[fic] The One You Trust the Most (Yamamoto + Reborn + Tsuna | gen)
this was brought to you by too much prince of tennis (muga no kyouchi ftw) and just a little bit of free time.
summary, right: Sometime in the near future, Yamamoto achieves a "trance state" where he is almost invincible. When he does this, he loses all emotion. Reborn thinks this makes him the perfect hitman - however, this also makes him a dangerous person for Tsuna to have around.
Having failed to fully master this state, Yamamoto is forced to confront a very old sin, and to confess to Tsuna that he cannot be trusted.
DO NOT TAKE THIS SRSLY OK. for all we know yamamoto's mom is alive and well in hell and doing great. she just hasn't been mentioned in the manga at all, so i'm playing around with her.
and of course, there is no such thing as a "trance state" - that's just a lame name for a power move that yama's never going to have in canon. ever. i just felt like giving him some sort of excuse for being a "natural-born hitman" even if i don't actually see him killing anyone ^^
EMO/FLUFF ALERT. *is 99% sure doujinshi or something like this already exists somewhere...*
The One You Trust the Most
Reborn watches.
He watches two teenage boys - one tall, one not so - standing facing each other in the middle of the glade, far from their companions who are busy with their own training routines.
It takes a while for the taller boy to speak. In the meantime he hangs his head and looks at the ground - his hunched-up shoulders and clenched fists, everything about him radiating confusion and fear.
The smaller boy is wondering why the tall boy would not meet his gaze. This has never happened before. The tall boy never has a problem meeting anyone's gaze, except when he's lying - and he has never been very good at lying. And he has never had a reason to lie about anything big.
"...You know... whatever this is about, you don't look so good." The smaller boy reaches out to touch the other boy on the arm. "Why don't we sit down or something..."
"No."
The smaller boy's hand draws back quickly as if struck.
"Huh?"
"Let's just... let's talk like this, okay?"
The smaller boy doesn't understand. He doesn't know he's being watched, and neither does his friend. All he really understands at that moment is that his friend seems distressed. He doesn't even know how to ask what it is that's troubling him.
"So that if you want to run away from me," his friend continues in a bleak, lost tone, raising his chin a little, "it'll be easier for you."
Shock registers on the smaller boy's face.
"Yamamoto," he begins. "Why would I - what is this about?"
The taller boy doesn't answer. Reborn stands in the shadows and waits. Even if he speaks in a whisper, Reborn would be sure to hear it.
All the same, Reborn is certain the taller boy won't run away from this. He's impressed on him the need to get this confession out of the way. Of course, there's always the chance that the boy will put on his "airhead" mask again and make everything seem better, make everything seem like one big bad joke - but he knows the boy can't do that. He won't be able to live with himself if he doesn't tell.
This is important, Tsuna, Reborn would have told the shorter boy, if his presence were welcome. But it isn't, not this time. It's something the two young people in his charge have to face by themselves.
What are you going to do?
Only a few hours ago, Yamamoto Takeshi was his upbeat, energetic self; he was sure he was going to beat this new training program that "the kiddo" had set for him. After all, Reborn had never issued a challenge he could not overcome.
And recently, Yamamoto learned that he could enter a "trance state" - one in which he could not feel anything, or even think of anything. His body simply moves of its own accord. His natural instinct to kill zeroes in on a mission - and once that mission has been accomplished, the instinct locks itself away.
The state is similar to being shot with a dying will bullet, where everything else falls away and you center on the one thing you need to do, or else die regretting.
Yamamoto doesn't even bother to hide it; he loves his "trance state." He thinks of it as a trump card that will never fail him. This sort of confidence is what Reborn needs to knock out of him, for a number of reasons.
"Sorry, kiddo... I tried, I really did."
Reborn didn't answer him. He kept his eyes carefully hidden under the rim of his black fedora, making sure at the same time that his displeasure was obvious.
Aptly, Yamamoto was affected; he behaved like he knew his trainor needed to be appeased.
"I'll try harder next time, all right?"
"No, you won't. No amount of trying will help."
Yamamoto put on a hurt face. "Hey," he complained, "are you accusing me of slacking off? How mean~"
Without a word, Reborn started taking the bullets out of his pistol. It had taken him four tries out of six to shoot Yamamoto with the bullet that would bring his "trance state" down.
With every attempt at achieving this state, Yamamoto only became stronger, faster, more difficult to control. And Reborn's ammo was limited. He doubted the boy himself knew why it was important for him to master this state as soon as possible.
Reborn knew on the day they met that Yamamoto Takeshi was capable of the "trance state." That was why Reborn found it easy to disclose to the very young 10th Vongola boss that his popular, baseball-loving, seemingly clueless schoolmate would make an excellent hitman.
