[xv] hurt, sufficiency, & confrontation
Geez Louise, it's been a while! Hey everybody, and sorry I fell off the bandwagon. Sick, thescon, FSTs, other stories, the whole shebang. So I'm finally back, trying to pretend that I write and stuff. *3* I hope you guys enjoy everything, and it's back to stuff for 500themes ! :D
Title: Hurt
Author/Artist: souleater411
Rating: 10+
Fandom: Noein
Pairing/s: Haruka/Karasu [La'Crima]
Theme: 28 - Electrifying sacrifice.
Words: 637
Genre/s: Angst, Hurt/Comfort
Warnings: Spoiler-ish
Worksafe: Yep.
Summary: Every second in the time slip was another second longer in agony, because he could see her, hear her, but he could say not a word.
Disclaimer/Claimer: Not mine. (I gave up on looking names up. P:)
The air around the two of them was stale and almost frozen. With her back turned, that silky, dark hair poured over her shoulders. She said nothing, and the cool air under the dark, night sky made her white dress seem ever more ethereal. It such a serene night that it almost made one unable to believe what was to come. His once caramel locks gleaned silver in the moonlight, and he stared at her patiently, waiting for her words.
"Yuu," She said softly, kindly, in that gentle voice of hers. She was the only one that called him that anymore. Her arms folded behind her back, like they always had when she'd come to accept something, and this fact sent shivers down his spine. He could hardly believe that they'd been surrounded by chaos mere seconds ago. He'd known Haruka had always had something of a latent talent, but this? It was surreal. He tried to move and touch her just one last time, but his feet were rooted. He couldn't even open his mouth to protest. His arm was half raised, as though he were to grab her hand. He could feel that she was giving in. "I want you to live, even when I'm gone. Alright?" He wanted to scream, no, no, I'll never live without you, Haruka! I want to protect you--don't do this to me! Haruka! "I want to be able to save you from something, just once." Save me? I never saved you, His reddish brown eyes pleaded with her, and they glistened with tears that would not fall. And you want to save me? "Be safe, Yuu." She turned to face him one last time, a smile on her face. And just as soon as she'd said those words, the reality crashed back, and Haruka's visage, that of her in that pure, white dress, were stained, that black dress hung loosely around her thin shoulders, and the capsule locked, the water coming in. That smile met Amamiku's grimacing, tear-stained face, Fukurou had closed his eyes so as not to see, and Karasu was still screaming, running to the glass and banging on it, their hands touching through the medium. She pressed her lips to the glass where his cheek lie, and in that moment, the water had then rushed over her, and her body was turned upside down. It was done, and she was a part of the core, along with the other nine people they'd been forced to sacrifice so that their world would remain.
Her voice stayed in his ears, even though his hands were still clinging to that glass, and he still wanted to cry and scream. His throat was so sore and scratchy, his voice came out as raspy whispers, and the only word he could breathe was, "Haruka," over, and over, and over again. Eventually, his darker-skinned friend had to walk up to him, let his hand fall heavily on the broken Karasu's shoulder before murmuring, "C'mon, Karasu." It took a long time for him to move, but Fukurou stayed willingly until the silver-haired male finally let go and quietly returned to his room. Once there, he pulled out a knife and a block of wood, and whittled to pass the time, for there was nothing else. In his absence of thoughts, he'd nicked his finger, and when he didn't hear a soft patter of feet, instinctively knowing where he was, that he was hurt, and so on, that familiar voice shockingly saying, "You're hurt!" and rushing to clean his wound and bandage it, he became tumbled in an array of thoughts yet again. A tear rolled down his face.
"Haruka." And in that quiet room, his sobs were akin to that of a wounded, dying animal. And this time, the wound will never heal.
...
Title: Sufficiency
Author/Artist: souleater411
Rating: 13+
Fandom: KHR
Pairing/s: None. (If you squint really, really hard, there's a teensy weensy bit of 69/F.)
Theme: 206 - Dangerous illusion.
Words: 1689
Genre/s: Gen.
Warnings: Minor BL.
Worksafe: Yeah, pretty much.
Summary: He'd come across the amateur attempting to swindle people with those skills. But him? Ha. In fact, he'd taken it upon himself to give him the skills to fool anyone he'd ever want to fool. Except, well, him, of course.
