hearts in chains: vii
/N: Okay, so, I wrote this a first time, didn’t like it, and wrote it again. GAH. Well, hope this chapter blows your minds! 8DD
Thanks to: (The lovely peanut butter and jelly sandwich I am enjoying at the moment. P:)
No, seriously? Anyone and everyone giving this story a chance. :D
Hearts In Chains
Pale
She walks beneath the skylines
Highrise past the sea
He talks and looks for all the signs
Broken dreams
In this new machine
“Sleeping Beauty”
-Patrick Watson
“You know,” Mukuro had purred, slowly forcing his illusions to become more powerful, poisoning the stubborn hitman and the other teenager’s minds. “If we could give up this charade, things would go so much more smoothly for all of us.”
“Not a chance,” Reborn cocked his gun and fired, but found the bullet lodged in the chest of some no name that had probably been one of the brats’ subordinates. He made a noise in the back of his throat as he kicked, punched, and used the butt of his gun to knock out anyone in his way. “I’ve never messed up a job-let alone messed one up twice,” He said, quickly approaching the illusionist that stood at the ready, easily pushing him back with the sheer numbers at his command.
“We’ll see about that,” He murmured in amusement, using the brunt of his trident to push more of them in his way and Hibari’s.
…
“The first time I realized what was happening, I think this had happened for the third time or so,” Little Mukuro said in an easy manner, as if he were talking about the weather instead. “Well, consciously. And the only reason that happened is because I told myself.”
...
The youth opened his mismatched eyes here, feeling as though he were trapped within of one of his own illusions. Then, he knew that he had found himself back in hell…but he knew that he still heard things from the raging battlefield he’d just left.
Well, this is just wonderful, He thought with a scowl, frustrated at his plans being interrupted. He felt a headache coming on with the complications of everything. I should’ve known that Sawada Tsunayoshi’s aid would’ve been a wedge in things. As he sat there contemplating, he realized that if he didn’t make his move soon, the entire universe might very well have ripped in half. A dead person still resided there, among the living. He could feel the muggy air, thick with the sound of gunshots and the amused laughter of Byakuran, who had apparently been planning this ambush for some time. Cursing himself for not thinking of such a thing, he eventually figured something out.
It would require some fancy working, but he might be able to resurrect himself…from the point of a child. He realized with a start that he’d been here, even though it was a little over thirteen years ago now. If he could just find his way in the prison…if he could walk just a short distance down its halls, for he knew that time hardly mattered around here, he could find that point in himself, and restart.
Something in him just knew that this was the right way to approach things. This way, he would have a fresh start.
Once he arrived in that cell, with the five year old him staring back at him, he stopped suddenly.
“Hello,” The boy that was himself greeted with a smile. “I thought that you might come by right around now.”
Mukuro strained his mind, trying to recall the last time he’d been spoken to like this. With a smirk, he realized that of course he’d be so uppity with even himself. “Mmm. If that’s the case, what do you suppose we’re going to do about things? I have an idea…but in all honesty, I haven’t a clue as to how well it will work.”
“It will work,” Younger him said, suddenly looking straight in his eyes and smiling a wicked smile. “After all, you lived, didn’t you?”
With a start, he realized that the overbearing sense of déjà vu he’d felt throughout his life was because of this. He hadn’t lived this life only once…no, he was cycling, back and forth.
The child spoke again. “I was wondering when you would notice, you know. It’s not natural to live simply by putting oneself into stasis after being shot in both the chest and the abdomen. I suppose we thought ourselves clever, though.”
He let the facts soak in, but not for very long-he knew there wasn’t time to dawdle. “How many times has this happened?”
“Too many,” The boy replied softly, his eyes looking at the distance. “Which is why I planted the thought in your mind, now that you’re here again. I want us to merge. Sure, you will have to remain in this form, but you will be able to observe your new lives happening, as I have, and see what you can do to fix it.”
