A/N: This is so awfully late.... ;~; I'm really sorry. The other two will be up soon enough. OTZ;;
Rating : PG13
Fandom : Kateikyoushi Hitman Reborn!
Character : Reborn
Prompt :
khrfest | Round 2. V. Reborn - job; "Teaching is the hardest work I've ever done."
Disclaimer : Reborn! is property of Akira Amano. Not mine. At all.
Warnings : ....I'm not really sure.
Reborn watches, waits and grieves.
He watches from the shadows, ever a predator on the prowl, the sharp angles of his features obscured by his fedora and dark eyes scrutinizing everything, a smile never on his face. It is always a smirk; one that reveals everything yet nothing at all.
It is he like a phantom who wanders with darkness as a coat draped over his shoulders, trailing behind him like the lingering scents of blood, gunpowder and death and pain, mountains of corpses left as the only proofs he was ever there.
Hands painted red, nothing can wash the stain away, and he wouldn’t have bothered-he doesn’t really care as sins are piled over his soul. Why confess if there is no shame, no remorse?
He doesn’t mind the shadows, doesn’t pretend guilt. Beretta M92 held in his hand, he merely aims, and he shoots-
and blood smears the white of another’s hand.
Annoying, spoiled children. They dislike wielding weapons, detest the noble blood running through their veins; they loathe waking each day as a part of their world.
But there is no denying who they are, who they are meant to be: seated on the laps of luxury and drinking from the cups of vice; sons of the most ancient Famiglias; the future of the Italian Mafia. They are, unfortunately, his future as well.
It is a future, undeniably, that will be just this: no sooner had they been crowned, they’ll be lying on their graves, fools holding white blossoms with folded hands to their chests. With soft hearts carried in their sleeves and innocent smiles and bright eyes, they would have been failures on brilliant days, disappointments before they could have even attempted.
Pathetic.
Reborn watches, and he scoffs. Denials, protests and tantrums faze him little, and he waits and waits, silent yet brutal with lead bullets, iron fists and kicks and cruel, wicked grins. Yet, even when he sees change take place, and reality choking idealism, he offers no praise, not a compliment or even an encouragement. Nothing.
In their world, there is nothing beautiful that doesn’t hide ugliness. There is nothing white that isn’t stained. There is nobody who can’t kill, who can’t slander, who doesn’t sin. In their world, remaining a child will get you killed.
Growing up means you have to kill.
And as his students grow, and become the dons they are destined to be, Reborn doesn’t celebrate, yet his smirk never falters. Innocence is lost; ideals are bent. Corpses pile, and the death toll rises. The kills are not his, but theirs, yet the blood is proof of his sins, the destruction beneath his feet. He sees hardened features and sharp smiles, blood on hands not his and eyes so very cold and dark and not his but theirs.
He lingers, and though his expression never changes, though he no longer takes as much hits as he once did, but it is he, who turned innocence into the ideals which hid monsters, leaving behind the smell of ash, of blood and gunpowder, of pain and death and fire.
Reborn watches, and he silently grieves, but he never regrets.
Fin.