But it quickly became clear that it was not enough to simply achieve the "trance state." Reborn had anticipated this. Yamamoto Takeshi is 16 years old and his body has yet to grow - he has to be taught how to effectively manage his own energy so that the condition would not push it beyond exhaustion, and consequently damage it beyond repair.
This is not a big deal, Reborn says to himself: Yamamoto is actually very aware of his own body and its processes, even if it isn't that obvious to him. His body automatically shifts gears and finds the most efficient ways to utilize his remaining strength. This gives him the superhuman dexterity and stamina that have saved his life so many times.
But Yamamoto's tender age is a disadvantage in one other way: once he has reached that stage of awareness, he has considerable difficulty retracting from it. If it were as easy to "fade off," as with the dying will bullet, there would be no problem - but even after Yamamoto's target has been "killed," after he's accomplished his mission, he remains in that state for too long, and Reborn finds himself in the unique and unpleasant position of knocking him back into his regular self, by shooting him with a bullet made especially for that purpose.
This, Reborn knows, is a Big Deal.
"Yamamoto Takeshi," he said grimly, "You should do your best to understand this killing mode. You have to control it. Otherwise it's going to get the best of you again."
The boy chuckled.
"'Again'? What are you talking about?" He started to stretch, unknotting his overexerted muscles. "I just discovered this skill now, didn't I?"
"That's not true," Reborn said in a neutral tone.
There is another reason why Reborn had said Yamamoto Takeshi would make an excellent hitman.
"You've already killed someone, haven't you?"
Yamamoto was about to say something. But he stopped before a sound could escape his lips.
His face, when he looked at the baby beside him, seemed to waver between surprise and amusement. As if, for a split second, it didn't know which emotion was safe to display.
Yamamoto Takeshi is 16 years old.
And he has been living with a secret for far too long.
"Tsuna, what if," the tall boy is saying, gaze now even more desperately fixed on the ground, the space between them. "What if I can be... not really 'me,' you get it? What if sometimes I can be... somebody else, somebody who isn't... isn't really your friend?"
The shorter boy sounds the way he feels: grasping at straws. "I... don't get it. Are you saying you're not my friend? Because that's a really stupid thing to say..."
Yamamoto takes a deep breath, and then another long pause. Reborn is patient; Yamamoto has the license to stall this as long as he needs.
"Listen, Tsuna." He's careful now. His voice is softer and steadier and some years older. "I've never told you about my mother. Did you ever wonder about that?"
So now Tsuna is the only one left stammering. "Yeah, but... I always just thought it was too painful for you to talk about. You and your Dad never talk about her, there's not even a picture of her in your house or anything..."
"Do you remember anyone talking about her at all?"
"I, well..." Tsuna scratches his head. He doesn't even know if he should be admitting this, "I think I heard some of the old people in the neighborhood talking, a few years back... they said it was too bad you were being raised without a mother. They said she was way too young to be that sick. That's why I kinda assumed..."
He doesn't want to continue, so he doesn't. But he doesn't need to.
Yamamoto finally raises his head. When he does, Tsuna sees that he's smiling. It's not the smile he's come to expect from Yamamoto - not the carefree, reassuring smile that lights up his face and usually also everything within a thirty-foot radius.
In fact, Tsuna remembers seeing this smile only once before: three years and an entire lifetime ago, when a boy with a broken arm was standing outside the wire fence on the rooftop of Namimori middle school, getting ready to jump.
"My mother died ten years ago, Tsuna. I was six years old," Yamamoto says. "I killed her."
Reborn wouldn't have admitted anyone into the Vongola famiglia without doing a thorough background check on them first. Yamamoto Takeshi's sportsmanship and outstanding reflexes attracted his attention at the start, but it wasn't until after he'd completed his research that he decided "Yes - this one. We need him."
Yamamoto Takeshi was the only child of a master of the Shigure Souen swordsmanship technique; as such, he was someone born with discreet ties to the mafia. A promising athlete but a mediocre student, a friendly and extroverted sort of child: he wasn't perfect, but he was definitely not a liability.
His acceptance into the Vongola famiglia appeared seamless - but then a strange event in this boy's life reached Reborn through the grapevine. He would not have gotten wind of it if he had relied on traditional sources, like local newspapers or archives of community news broadcasts - this event was not documented, perhaps out of common decency, or perhaps no one honestly thought it was worth documenting...
Yamamoto Takeshi came from a picture perfect family. His young parents were pillars of the community, whose natural friendliness won them the affection of nearly everyone they met. The Yamamoto family's future seemed not only bright, but downright incandescent.