Disclaimer/Claimer: Amano Akira's. :3
"Naive." The young man that had been casting illusions on people all day, making them believe that he was their son, or brother, or best friend, and in this manner, he conned many a family out of a meal, or perhaps their whole month's earnings. He seemed like a silent virus, with those eyes, and his hair was laid out neatly, for a street-kid. He was the sort that most wouldn't have noticed his existence in the first place, so the fact that he faded in and out fazed no one. However, today, he'd picked the wrong opponent. It was a tall, dark-haired man, and he had his hair in a low ponytail as he grabbed him tightly, those leather-gloved hands turning his pale skin a rough, pink color in irritation. "Your technique is all wrong, and you haven't the faintest clue what to do with this illusion. Only the ignorant would fall for this." He supposed that most were 'the ignorant' to this man, then. His flat, light green eyes turned up to find the man with eyes of two colors staring at him. Suddenly, from the midst of no where, there was the sweltering heat of an inferno. Large, two-toned eyes stared at him from up in the sky, and something knocked the wind out of him, and he doubled over, feeling the sting down to his toes. Appearing as though he were ten feet tall in this inferno, the man smirked. "Now that is an illusion."
/
He followed him. He had no idea what was so compelling about the man. In fact, he should've been terrified rather than enthralled. But he was obsessed with learning everything there was to know about the hard of what he'd been merely fooling around with for as long as he could remember. Some, the man had explained, were simply naturally born illusionists, like himself, or the boy. His "training", however, was brutal, and his tongue was harsh. His criticisms and praises both were layered in sarcasm and falsities, to the point where the boy had to be able to be just as acidic to have any semblance of communication with the man. From the moment he woke, that trident was shoved in the boy's face, testing his reactions. He was expected to counter illusion with illusion, one on top of the other, layers and layers until his finally collapsed under his mentor's. Every night, he went to sleep miserably cold under an illusion until he could fight it off, or perhaps under the attack of swarms of bees, or the deathly heat of a desert at the peak of the day. In such conditions, he got sick and recovered easily. He broke bones in one moment and mended them in the next. By the time the week had passed, he'd learned more about his talent than he had in all of his years.
"I won't be with you any longer after tonight," The man said with a smirk. "But not to fear. I'll be having someone else finish the job. After all, even you could finish training yourself at this rate. However," That slick look stayed on his face. "Today will be your hardest, and final, lesson from me. If you pass, you live. If you fail, you die."
He nodded, and barely stopped himself from gasping when the other man was on top of him. His eyes were too close, and his hands were claws, ripping at him. What had once started to look like his teacher was turning into a monster, and he could only see his mentor's hands in the distance. Hands touched him in uncomfortable places, and yet fire crept at his back. Crying out at the burns, teeth yanked out his eyes, and he was blind. With all the smoke clouding about him, he struggled to breathe, and it was with great difficulty that he began to focus. He called forth a horde of beasts, some men that were feral, and others lions and tigers. He conjured up icebergs and spring fields for them to prowl, and they ate the illusions up, and the boy breathed, blinking eyes that hadn't really been gouged out, and softly touching a back that had touched nothing more than concrete--however, that leather-clad hand around his neck told him that that choking sensation had been real. As it cleared free of illusions, the dark forest in which they stayed was still blanketed in mist from their practice sheer moments ago.
"Congratulations, disciple," The man neatly dusted off his hands, smirked, and his two-colored eyes shut quietly. "I suppose you've passed." And with that, he fell over, and the boy worried momentarily if that was his last spark. However, another mist shrouded his tutor's body, and a woman with hair to her shoulders and a haircut similar to the man with the ponytail appeared, and she blinked at him familiarly.
"Hello," She murmured softly, her whole persona entirely different than the man's, despite their uncanny resemblance. "My name is Chrome."
"You're...the same person?" The boy's face told nothing of his confusion, for he was as flat as always, and despite the answer, he would have no shock.
"No," She replied easily, standing up and brushing herself off delicately. "I'm the Tenth Mist Guardian of the Vongola, Chrome Dokuro. However, that man is one to whom I owe my life, and most would say that he is the true holder of the position." Her gaze was faraway, as though she were talking to the man who'd been there only moments before. "Rokudou Mukuro. He's possibly the most powerful illusionist of our time." The boy wasn't surprised about that fact. In such short time, he'd become able to do absolutely surreal things, and he supposed that this woman, his new tutor, had been under such tutelage as well. "Before we start," She said softly, the same trident his tutor had used materializing, save for the fact that it suited her height, rather than that of a man who was nearly six-foot tall. "It's a custom of our famiglia to ask the name of their opponent."
