so far.
Who am I supposed to be, just Sawada Tsunayoshi, or the Vongola Decimo? What is the worth of Sawada Tsunayoshi without his friends, or his title as the boss of Vongola Famiglia? What is the worth of me compared to them, whose future has been ruined by me simply existing?
The man tried to use the pain from his bloody knuckles to ground himself, tried to make himself feel more human, more alive than only a corpse driven by a single purpose. He felt like if he let go now, he could never come back to himself again.
But they don't need me anymore. They all hate me, despite me in the end no matter what I've done. If then, what is the point of all this suffering? The only one who ever cared for me is dead. Then who is it that I'm trying to save?
The more I tried to hold on, the more it slipped away from me!
Please, somebody, help me.
Heeding his call for help, his Vongola Ring suddenly lit up in response.
Then just let go, Decimo.
Hearing the distant but strangely familiar voice, the young man's head snapped up to look at the figure that suddenly appeared in front of him. Looking down at his hunched over figure with a small saddened smile, golden hair swayed gently to some none-exist wind and an orange Flame burning on his forehead was indeed the Vongola Primo in all his glory.
"Primo?" His voice came out so weak and vulnerable in front of the man- the image that he admired so much. Ever since the battle of the future, he had longed for the image of his ancestor to appear again, in front of him much like this time, had longed for the voice to guide him at the lowest moments of his life. Like that second time when he traveled to the future, he got to see for himself how his Guardians had secretly despised him and the life they led, and every single thing he believed in prior to that day had crumbled into pieces.
Just let go. What is the point of holding everything in and destroying yourself from the inside? If they don't understand, just let them go.
Let go? How? I don't know how! If I do, can I ever return? Can I ever have them back?
Would you rather have a life like this? Or you can just let go, and start fresh. You might eventually find your own happiness, even.
I can… just let go?
"Tsunayoshi! Open up the door or I will knock it down!" Hibari's voice sounded far away and distantly angry. But at this point, the brunet could no longer make sense of any of Hibari's words or the commotion of the crowd in front of his room's door. He had become solely enchanted by the possibility of a means to escape from this disastrous reality.
Just let go, Decimo. And I will… I will take care of you, I promise.
Vongola Primo brought an inviting hand to the younger man's face and smiled in encouragement. Tsuna hesitated for a short moment, but took the hand anyway with his undamaged hand. Pulled onto his feet by the surprisingly solid spirit living inside a ring, he turned to look at the general direction of where his Family might be for the last time, then followed the spirit of his ancestor into the light.
And Sawada Tsunayoshi was gone in a flash, only leaving behind the bloody Vongola Ring that still held the warmth of his hand.
End of chapter~