But when the boy was five years old, all this changed: his mother contracted a fatal and very rare disease. This led her health to degenerate quickly, in spite of specialists' efforts to arrest her illness.
She spent her last year alive in a hospital bed, hooked up to tubes and wires, barely lucid and spending her every waking moment in pain.
One night, the entire hospital was roused by an alarm: the life support system in his mother's room was damaged. When the nurses got to her room, she was already dead... and her young son was standing in a daze near the tubes and wires that had been connected to her body.
The boy was questioned by the hospital staff and by the police, but he seemed to be in shock: he couldn't say anything, couldn't eat, sleep or clean himself properly, and in fact couldn't even acknowledge the presence of anyone else, not even his devastated young father.
In the end the police simply concluded that, unable to bear the pain any longer, the mother had committed suicide by tearing the tubes and wires off her own body with the last of her strength. It was only unfortunate that her little boy had been there to witness it...
The Yamamoto household was deathly quiet after that incident. But some months later, it seemed that everything returned to normal. The boy was his old cheerful self, going around helping his father with tasks about the sushi shop, playing games with friends his age from around the neighborhood. The father, too, was back to being infectiously happy.
But neither of them ever mentioned the mother again. Ironically, that was the last thing anyone could think of as strange.
"What are you talking about?" Tsuna loudly demands of his friend, who has finished relating it all. "How could you have pulled those wires all on your own? How could you even think of doing such a thing?"
"I don't know either. But..." Yamamoto's fists have relaxed a bit. They still hang at his sides not fully open. "It seems I was in a 'trance state' at the time... at least, it would make sense if I was."
"That's crazy. A six-year-old kid, in that condition?" Tsuna strides forward. The consternation in his voice is only too clear. "Look, Reborn will tell you - I was there when he was explaining it to you, too! Only very skilled people who have broken past their physical limits - "
"- without using the dying will flame could reach the 'trance state'," Yamamoto finishes for him, the sad smile unwavering. "But you see, he also told me that a person who was born with the natural ability to reach that state, will reach it when the need arises. The mind shuts off and the body takes over. All it takes is the will to finish the job."
Tsuna starts to say something - Reborn could hear him struggling to get the syllables out, from where he is hiding. But instead he lets out an angry, frustrated groan, and Reborn hears him breathing loudly for a few seconds. He's turned away from Yamamoto in an effort to compose himself.
"I don't remember," Yamamoto continues to say, in this oddly gentle tone that doesn't sound like him at all. "I don't even remember going to see my mother in the hospital. Then the next thing I knew, I was waking up, and I was hungry and I wanted lots and lots of sushi. Dad told me I was out of it for three whole months and he was glad to have me back.
"That was all he said, you see... I had to hear it from other people. How I was found holding some of the tubes that were connected to my mother's body. How she was lying on the bed all twisted up like she hadn't wanted to die, like it had hurt -"
"If you don't remember, how can you say you did it!"
Tsuna is angry. Angry at his friend or at the situation his friend is forcing him into - Reborn can't be sure. But it already says a lot about Tsuna that he's confronting this situation not with incredulity or with dismissal, but with hate.
"Before my mother died, I was always thinking... I should just take away the pain and never tell a soul. Because no one should know. Six-year-old kids don't really think like that, do they? Unless they've seen too much pain and they can't stand it anymore."
"You were a little kid! It's impossible! So stop saying it!"
"...You know what, Tsuna? I've thought about it. I'm not a smart guy. A lot of what I do depends on what I feel has to be done. And if an illusionist like Mukuro ever suggested - "
"Dammit I said STOP!"
Tsuna bridges the distance between them finally and grabs the front of Yamamoto's shirt. His eyes are burning, Reborn could see - but not with anger, not at his friend.
If anything, the look on Tsuna's eyes is desperate. Pleading.
"If I really believe that you have to die," Yamamoto says slowly, meeting Tsuna's gaze at close range, undaunted now, "I'm going to cut you down. I will. And I won't feel a thing."
If Yamamoto Takeshi had any memory of the events that took place ten years ago, at his mother's deathbed, he had hidden it away behind a sunny disposition and an almost surreal facade of ignorance.
But Reborn is certain Yamamoto could not recall a single detail. The cheerfulness and thick-headedness - that wasn't a facade, that was real. That was how Reborn was sure that even at six years old, Yamamoto was able to achieve the trance state.
Besides, there were ways to be sure. "Research" did not just involve staying glued to the local grapevine. Even if the details had slipped people's minds, the memory would be there, on objects and insects and little things that tend to escape the attention of ordinary folk.
It had happened.
And once upon a time, knowing it had happened only convinced Reborn that Yamamoto Takeshi would make a perfect guardian for the young Vongola boss under his wing.
"Tsuna doesn't know. Do you realize what this means?"