Opponent? He thought, but said nothing, and deadpan, he replied, "Fran," He said with no emotion. "Nothing else." She nodded, and without anything further said, they led into a physical spar. Although a different approach, he appreciated her method just as much as his teacher's.
/
It was nearly a year later before he ever saw him again. Since he'd been traveling with Chrome, he'd come to the Vongola's headquarters more than a handful of times, and upon meeting Sawada Tsunayoshi for the first time, he'd been offered the recently vacated position of the Varia. On one of his missions with the blonde young man that proclaimed himself as a 'prince' (he simply couldn't help making fun of someone with so much pride and arrogance), where he'd ended up more injured by his own partners than the enemy, he'd wandered off alone after the fact, and walked into a trap. Combating the illusion he'd walked into with an illusion, the layers built up until he felt nothing, and beginning to relax, he fell back into it. A man he didn't recognize, young, dark, handsome, and certainly charming, began to speak in a language he didn't understand. Perhaps German? Certainly not Cantonese. He could speak a little of that. But all too soon, he tried to wrap the illusion around that man, because he was the only thing here. Instead, an illusion wrapped around him, and that man's tongue traced from his ear, to his jaw, and to his neck. He breathed softly, hot breaths, slick rhythms. He grabbed him sharply, and in the face of such an experience, Fran was absolutely lost. Only quietly he could try and pushing this away, but it was something he'd never dealt with, the projection of a person in an illusion. He'd only just learned how to do it himself, and those that he'd conjured seemed to have no ability to get close enough to pry this man off of him. Once another few seconds of the bruising kisses on his neck and chest, a sharp pain to his lower half hit, and he knew that someone was digging their heel into his groin in real life.
"Pathetic," It was him. Rokudou Mukuro stared at his charge, smirking. "I know well that between Chrome and myself you can do better than that." And so he conjured the illusion once again, but this time, Fran himself turned that man over, and instead of attacking him, he aimed a pointed attack at his own mentor's groin.
"Whoops," He said flatly. "My hand slipped." Mukuro laughed heartily.
"I'll only accept your failure this once because you've been hanging around those fools." He rolled his dual-colored eyes. They wouldn't know a good illusion unless it hit them in the face." He smirked. "I only wanted to check on your progress. After all, I'll be needing you to do me a favor in a year or so."
"What, now you can see the future too, Master?" A trident to the head. "That hurt."
"Not quite. I just happen to have quite an idea of what Sawada Tsunayoshi's planning for me, and if the odds turn out correctly, I might even be released this time." He smirked. "For that to happen, you'll be needing to conjure illusions just as powerful as mine to pull this off. So don't screw this up." With that, he faded into the woods, and the young man sighed.
"Well, at least now Bel-sempai can't complain if I practice on him for a while," He said to no one, and in the same manner he'd come, he wandered back to headquarters, where he was reprimanded and hit with glasses, plates, and knives, typical treatment in the Varia. However, many nights, he practiced, rather alone or with someone else, and it was shortly after that meeting he could pull a successful illusion of any caliber against even a town of people.
I hope that'll suffice, Master, He thought before falling asleep, flat eyes falling closed.
...
Title: Confrontation
Author/Artist: souleater411
Rating: 17+
Fandom: KHR
Pairing/s: R/27
Theme: 239 - A darker pride.
Words: 1074
Genre/s: Hurt/Comfort, Romance.
Warnings: Language. Also, BL.
Worksafe: Yep.
Summary: Something has kept him from opening his mouth. Only fools stare at the floor. A man must lift his chin, or all those that follow will let their pride simply fall away.
Disclaimer/Claimer: Amano Akira's.
"What are you doing?" Harsh orange-caramel eyes glared at the hitman. "Reborn, I thought we agreed that I wouldn't meddle in your business as long as you don't meddle in mine." He stalked over to him slowly, simmering rage not even trying to be under the surface. "But I suppose it's too late for all of that."
There was odd sort of tense silence around them before the dark-haired man, his hair messy in the absence of his hat, stared at the shorter, caramel-haired man, both of them not exactly in the mood to even fake being friendly. "Why didn't you tell me?"
