Notes: This is an unofficial sequel to red sky, meaning the official sequel - should I ever write it - definitely won't be like/about this. Nonetheless, hope you enjoy the unadulterated fluff.

He wakes suddenly, takes in the too bright lights and too strong smell of what can only be a hospital room, and coughs a deep, bone rattling cough after sucking in too much air all at once. He reaches for his flames instinctively, a habit formed when he was ripped away from everything he'd ever known and reborn in an impossible world with a stolen body and a new name. They curl around him easily, warm and comforting, but he still feels uneasy. And then he realizes: his chakra isn't there.

Frantically, he searches around in his core, looking for the familiar swirling blue energy that he'd come to know as intimately as his Rain Flames, but there's no trace of it. Takeshi is entirely without chakra with none of the alarming side effects. He clutches at his neck, having a sudden surge of fear that the Other chakra will overtake his coils now that they're empty of his own, but the usual faint presence always at the edge of his senses and ready to strike is strangely absent.

Takeshi clamps down on his rising panic, too old and battle-hardened to allow himself to succumb to fear. He felt a twinge of pain from his abdomen when he'd moved, so he lifts his shirt and scrutinizes the injury he doesn't remember receiving. Bandages are wound tightly around it, and Takeshi isn't foolish enough to undue them. His entire upper body is covered, from his fingers to just below his chin, and he wonders who could have wounded him so grievously. He feels an ache in his muscles that lets him know he's been idle for at least a few days, and his memory loss - if that is indeed what it is - is either an indication of his condition or someone's tampering. Regardless, Takeshi needs answers.

He's debating whether he should wait for someone to arrive and give him those answers or throw caution to the wind and track them down himself when the decision is taken out of his hands. The door opens to reveal an impossibly familiar face, and Takeshi feels his world tilt precariously on its axis.

"Tsuna?" The name falls from his lips without his consent, and the man regards him with fondness and relief.

"Takeshi," He responds just as softly, feelings of warmth and safety and home emanating from him in waves. "I'm glad you're awake."

Takeshi scarcely dares to breathe, can't bring himself to look away from his first and best friend lest he dissipate into nothingness, a figment of his imagination and worlds away.

Tsuna immediately senses something is wrong, quick on the uptake as always, and brown melts into beautiful orange as he regards Takeshi with concern. "You think you're dreaming," Tsuna surmises after a moment. "You don't believe I'm real."

Takeshi pastes on a smile, and it's all wrong, shaky and foreign on his face for all that he's always wearing one. He drops it, settles for a frown. "Spot on as usual, boss," he manages wryly.

"Why?" Tsuna asks, calm and reliable, every bit the leader of the strongest famiglia in the world and more than that, a worried friend.

"Maa, it's kind of a long story," he hedges - because he's afraid the second he admits his own death, this dream will end, and Takeshi will be alone, abandoned again even though it was he who left them.

Tsuna scrutinizes him for an eternity, but Takeshi meets his gaze, unwavering. "I'll have Shamal take a look at you," Tsuna concedes, and Takeshi knows he won't press any further. The orange bleeds back into brown, and he sighs, exasperated. "The others have been worried about you. I'll go let them know you're awake and try to keep them out of here until Shamal gives the okay."

Tsuna shares a dry look with him, both of them well aware that keeping their friends out of Takeshi's room now that he's awake after what was apparently a concerning amount of time would take nothing less than a miracle, and then he leaves Takeshi alone with his thoughts.

His stomach is in knots, twisting with apprehension and hesitant, desperate hope. Takeshi has a life and friends and family as Sasuke Uchiha, is happy and content with it, everything he's worked so hard to build and fight for and protect. And yet he's always felt a hole in his heart, an empty space that had once been filled with nine people who meant the world to him, and not even his brother, who had given absolutely everything and more to keep him safe, had been able to completely fill that gaping void.

If it's true, if Takeshi has somehow done the impossible once more, has been given a third chance to live and laugh and love among his precious people... He grips the blankets pooling around his waist tightly and focuses on his breathing.