Yamamoto was not answering. In fact, he was acting like he couldn't hear anything. He was rummaging through his stuff for a clean towel he could use to wipe off the sweat and grime he had collected during training. And he was definitely not looking at Reborn.
"At any point, this side of you could resurface. At any point, you could turn on the one person you trust the most."
This seemed to provoke a reaction. Yamamoto stood still, head bowed - either waiting for Reborn to say more, or getting ready to reply.
In the end, he couldn't manage the latter.
Killing for love is perhaps pardonable. Being young enough to get away with it might have helped. But now, at this age, when there is no doubt that unlike anyone else, he could simply shut his soul off and kill... Yamamoto Takeshi has no excuses.
"You could murder him." Reborn stood close to Yamamoto so he could be heard clearly. There was no room for misunderstandings. "In cold blood. And knowing that compassionate idiot, he would rather die than take his assassin's life, if it comes to that. Or worse, you could be tricked into taking down someone he loves."
"Never!" It was a certain answer. But there was hardly any certainty at all in the voice of the boy who spoke. "I - I'll never... Tsuna..."
"How can you say that for sure?"
The torment was clear enough on Yamamoto's face. How easy it might have been to make light of a situation like this, if they were talking about something else, not betraying Tsuna. Not being a threat to the famiglia.
"If you can't even stop it when it needs to be stopped," Reborn uttered with a touch of sternness now, "Tsuna is in grave danger. By keeping you in the famiglia, he may as well hand you the sword that you're going to use to kill him." He started to walk away. "So if you have any doubt in your mind that you're ever going to control this, it's best to let Tsuna know. The decision to keep you in the family or not is his, now."
The boy said nothing. He did not try to follow Reborn or ask what he was supposed to do. He already knew.
Reborn watches the tenth boss of the Vongola clan clinging to the front of his friend's shirt like it's a lifeline - not speaking, fixing his gaze on a spot just behind his friend, a spot that leads into the wide open space that contains his thoughts.
He watches the boy release the cloth and step back with a shove.
Reborn spares a small sigh for his ward.
Tsuna. Make the smart move. You are going to lead the Vongola.
You are not allowed to think none of them can betray you.
Especially the one you trust the most.
A hurt look crosses Yamamoto's face. Then it's gone, and the sad smile from long ago fixes itself in place. He watches Tsuna and waits, expecting the other boy to turn away.
But instead.
Instead.
Tsuna steps forward and locks the taller boy in a tight embrace.
Too surprised to move, Yamamoto just stands there and lets himself be hugged. This wasn't exactly foreseeable, he thinks. Good thing he was able to hit the showers before this talk...
"You," Tsuna says without letting go, "are forever banned from saying you will ever be a danger to me or to the family."
"What - I mean - why?"
"Because it's pissing me off, that's why!"
Gently, Yamamoto disentangles himself from his friend - and thankfully, it is accomplished swiftly and without awkwardness.
"We've been through so much," Tsuna tells him. "I can't believe you're telling me I should be afraid of you because you might hurt me. Do you really think that's ever going to happen??"
At a loss for words, he stammers, "Tsuna, I..."
"You're going to master it." There is more than certainty here - there is absolute belief. Even Reborn knows it for what it is. "I know you are. And even if you have a hard time doing it -" He claps his hands on Yamamoto's shoulders. "- I'll watch out for you. Okay?"
It's funny, Yamamoto thinks, how Tsuna can be shorter than himself, and yet seem that much - bigger. How the hands on his shoulders feel so warm and comforting. Not even his own father's hands ever felt like that. Not for the first time, he wonders: Is this what it feels like to be part of a famiglia?
It occurs to him just then that if he ever does kill Tsuna while in a "trance state"... should it ever happen... he would never recover. He would be emotionless forever. There would be no way to live with the thought of what he had done, even if Reborn could find him and restore his senses.
So he has to get past this. He has to.
He feels too much, he reminds himself. And he has to work harder at not doing that. He doesn't want to cause too much trouble for Tsuna. But for now, just for a second - maybe it's all right.
"Okay," he answers. And this time, he truly smiles.
Reborn mirrors that smile, in some way glad that it still exists to be mirrored.
Stupid, suicidal Tsuna.
Quietly he leaves the scene. He still has to re-map Yamamoto's training program to accommodate the developments made in his recent efforts to control the "trance state."
He acknowledges that he will need to be creative about this, since Yamamoto has proven that the standard training techniques don't really work. And if you ask Reborn, only someone who has mastered the "trance state" too would even have the vaguest idea how to train someone who would potentially be so much better at it.