He said nothing, but only folded his arms from the other side of the room. "It wasn't any of your business."
He came in front of him, looked him right in the face and said it again, low, quiet, dangerous. "Why didn't you tell me?"
The young man stared right back at the man that had been his mentor. "It. Was. None. Of. Your. Business!" He snapped while looking at the floor, but then a large hand grabbed his chin and forced it to look at him. Just as strong, his hand came up and pulled that hand off, glaring at the man standing right in front of him without being forced.
"Tsuna, why the hell didn't you tell me something?! Anything!"
"You're dying, for fuck's sake, that's why the hell I didn't tell you anything!" As soon as the acidic words left the brunette's lips, his glossy, amber eyes turned to a wall opposite so he wouldn't have to look at Reborn's face. Reborn's mouth hung a little open, and his hands were shrugged off in his absent thoughts. "You could die tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after that," Tsuna's voice began to tremble, and his thin fingers curled up so he they wouldn't tremble as well. "How was I supposed to say anything like that to you knowing that?"
He turned from the man, and it was only due to time and practice that he didn't cry. Rather, the pregnant silence in the room made both of their throats dry. "How long have you known?"
"Are you kidding me?" He laughed bitterly. "For the past two years." The words stung, and the famous hitman actually felt himself struck by the words. "I'm not stupid, Reborn."
"That should've been even more reason to tell me," He muttered quietly, that piece of paper held delicately in his left hand, although it had a little tear in it now, and it was wrinkled from when they'd been angry. "What, you think I'd kill you for telling me or something?"
"No, I thought that if I told you, you'd take it all the wrong way. Either that or you'd take it just how I want you to, and as soon as I get used to the sort of life I want with you, you're going to disappear." His voice broke from where he was leaning against the wall, looking broken and lonely as the dark-haired man approached. "It'd only be a day at first, but then what if you're gone for a week? Or a month? And then years? And forever? You die, and you never come back, Reborn!" Hearing his name, he laughed sadly again. "Reborn. Funny how ironic this is. Reborn, master of students being reborn, is unable to revive himself. The irony ought to taste like cherry pie."
"You snap yourself out of this," He snarled, walking over and slapping Tsuna square in the jaw. "I know you're better than this. You can't fall to pieces over stupid things."
"This isn't stupid!" He yelled, punching the man right in the nose, taking him by surprise and leaving him staring at the flustered young man while holding his possibly broken nose. "I love you, I hate you, and I can't just sit here and say, 'Oh, he's dead, I wonder what the weather's like outside today!'"
He sat down, wrapped his arms around his thin legs, and Reborn was shocked, even though he'd already known because of the note. It was dated four months ago, as though he was going to give it to him, but hadn't. Finally, he scooted close to him, and laid his head against the brunette's shoulder, letting out a slow, steady sigh. "Look, I'm not mad, or anything like that. In fact, I'd be willing to, you know, give it a shot, if you'd get over the fact that I might die at any moment." He took a breath, hearing his ex-charge beginning to stop crying softly to himself and trying to listen, hiccuping a little bit along the way. "But Tsuna," He lifted his chin, charcoal staring into burnt amber. "That would've been the case, regardless of anything else. I'm a hitman. One of us dies pretty much every day in the field." He kept speaking, his head heavy on that slight shoulder. "But we have to keep moving on, or else we'd never be able to do our jobs. You know that. So, why didn't you tell me?"
Tsuna said nothing for a long while, his eyes still focused on the walls and floor. "I guess...I guess I just...had my reasons." He admitted almost silently. "I just..." He laughed bitterly again. "I guess I just didn't want to have this confrontation. But look, it's happened anyways. Just shows how far foolish pride gets you."
"Listen to me," Reborn pulled his chin up carefully this time, and he stared at him, so close that their noses almost touched, Reborn's a bit more crooked than his charges at the moment. "You're the head of the family. You must keep your head up at all times, no matter how bleak the situation." He smirked a bit, closing his eyes as he finished. "Or how well it goes. Don't ever forget that."
Mesmerized, he whispered back in an almost weep, "I won't," And a soft kiss was bestowed upon his lips.
Nearly a year later, upon finding that coffin lowered in the ground, he turned his chin up, no tears, a flat expression. He would not bow down to anyone. And on the way home, his eyes were clear, focused, and his eyes were off of the floor from sunrise to sunset.