“But how will I do that if I may never leave the recesses of my mind?” It was a good question, and the two seemed to exchange a long gaze.
“It’s a gamble, but,” The boy looked up, a sure expression in his mismatched eyes. “We will have to trust Sawada Tsunayoshi.”
There was silence as older Mukuro thought about what he meant by those words, and he realized. With his mental prowess, and his ability to been so keenly aware of his surroundings, he could’ve pushed him out of his mind at any time-he’d merely been using strategy to step in at the correct time. If this was true, then accepting his younger self’s offer-to share their memories, thoughts, and keep them through the cycling, if it meant that he could not age from five years, or leave his own subconscious, was worth it.
“I’ll do it,” He accepted with a smirk, and his small self smirked back, and through a tiring and particularly unpleasant day of throwing up, bleeding from fresh and old wounds, and trying to learn how to be this height again, they reunited, and closed their eyes, searching for the dying soul of a boy thirteen years ago that would need them to ensure that his life could continue once more.
…
Hibari had conquered all of the useless ones, the piles of unconscious bodies gathering in the hall around this room, and resisted the urge to succumb to his press on his mind or the now sub-artic temperature of the room, no doubt due to the nature of Mukuro’s illusions. Reborn was holding his own, taking out the strongest of the brats slowly, knowing that if the man could unseal their true potential, this battle would be unnecessarily lengthy. He pressed in faster and faster, until he was almost face to face with the illusionist, leaving the resurrecting brats in the hands of the other dark-haired man.
Mukuro brandished his trident with his usual smile, letting a laugh escape from his throat. Finally! Finally, I’ll have my revenge-and it’ll start with the very man that ‘killed’ me!
Reborn despised the triumph on his face, and brought his gun back up to fire.
…
“Of course, things didn’t go smoothly-otherwise, we wouldn’t be here, would we?” The young-but-not-really Mukuro mused. “The first few times we tried, giving the us in the real world a push in a different direction, someone from my gathering died, or Byakuran made his move too quickly for either of us to do anything about it. When M.M. and Ken die, your Gokudera Hayato dies with them, as well as Sasagawa Kyoko. When Chikusa and Fran die, your Sasagawa Ryohei and Lambo Bovino become deceased, and the Vongola ends up in flames by your hands-although honestly, I have possessed you,” He admitted with a nonchalant shrug. “Although, the world crumbles the most slowly and devastatingly when Chrome dies-you die, and from that point on, the world falls into a war that never ends; at least, not until I fall.”
“So then,” Tsuna asked, a concerned frown on his face. “Who’s Byakuran? And what seems to have worked the best?”
“There was only once, around ten tries ago, that things went as smoothly as they could,” Little Mukuro said quietly. “This time, you pushed me out successfully before the war that Byakuran started. You had agreed to let me stay alive, as long as I was in the most secure prison in the country, and had my followers sent there later, so that they could not get me out on the travel there. However, with us gone, and some of your forces dead, you don’t have enough power to defeat Byakuran. When he wins, the world falls to a complete ruin anyhow.”
“…You still haven’t told me who he is,” The brunette grumbled, taking all of this nonsense in a surprisingly fair manner, but it was equally possible that he’d felt something similar to Mukuro’s paranoia and déjà vu long ago.
“I was getting to that,” Mukuro chuckled, crossing his short legs. “Byakuran is a white-haired traitorous man. We conspire to kidnap you nearly every time, and once I’ve done that, resulting in many of his lesser forces being depleted, he resolves to cut his ties to me, and do what he’s really been planning to do all along-destroy the Vongola and seize control of the throne.”
Mukuro told him the details, to the very smallest, about how ruthless he was, how he kept pulling tricks out of his sleeves, and it was hard to say what he did each time, because he changed his methods every time.
“Because he’s like you,” He said, which made Tsuna appalled. “Don’t look at me like that. It’s true. He has that same sense that things aren’t exactly as they seem, which is why he and I will never get along-he suspects me, and with good reason.”