(end)
-------------------------------------------
in my head, this fic very rapidly degenerates into 8027 H.
and if this happened, reborn would be "...wtf o_o"
or else
"...FINALLY ^o^"
summary, right: Sometime in the near future, Yamamoto achieves a "trance state" where he is almost invincible. When he does this, he loses all emotion. Reborn thinks this makes him the perfect hitman - however, this also makes him a dangerous person for Tsuna to have around.
Having failed to fully master this state, Yamamoto is forced to confront a very old sin, and to confess to Tsuna that he cannot be trusted.
DO NOT TAKE THIS SRSLY OK. for all we know yamamoto's mom is alive and well in hell and doing great. she just hasn't been mentioned in the manga at all, so i'm playing around with her.
and of course, there is no such thing as a "trance state" - that's just a lame name for a power move that yama's never going to have in canon. ever. i just felt like giving him some sort of excuse for being a "natural-born hitman" even if i don't actually see him killing anyone ^^
EMO/FLUFF ALERT. *is 99% sure doujinshi or something like this already exists somewhere...*
The One You Trust the Most
Reborn watches.
He watches two teenage boys - one tall, one not so - standing facing each other in the middle of the glade, far from their companions who are busy with their own training routines.
It takes a while for the taller boy to speak. In the meantime he hangs his head and looks at the ground - his hunched-up shoulders and clenched fists, everything about him radiating confusion and fear.
The smaller boy is wondering why the tall boy would not meet his gaze. This has never happened before. The tall boy never has a problem meeting anyone's gaze, except when he's lying - and he has never been very good at lying. And he has never had a reason to lie about anything big.
"...You know... whatever this is about, you don't look so good." The smaller boy reaches out to touch the other boy on the arm. "Why don't we sit down or something..."
"No."
The smaller boy's hand draws back quickly as if struck.
"Huh?"
"Let's just... let's talk like this, okay?"
The smaller boy doesn't understand. He doesn't know he's being watched, and neither does his friend. All he really understands at that moment is that his friend seems distressed. He doesn't even know how to ask what it is that's troubling him.
"So that if you want to run away from me," his friend continues in a bleak, lost tone, raising his chin a little, "it'll be easier for you."
Shock registers on the smaller boy's face.
"Yamamoto," he begins. "Why would I - what is this about?"
The taller boy doesn't answer. Reborn stands in the shadows and waits. Even if he speaks in a whisper, Reborn would be sure to hear it.
All the same, Reborn is certain the taller boy won't run away from this. He's impressed on him the need to get this confession out of the way. Of course, there's always the chance that the boy will put on his "airhead" mask again and make everything seem better, make everything seem like one big bad joke - but he knows the boy can't do that. He won't be able to live with himself if he doesn't tell.
This is important, Tsuna, Reborn would have told the shorter boy, if his presence were welcome. But it isn't, not this time. It's something the two young people in his charge have to face by themselves.
What are you going to do?
Only a few hours ago, Yamamoto Takeshi was his upbeat, energetic self; he was sure he was going to beat this new training program that "the kiddo" had set for him. After all, Reborn had never issued a challenge he could not overcome.
And recently, Yamamoto learned that he could enter a "trance state" - one in which he could not feel anything, or even think of anything. His body simply moves of its own accord. His natural instinct to kill zeroes in on a mission - and once that mission has been accomplished, the instinct locks itself away.
The state is similar to being shot with a dying will bullet, where everything else falls away and you center on the one thing you need to do, or else die regretting.
Yamamoto doesn't even bother to hide it; he loves his "trance state." He thinks of it as a trump card that will never fail him. This sort of confidence is what Reborn needs to knock out of him, for a number of reasons.
"Sorry, kiddo... I tried, I really did."
Reborn didn't answer him. He kept his eyes carefully hidden under the rim of his black fedora, making sure at the same time that his displeasure was obvious.
Aptly, Yamamoto was affected; he behaved like he knew his trainor needed to be appeased.
"I'll try harder next time, all right?"
"No, you won't. No amount of trying will help."
Yamamoto put on a hurt face. "Hey," he complained, "are you accusing me of slacking off? How mean~"
Without a word, Reborn started taking the bullets out of his pistol. It had taken him four tries out of six to shoot Yamamoto with the bullet that would bring his "trance state" down.
With every attempt at achieving this state, Yamamoto only became stronger, faster, more difficult to control. And Reborn's ammo was limited. He doubted the boy himself knew why it was important for him to master this state as soon as possible.
Reborn knew on the day they met that Yamamoto Takeshi was capable of the "trance state." That was why Reborn found it easy to disclose to the very young 10th Vongola boss that his popular, baseball-loving, seemingly clueless schoolmate would make an excellent hitman.