He refused to let one of the most important pearls of wisdom he'd gotten from his tutor lie in ruins.
Title: Hurt
Author/Artist: souleater411
Rating: 10+
Fandom: Noein
Pairing/s: Haruka/Karasu [La'Crima]
Theme: 28 - Electrifying sacrifice.
Words: 637
Genre/s: Angst, Hurt/Comfort
Warnings: Spoiler-ish
Worksafe: Yep.
Summary: Every second in the time slip was another second longer in agony, because he could see her, hear her, but he could say not a word.
Disclaimer/Claimer: Not mine. (I gave up on looking names up. P:)
The air around the two of them was stale and almost frozen. With her back turned, that silky, dark hair poured over her shoulders. She said nothing, and the cool air under the dark, night sky made her white dress seem ever more ethereal. It such a serene night that it almost made one unable to believe what was to come. His once caramel locks gleaned silver in the moonlight, and he stared at her patiently, waiting for her words.
"Yuu," She said softly, kindly, in that gentle voice of hers. She was the only one that called him that anymore. Her arms folded behind her back, like they always had when she'd come to accept something, and this fact sent shivers down his spine. He could hardly believe that they'd been surrounded by chaos mere seconds ago. He'd known Haruka had always had something of a latent talent, but this? It was surreal. He tried to move and touch her just one last time, but his feet were rooted. He couldn't even open his mouth to protest. His arm was half raised, as though he were to grab her hand. He could feel that she was giving in. "I want you to live, even when I'm gone. Alright?" He wanted to scream, no, no, I'll never live without you, Haruka! I want to protect you--don't do this to me! Haruka! "I want to be able to save you from something, just once." Save me? I never saved you, His reddish brown eyes pleaded with her, and they glistened with tears that would not fall. And you want to save me? "Be safe, Yuu." She turned to face him one last time, a smile on her face. And just as soon as she'd said those words, the reality crashed back, and Haruka's visage, that of her in that pure, white dress, were stained, that black dress hung loosely around her thin shoulders, and the capsule locked, the water coming in. That smile met Amamiku's grimacing, tear-stained face, Fukurou had closed his eyes so as not to see, and Karasu was still screaming, running to the glass and banging on it, their hands touching through the medium. She pressed her lips to the glass where his cheek lie, and in that moment, the water had then rushed over her, and her body was turned upside down. It was done, and she was a part of the core, along with the other nine people they'd been forced to sacrifice so that their world would remain.
Her voice stayed in his ears, even though his hands were still clinging to that glass, and he still wanted to cry and scream. His throat was so sore and scratchy, his voice came out as raspy whispers, and the only word he could breathe was, "Haruka," over, and over, and over again. Eventually, his darker-skinned friend had to walk up to him, let his hand fall heavily on the broken Karasu's shoulder before murmuring, "C'mon, Karasu." It took a long time for him to move, but Fukurou stayed willingly until the silver-haired male finally let go and quietly returned to his room. Once there, he pulled out a knife and a block of wood, and whittled to pass the time, for there was nothing else. In his absence of thoughts, he'd nicked his finger, and when he didn't hear a soft patter of feet, instinctively knowing where he was, that he was hurt, and so on, that familiar voice shockingly saying, "You're hurt!" and rushing to clean his wound and bandage it, he became tumbled in an array of thoughts yet again. A tear rolled down his face.
"Haruka." And in that quiet room, his sobs were akin to that of a wounded, dying animal. And this time, the wound will never heal.
...
Title: Sufficiency
Author/Artist: souleater411
Rating: 13+
Fandom: KHR
Pairing/s: None. (If you squint really, really hard, there's a teensy weensy bit of 69/F.)
Theme: 206 - Dangerous illusion.
Words: 1689
Genre/s: Gen.
Warnings: Minor BL.
Worksafe: Yeah, pretty much.
Summary: He'd come across the amateur attempting to swindle people with those skills. But him? Ha. In fact, he'd taken it upon himself to give him the skills to fool anyone he'd ever want to fool. Except, well, him, of course.