There was silence as Tsuna clenched his fists in his pant legs, worried about everything that Mukuro had just told him, but didn’t forget his original purpose in coming here. “Then…when should I go?”
The boy looked at the clock on the wall that hadn’t been there before, and smiled brightly. “Just in time. It’s Thursday, eleven o’clock in the morning. I should be fighting off your keeper and that man right about now…so you should get going.”
With no further warning, he shoved him into the older, current Mukuro’s consciousness, steeled himself, and although he was gasping and sweating under all the pressure and weight of his presence, he won, and found himself standing, exhausted, in a room that reeked of carnage
…
Mukuro had done his best to fend Tsuna off, and as he teetered, the men stared at him, confused as to why his onslaught was slowing. The men and women he’d held control over were now free as his form faded back into the more familiar one of the brunette, they felt a sense of relief flood their senses. Everyone who Mukuro had been puppteering crumpled to the ground as their strings were cut, and Tsuna smiled tiredly at the two of them left standing.
“Hi,” He said, before precisely falling to the ground, passed out.
…
When he woke in a cold sweat on the unfamiliar bed, he let out a long, bitter laugh. “It seems that I’ve failed after all,” The long-haired young man sat up slowly, a cough racking his body after not being in it properly for so many days. “I suppose I should’ve expected that.”
“I’m not finished with you, however,” A voice that he distinctly recognized as Sawada Tsunayoshi’s. He started, not expecting his own mind to have been infiltrated to such an extent, especially not by him, who shouldn’t have been able to speak even in the physical world. “We have business. Urgently. I realize that you hold a grudge against nobility,” How he’d come across this wasn’t unknown to him, having done the same so frequently, but he still felt violated. “But the world hangs in the balance. I need you to be here-tomorrow. I’ll manage to hold off Reborn.”
Why? Why would he do something like this? Why, only moments ago, he’d been in the process of killing him slowly, his own mental poison beginning to sink in. And yet, somehow, he’d gained access to some memories of his or something, and he was requesting his aide. And-the gall of him-by tomorrow, no less.
Laughing loudly in this room where another man listened in carefully, he whispered back to him. “Fine. I will play your games, Sawada Tsunayoshi. They had better stay interesting.”
A laugh crossed his mind, and the link was severed completely, the boy no longer wanting to be exposed to the illusionist. Lancia entered at this moment, a worried scowl on his face as he stared at the already half-insane teenager.
“Ready my clothing,” Mukuro instructed him with curved lips. “It seems I have an appointment tomorrow.”
“You’re back earlier than expected,” He muttered, but did not argue, walking out of the room with that, leaving him to ponder how much, exactly, he’d underestimated the brunette.
A/N: Ha ha ha, I can already see the bricks headed for my window. Seriously. Oh well. P: Thanks for reading! Sorry this was so short-I promise they get long again very, very soon. :3
Chapter 8 Preview:
There was a silent cry as the air ran out his breathing pathways, a slow tear coursing down his pale cheeks. “You, of all people, should’ve known that I don’t do second chances for people that I don’t care for.”
“Yeah?” Irie mumbled to himself, running fingers tenderly over his arms. “I wonder who that could be?”
Another youth from the corner said nothing, only letting his soulless eyes roam the room. Yet another was trapped inside a cage of sorts, and under restraints as well, but the three of them made up his most important assets-these two for the power during the siege, and Irie for the tact. The last of them was probably the most defiant, which wasn’t to say that he hadn’t tried to break him in, but the boy was just so annoyingly resilient. He supposed it was because he’d been under his thumb since they were both children, and he seethed that there was something he couldn’t control to his utmost amusement, but sucked it up regardless-right now, he had better things to think about. For no, he settled for backhanding the redhead to the floor, where he winced and cradled his red cheek in his palms. “Hmmm. I asked you a question first.”
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