But it quickly became clear that it was not enough to simply achieve the "trance state." Reborn had anticipated this. Yamamoto Takeshi is 16 years old and his body has yet to grow - he has to be taught how to effectively manage his own energy so that the condition would not push it beyond exhaustion, and consequently damage it beyond repair.
This is not a big deal, Reborn says to himself: Yamamoto is actually very aware of his own body and its processes, even if it isn't that obvious to him. His body automatically shifts gears and finds the most efficient ways to utilize his remaining strength. This gives him the superhuman dexterity and stamina that have saved his life so many times.
But Yamamoto's tender age is a disadvantage in one other way: once he has reached that stage of awareness, he has considerable difficulty retracting from it. If it were as easy to "fade off," as with the dying will bullet, there would be no problem - but even after Yamamoto's target has been "killed," after he's accomplished his mission, he remains in that state for too long, and Reborn finds himself in the unique and unpleasant position of knocking him back into his regular self, by shooting him with a bullet made especially for that purpose.
This, Reborn knows, is a Big Deal.
"Yamamoto Takeshi," he said grimly, "You should do your best to understand this killing mode. You have to control it. Otherwise it's going to get the best of you again."
The boy chuckled.
"'Again'? What are you talking about?" He started to stretch, unknotting his overexerted muscles. "I just discovered this skill now, didn't I?"
"That's not true," Reborn said in a neutral tone.
There is another reason why Reborn had said Yamamoto Takeshi would make an excellent hitman.
"You've already killed someone, haven't you?"
Yamamoto was about to say something. But he stopped before a sound could escape his lips.
His face, when he looked at the baby beside him, seemed to waver between surprise and amusement. As if, for a split second, it didn't know which emotion was safe to display.
Yamamoto Takeshi is 16 years old.
And he has been living with a secret for far too long.
"Tsuna, what if," the tall boy is saying, gaze now even more desperately fixed on the ground, the space between them. "What if I can be... not really 'me,' you get it? What if sometimes I can be... somebody else, somebody who isn't... isn't really your friend?"
The shorter boy sounds the way he feels: grasping at straws. "I... don't get it. Are you saying you're not my friend? Because that's a really stupid thing to say..."
Yamamoto takes a deep breath, and then another long pause. Reborn is patient; Yamamoto has the license to stall this as long as he needs.
"Listen, Tsuna." He's careful now. His voice is softer and steadier and some years older. "I've never told you about my mother. Did you ever wonder about that?"
So now Tsuna is the only one left stammering. "Yeah, but... I always just thought it was too painful for you to talk about. You and your Dad never talk about her, there's not even a picture of her in your house or anything..."
"Do you remember anyone talking about her at all?"
"I, well..." Tsuna scratches his head. He doesn't even know if he should be admitting this, "I think I heard some of the old people in the neighborhood talking, a few years back... they said it was too bad you were being raised without a mother. They said she was way too young to be that sick. That's why I kinda assumed..."
He doesn't want to continue, so he doesn't. But he doesn't need to.
Yamamoto finally raises his head. When he does, Tsuna sees that he's smiling. It's not the smile he's come to expect from Yamamoto - not the carefree, reassuring smile that lights up his face and usually also everything within a thirty-foot radius.
In fact, Tsuna remembers seeing this smile only once before: three years and an entire lifetime ago, when a boy with a broken arm was standing outside the wire fence on the rooftop of Namimori middle school, getting ready to jump.
"My mother died ten years ago, Tsuna. I was six years old," Yamamoto says. "I killed her."
Reborn wouldn't have admitted anyone into the Vongola famiglia without doing a thorough background check on them first. Yamamoto Takeshi's sportsmanship and outstanding reflexes attracted his attention at the start, but it wasn't until after he'd completed his research that he decided "Yes - this one. We need him."
Yamamoto Takeshi was the only child of a master of the Shigure Souen swordsmanship technique; as such, he was someone born with discreet ties to the mafia. A promising athlete but a mediocre student, a friendly and extroverted sort of child: he wasn't perfect, but he was definitely not a liability.
His acceptance into the Vongola famiglia appeared seamless - but then a strange event in this boy's life reached Reborn through the grapevine. He would not have gotten wind of it if he had relied on traditional sources, like local newspapers or archives of community news broadcasts - this event was not documented, perhaps out of common decency, or perhaps no one honestly thought it was worth documenting...
Yamamoto Takeshi came from a picture perfect family. His young parents were pillars of the community, whose natural friendliness won them the affection of nearly everyone they met. The Yamamoto family's future seemed not only bright, but downright incandescent.
But when the boy was five years old, all this changed: his mother contracted a fatal and very rare disease. This led her health to degenerate quickly, in spite of specialists' efforts to arrest her illness.