Disclaimer/Claimer: Amano Akira's. :3
"Naive." The young man that had been casting illusions on people all day, making them believe that he was their son, or brother, or best friend, and in this manner, he conned many a family out of a meal, or perhaps their whole month's earnings. He seemed like a silent virus, with those eyes, and his hair was laid out neatly, for a street-kid. He was the sort that most wouldn't have noticed his existence in the first place, so the fact that he faded in and out fazed no one. However, today, he'd picked the wrong opponent. It was a tall, dark-haired man, and he had his hair in a low ponytail as he grabbed him tightly, those leather-gloved hands turning his pale skin a rough, pink color in irritation. "Your technique is all wrong, and you haven't the faintest clue what to do with this illusion. Only the ignorant would fall for this." He supposed that most were 'the ignorant' to this man, then. His flat, light green eyes turned up to find the man with eyes of two colors staring at him. Suddenly, from the midst of no where, there was the sweltering heat of an inferno. Large, two-toned eyes stared at him from up in the sky, and something knocked the wind out of him, and he doubled over, feeling the sting down to his toes. Appearing as though he were ten feet tall in this inferno, the man smirked. "Now that is an illusion."
/
He followed him. He had no idea what was so compelling about the man. In fact, he should've been terrified rather than enthralled. But he was obsessed with learning everything there was to know about the hard of what he'd been merely fooling around with for as long as he could remember. Some, the man had explained, were simply naturally born illusionists, like himself, or the boy. His "training", however, was brutal, and his tongue was harsh. His criticisms and praises both were layered in sarcasm and falsities, to the point where the boy had to be able to be just as acidic to have any semblance of communication with the man. From the moment he woke, that trident was shoved in the boy's face, testing his reactions. He was expected to counter illusion with illusion, one on top of the other, layers and layers until his finally collapsed under his mentor's. Every night, he went to sleep miserably cold under an illusion until he could fight it off, or perhaps under the attack of swarms of bees, or the deathly heat of a desert at the peak of the day. In such conditions, he got sick and recovered easily. He broke bones in one moment and mended them in the next. By the time the week had passed, he'd learned more about his talent than he had in all of his years.
"I won't be with you any longer after tonight," The man said with a smirk. "But not to fear. I'll be having someone else finish the job. After all, even you could finish training yourself at this rate. However," That slick look stayed on his face. "Today will be your hardest, and final, lesson from me. If you pass, you live. If you fail, you die."
He nodded, and barely stopped himself from gasping when the other man was on top of him. His eyes were too close, and his hands were claws, ripping at him. What had once started to look like his teacher was turning into a monster, and he could only see his mentor's hands in the distance. Hands touched him in uncomfortable places, and yet fire crept at his back. Crying out at the burns, teeth yanked out his eyes, and he was blind. With all the smoke clouding about him, he struggled to breathe, and it was with great difficulty that he began to focus. He called forth a horde of beasts, some men that were feral, and others lions and tigers. He conjured up icebergs and spring fields for them to prowl, and they ate the illusions up, and the boy breathed, blinking eyes that hadn't really been gouged out, and softly touching a back that had touched nothing more than concrete--however, that leather-clad hand around his neck told him that that choking sensation had been real. As it cleared free of illusions, the dark forest in which they stayed was still blanketed in mist from their practice sheer moments ago.
"Congratulations, disciple," The man neatly dusted off his hands, smirked, and his two-colored eyes shut quietly. "I suppose you've passed." And with that, he fell over, and the boy worried momentarily if that was his last spark. However, another mist shrouded his tutor's body, and a woman with hair to her shoulders and a haircut similar to the man with the ponytail appeared, and she blinked at him familiarly.
"Hello," She murmured softly, her whole persona entirely different than the man's, despite their uncanny resemblance. "My name is Chrome."
"You're...the same person?" The boy's face told nothing of his confusion, for he was as flat as always, and despite the answer, he would have no shock.
"No," She replied easily, standing up and brushing herself off delicately. "I'm the Tenth Mist Guardian of the Vongola, Chrome Dokuro. However, that man is one to whom I owe my life, and most would say that he is the true holder of the position." Her gaze was faraway, as though she were talking to the man who'd been there only moments before. "Rokudou Mukuro. He's possibly the most powerful illusionist of our time." The boy wasn't surprised about that fact. In such short time, he'd become able to do absolutely surreal things, and he supposed that this woman, his new tutor, had been under such tutelage as well. "Before we start," She said softly, the same trident his tutor had used materializing, save for the fact that it suited her height, rather than that of a man who was nearly six-foot tall. "It's a custom of our famiglia to ask the name of their opponent."
Opponent? He thought, but said nothing, and deadpan, he replied, "Fran," He said with no emotion. "Nothing else." She nodded, and without anything further said, they led into a physical spar. Although a different approach, he appreciated her method just as much as his teacher's.
/
It was nearly a year later before he ever saw him again. Since he'd been traveling with Chrome, he'd come to the Vongola's headquarters more than a handful of times, and upon meeting Sawada Tsunayoshi for the first time, he'd been offered the recently vacated position of the Varia. On one of his missions with the blonde young man that proclaimed himself as a 'prince' (he simply couldn't help making fun of someone with so much pride and arrogance), where he'd ended up more injured by his own partners than the enemy, he'd wandered off alone after the fact, and walked into a trap. Combating the illusion he'd walked into with an illusion, the layers built up until he felt nothing, and beginning to relax, he fell back into it. A man he didn't recognize, young, dark, handsome, and certainly charming, began to speak in a language he didn't understand. Perhaps German? Certainly not Cantonese. He could speak a little of that. But all too soon, he tried to wrap the illusion around that man, because he was the only thing here. Instead, an illusion wrapped around him, and that man's tongue traced from his ear, to his jaw, and to his neck. He breathed softly, hot breaths, slick rhythms. He grabbed him sharply, and in the face of such an experience, Fran was absolutely lost. Only quietly he could try and pushing this away, but it was something he'd never dealt with, the projection of a person in an illusion. He'd only just learned how to do it himself, and those that he'd conjured seemed to have no ability to get close enough to pry this man off of him. Once another few seconds of the bruising kisses on his neck and chest, a sharp pain to his lower half hit, and he knew that someone was digging their heel into his groin in real life.
"Pathetic," It was him. Rokudou Mukuro stared at his charge, smirking. "I know well that between Chrome and myself you can do better than that." And so he conjured the illusion once again, but this time, Fran himself turned that man over, and instead of attacking him, he aimed a pointed attack at his own mentor's groin.
"Whoops," He said flatly. "My hand slipped." Mukuro laughed heartily.
"I'll only accept your failure this once because you've been hanging around those fools." He rolled his dual-colored eyes. They wouldn't know a good illusion unless it hit them in the face." He smirked. "I only wanted to check on your progress. After all, I'll be needing you to do me a favor in a year or so."
"What, now you can see the future too, Master?" A trident to the head. "That hurt."
"Not quite. I just happen to have quite an idea of what Sawada Tsunayoshi's planning for me, and if the odds turn out correctly, I might even be released this time." He smirked. "For that to happen, you'll be needing to conjure illusions just as powerful as mine to pull this off. So don't screw this up." With that, he faded into the woods, and the young man sighed.
"Well, at least now Bel-sempai can't complain if I practice on him for a while," He said to no one, and in the same manner he'd come, he wandered back to headquarters, where he was reprimanded and hit with glasses, plates, and knives, typical treatment in the Varia. However, many nights, he practiced, rather alone or with someone else, and it was shortly after that meeting he could pull a successful illusion of any caliber against even a town of people.
I hope that'll suffice, Master, He thought before falling asleep, flat eyes falling closed.
...
Title: Confrontation
Author/Artist: souleater411
Rating: 17+
Fandom: KHR
Pairing/s: R/27
Theme: 239 - A darker pride.
Words: 1074
Genre/s: Hurt/Comfort, Romance.
Warnings: Language. Also, BL.
Worksafe: Yep.
Summary: Something has kept him from opening his mouth. Only fools stare at the floor. A man must lift his chin, or all those that follow will let their pride simply fall away.
Disclaimer/Claimer: Amano Akira's.
"What are you doing?" Harsh orange-caramel eyes glared at the hitman. "Reborn, I thought we agreed that I wouldn't meddle in your business as long as you don't meddle in mine." He stalked over to him slowly, simmering rage not even trying to be under the surface. "But I suppose it's too late for all of that."
There was odd sort of tense silence around them before the dark-haired man, his hair messy in the absence of his hat, stared at the shorter, caramel-haired man, both of them not exactly in the mood to even fake being friendly. "Why didn't you tell me?"
He said nothing, but only folded his arms from the other side of the room. "It wasn't any of your business."