She spent her last year alive in a hospital bed, hooked up to tubes and wires, barely lucid and spending her every waking moment in pain.
One night, the entire hospital was roused by an alarm: the life support system in his mother's room was damaged. When the nurses got to her room, she was already dead... and her young son was standing in a daze near the tubes and wires that had been connected to her body.
The boy was questioned by the hospital staff and by the police, but he seemed to be in shock: he couldn't say anything, couldn't eat, sleep or clean himself properly, and in fact couldn't even acknowledge the presence of anyone else, not even his devastated young father.
In the end the police simply concluded that, unable to bear the pain any longer, the mother had committed suicide by tearing the tubes and wires off her own body with the last of her strength. It was only unfortunate that her little boy had been there to witness it...
The Yamamoto household was deathly quiet after that incident. But some months later, it seemed that everything returned to normal. The boy was his old cheerful self, going around helping his father with tasks about the sushi shop, playing games with friends his age from around the neighborhood. The father, too, was back to being infectiously happy.
But neither of them ever mentioned the mother again. Ironically, that was the last thing anyone could think of as strange.
"What are you talking about?" Tsuna loudly demands of his friend, who has finished relating it all. "How could you have pulled those wires all on your own? How could you even think of doing such a thing?"
"I don't know either. But..." Yamamoto's fists have relaxed a bit. They still hang at his sides not fully open. "It seems I was in a 'trance state' at the time... at least, it would make sense if I was."
"That's crazy. A six-year-old kid, in that condition?" Tsuna strides forward. The consternation in his voice is only too clear. "Look, Reborn will tell you - I was there when he was explaining it to you, too! Only very skilled people who have broken past their physical limits - "
"- without using the dying will flame could reach the 'trance state'," Yamamoto finishes for him, the sad smile unwavering. "But you see, he also told me that a person who was born with the natural ability to reach that state, will reach it when the need arises. The mind shuts off and the body takes over. All it takes is the will to finish the job."
Tsuna starts to say something - Reborn could hear him struggling to get the syllables out, from where he is hiding. But instead he lets out an angry, frustrated groan, and Reborn hears him breathing loudly for a few seconds. He's turned away from Yamamoto in an effort to compose himself.
"I don't remember," Yamamoto continues to say, in this oddly gentle tone that doesn't sound like him at all. "I don't even remember going to see my mother in the hospital. Then the next thing I knew, I was waking up, and I was hungry and I wanted lots and lots of sushi. Dad told me I was out of it for three whole months and he was glad to have me back.
"That was all he said, you see... I had to hear it from other people. How I was found holding some of the tubes that were connected to my mother's body. How she was lying on the bed all twisted up like she hadn't wanted to die, like it had hurt -"
"If you don't remember, how can you say you did it!"
Tsuna is angry. Angry at his friend or at the situation his friend is forcing him into - Reborn can't be sure. But it already says a lot about Tsuna that he's confronting this situation not with incredulity or with dismissal, but with hate.
"Before my mother died, I was always thinking... I should just take away the pain and never tell a soul. Because no one should know. Six-year-old kids don't really think like that, do they? Unless they've seen too much pain and they can't stand it anymore."
"You were a little kid! It's impossible! So stop saying it!"
"...You know what, Tsuna? I've thought about it. I'm not a smart guy. A lot of what I do depends on what I feel has to be done. And if an illusionist like Mukuro ever suggested - "
"Dammit I said STOP!"
Tsuna bridges the distance between them finally and grabs the front of Yamamoto's shirt. His eyes are burning, Reborn could see - but not with anger, not at his friend.
If anything, the look on Tsuna's eyes is desperate. Pleading.
"If I really believe that you have to die," Yamamoto says slowly, meeting Tsuna's gaze at close range, undaunted now, "I'm going to cut you down. I will. And I won't feel a thing."
If Yamamoto Takeshi had any memory of the events that took place ten years ago, at his mother's deathbed, he had hidden it away behind a sunny disposition and an almost surreal facade of ignorance.
But Reborn is certain Yamamoto could not recall a single detail. The cheerfulness and thick-headedness - that wasn't a facade, that was real. That was how Reborn was sure that even at six years old, Yamamoto was able to achieve the trance state.
Besides, there were ways to be sure. "Research" did not just involve staying glued to the local grapevine. Even if the details had slipped people's minds, the memory would be there, on objects and insects and little things that tend to escape the attention of ordinary folk.
It had happened.
And once upon a time, knowing it had happened only convinced Reborn that Yamamoto Takeshi would make a perfect guardian for the young Vongola boss under his wing.
"Tsuna doesn't know. Do you realize what this means?"
Yamamoto was not answering. In fact, he was acting like he couldn't hear anything. He was rummaging through his stuff for a clean towel he could use to wipe off the sweat and grime he had collected during training. And he was definitely not looking at Reborn.
"At any point, this side of you could resurface. At any point, you could turn on the one person you trust the most."
This seemed to provoke a reaction. Yamamoto stood still, head bowed - either waiting for Reborn to say more, or getting ready to reply.
In the end, he couldn't manage the latter.
Killing for love is perhaps pardonable. Being young enough to get away with it might have helped. But now, at this age, when there is no doubt that unlike anyone else, he could simply shut his soul off and kill... Yamamoto Takeshi has no excuses.
"You could murder him." Reborn stood close to Yamamoto so he could be heard clearly. There was no room for misunderstandings. "In cold blood. And knowing that compassionate idiot, he would rather die than take his assassin's life, if it comes to that. Or worse, you could be tricked into taking down someone he loves."
"Never!" It was a certain answer. But there was hardly any certainty at all in the voice of the boy who spoke. "I - I'll never... Tsuna..."
"How can you say that for sure?"
The torment was clear enough on Yamamoto's face. How easy it might have been to make light of a situation like this, if they were talking about something else, not betraying Tsuna. Not being a threat to the famiglia.
"If you can't even stop it when it needs to be stopped," Reborn uttered with a touch of sternness now, "Tsuna is in grave danger. By keeping you in the famiglia, he may as well hand you the sword that you're going to use to kill him." He started to walk away. "So if you have any doubt in your mind that you're ever going to control this, it's best to let Tsuna know. The decision to keep you in the family or not is his, now."
The boy said nothing. He did not try to follow Reborn or ask what he was supposed to do. He already knew.
Reborn watches the tenth boss of the Vongola clan clinging to the front of his friend's shirt like it's a lifeline - not speaking, fixing his gaze on a spot just behind his friend, a spot that leads into the wide open space that contains his thoughts.
He watches the boy release the cloth and step back with a shove.
Reborn spares a small sigh for his ward.
Tsuna. Make the smart move. You are going to lead the Vongola.
You are not allowed to think none of them can betray you.
Especially the one you trust the most.
A hurt look crosses Yamamoto's face. Then it's gone, and the sad smile from long ago fixes itself in place. He watches Tsuna and waits, expecting the other boy to turn away.
But instead.
Instead.
Tsuna steps forward and locks the taller boy in a tight embrace.
Too surprised to move, Yamamoto just stands there and lets himself be hugged. This wasn't exactly foreseeable, he thinks. Good thing he was able to hit the showers before this talk...
"You," Tsuna says without letting go, "are forever banned from saying you will ever be a danger to me or to the family."
"What - I mean - why?"
"Because it's pissing me off, that's why!"
Gently, Yamamoto disentangles himself from his friend - and thankfully, it is accomplished swiftly and without awkwardness.
"We've been through so much," Tsuna tells him. "I can't believe you're telling me I should be afraid of you because you might hurt me. Do you really think that's ever going to happen??"
At a loss for words, he stammers, "Tsuna, I..."
"You're going to master it." There is more than certainty here - there is absolute belief. Even Reborn knows it for what it is. "I know you are. And even if you have a hard time doing it -" He claps his hands on Yamamoto's shoulders. "- I'll watch out for you. Okay?"
It's funny, Yamamoto thinks, how Tsuna can be shorter than himself, and yet seem that much - bigger. How the hands on his shoulders feel so warm and comforting. Not even his own father's hands ever felt like that. Not for the first time, he wonders: Is this what it feels like to be part of a famiglia?
It occurs to him just then that if he ever does kill Tsuna while in a "trance state"... should it ever happen... he would never recover. He would be emotionless forever. There would be no way to live with the thought of what he had done, even if Reborn could find him and restore his senses.
So he has to get past this. He has to.
He feels too much, he reminds himself. And he has to work harder at not doing that. He doesn't want to cause too much trouble for Tsuna. But for now, just for a second - maybe it's all right.
"Okay," he answers. And this time, he truly smiles.
Reborn mirrors that smile, in some way glad that it still exists to be mirrored.
Stupid, suicidal Tsuna.
Quietly he leaves the scene. He still has to re-map Yamamoto's training program to accommodate the developments made in his recent efforts to control the "trance state."
He acknowledges that he will need to be creative about this, since Yamamoto has proven that the standard training techniques don't really work. And if you ask Reborn, only someone who has mastered the "trance state" too would even have the vaguest idea how to train someone who would potentially be so much better at it.
(end)
-------------------------------------------
in my head, this fic very rapidly degenerates into 8027 H.
and if this happened, reborn would be "...wtf o_o"
or else
"...FINALLY ^o^"