He came in front of him, looked him right in the face and said it again, low, quiet, dangerous. "Why didn't you tell me?"
The young man stared right back at the man that had been his mentor. "It. Was. None. Of. Your. Business!" He snapped while looking at the floor, but then a large hand grabbed his chin and forced it to look at him. Just as strong, his hand came up and pulled that hand off, glaring at the man standing right in front of him without being forced.
"Tsuna, why the hell didn't you tell me something?! Anything!"
"You're dying, for fuck's sake, that's why the hell I didn't tell you anything!" As soon as the acidic words left the brunette's lips, his glossy, amber eyes turned to a wall opposite so he wouldn't have to look at Reborn's face. Reborn's mouth hung a little open, and his hands were shrugged off in his absent thoughts. "You could die tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after that," Tsuna's voice began to tremble, and his thin fingers curled up so he they wouldn't tremble as well. "How was I supposed to say anything like that to you knowing that?"
He turned from the man, and it was only due to time and practice that he didn't cry. Rather, the pregnant silence in the room made both of their throats dry. "How long have you known?"
"Are you kidding me?" He laughed bitterly. "For the past two years." The words stung, and the famous hitman actually felt himself struck by the words. "I'm not stupid, Reborn."
"That should've been even more reason to tell me," He muttered quietly, that piece of paper held delicately in his left hand, although it had a little tear in it now, and it was wrinkled from when they'd been angry. "What, you think I'd kill you for telling me or something?"
"No, I thought that if I told you, you'd take it all the wrong way. Either that or you'd take it just how I want you to, and as soon as I get used to the sort of life I want with you, you're going to disappear." His voice broke from where he was leaning against the wall, looking broken and lonely as the dark-haired man approached. "It'd only be a day at first, but then what if you're gone for a week? Or a month? And then years? And forever? You die, and you never come back, Reborn!" Hearing his name, he laughed sadly again. "Reborn. Funny how ironic this is. Reborn, master of students being reborn, is unable to revive himself. The irony ought to taste like cherry pie."
"You snap yourself out of this," He snarled, walking over and slapping Tsuna square in the jaw. "I know you're better than this. You can't fall to pieces over stupid things."
"This isn't stupid!" He yelled, punching the man right in the nose, taking him by surprise and leaving him staring at the flustered young man while holding his possibly broken nose. "I love you, I hate you, and I can't just sit here and say, 'Oh, he's dead, I wonder what the weather's like outside today!'"
He sat down, wrapped his arms around his thin legs, and Reborn was shocked, even though he'd already known because of the note. It was dated four months ago, as though he was going to give it to him, but hadn't. Finally, he scooted close to him, and laid his head against the brunette's shoulder, letting out a slow, steady sigh. "Look, I'm not mad, or anything like that. In fact, I'd be willing to, you know, give it a shot, if you'd get over the fact that I might die at any moment." He took a breath, hearing his ex-charge beginning to stop crying softly to himself and trying to listen, hiccuping a little bit along the way. "But Tsuna," He lifted his chin, charcoal staring into burnt amber. "That would've been the case, regardless of anything else. I'm a hitman. One of us dies pretty much every day in the field." He kept speaking, his head heavy on that slight shoulder. "But we have to keep moving on, or else we'd never be able to do our jobs. You know that. So, why didn't you tell me?"
Tsuna said nothing for a long while, his eyes still focused on the walls and floor. "I guess...I guess I just...had my reasons." He admitted almost silently. "I just..." He laughed bitterly again. "I guess I just didn't want to have this confrontation. But look, it's happened anyways. Just shows how far foolish pride gets you."
"Listen to me," Reborn pulled his chin up carefully this time, and he stared at him, so close that their noses almost touched, Reborn's a bit more crooked than his charges at the moment. "You're the head of the family. You must keep your head up at all times, no matter how bleak the situation." He smirked a bit, closing his eyes as he finished. "Or how well it goes. Don't ever forget that."
Mesmerized, he whispered back in an almost weep, "I won't," And a soft kiss was bestowed upon his lips.
Nearly a year later, upon finding that coffin lowered in the ground, he turned his chin up, no tears, a flat expression. He would not bow down to anyone. And on the way home, his eyes were clear, focused, and his eyes were off of the floor from sunrise to sunset.
He refused to let one of the most important pearls of wisdom he'd gotten from his tutor lie in ruins.