Shamal is a sight for sore eyes, more proof that Takeshi isn't hallucinating, maybe, or else a really vivid illusion. He looks Takeshi over with less grumbling than usual, likely because - as he soon finds out - Takeshi had been clinging to life by only a thread, and it had been will power more than anything else that had kept him alive in the end.

"You're really lucky, kid," Shamal tells him seriously.

Takeshi remembers that thread snapping, remembers the blood and the pain and the creeping unconsciousness that he'd thought he'd never wake up from, remembers his death and subsequent return to life - and says nothing.

The doctor assassin tucks the clipboard with Takeshi's medical information on it into the crook of his arm and languidly heads for the door. He stops just before opening it. "You are alive," he says firmly. "This is no illusion." With that, he steps outside, and the click of the door is almost obscenely loud in the ensuing silence.

Takeshi stares unseeingly at his hands and tries so very hard to believe those words.

His next visitor is - perhaps not so surprisingly - Lambo. The youngest Guardian eases the door open almost timidly and peeks at Takeshi from the crack. Upon seeing that he's indeed awake, Lambo charges toward him and latches onto him in a desperate embrace, already crying openly in relief.

"Take-nii," he sobs, and Takeshi pulls him onto the bed and into his lap, the kid still small enough at eight years old that he can sit there comfortably.

Takeshi makes meaningless soothing noises, running one hand through Lambo's unruly hair and the other curling protectively around his back. "I'm okay, Lambo. I'm okay."

"But- but," Lambo manages through the snot and tears. "In- in the future, you- you were- weren't there, and I couldn't tell anybody, and I was so- so scared, Take-nii!" He clutches even tighter at that, scoots closer, and Takeshi lets him, grateful for the grounding contact.

"It's okay," he repeats, just as firm as Shamal's words to him, now that he actually believes them. "I'm here, aren't I? I'm right here." Lambo pulls back a little to look up at him, and Takeshi smiles, his first genuine one since his world was flipped upside down a second time. "Maa, we changed that other future, didn't we? That was a world where stuff happened to the other Lambo and me, but it didn't to us, right?" Lambo nods uncertainly, snot dripping down his nose. "Well, that other Takeshi may be gone, but I'm not going anywhere, okay?"

Lambo sniffles and uses his cow-patterned sleeve to wipe at his face. "You mean it?"

"I mean it."

"You promise?" Lambo demands, a little more fiercely.

Takeshi holds up his pinky, and Lambo immediately hooks his own around it. "I promise."

Soon after, Lambo falls asleep, still wrapped around him, and the sight of it makes his heart flood with warmth and wonder and love. Takeshi feels a piece of himself settle, a slot sliding into place, and he is happy.

He must doze off at some point, lulled into slumber by the peaceful atmosphere and Lambo's calming warmth at his side - because he finds himself waking up again, slowly this time, becoming aware of his situation in bits and pieces.

There's no longer a weight on his chest, and Takeshi's heart leaps into his throat - because what if it had been a dream, or an illusion, and he'll be alone in his bedroom in Konoha when he opens his eyes-

"You awake, baseball idiot?" The gruff voice breaks through his musings like a sledge hammer, and Takeshi sits up, eyes flying open and wildly searching the room until they land upon the forever scowling face that voice belongs to.

"Hayato?" He murmurs, and it's out before he can register it, a perfect replay of his reaction to Tsuna hours or maybe even days ago.

Hayato grunts, regarding him with wariness and deeply buried relief. "Tsuna said you were out of it," he says, like it's a confirmation of his own findings, and Takeshi smiles brightly at him, laughs.

"Maa, I was just a little confused. I'm okay now," he offers cheerfully. "No need to worry about me."

Predictably, Hayato puffs up in indignation and sputters, "Idiot! Who'd be worried about you?! I just don't want the Tenth to be sad!"

It's an old argument, a familiar one, and Hayato must be indulging him now, sensing his need for normality - which might as well be foreign to him after an entirely different lifetime of interactions with different people who are just as precious to him, but it's wholly welcome now.

Takeshi laughs, and Hayato scolds, and another block falls into place.

Ryohei kicks the door down when he drops by with Kyoko, eliciting lots of grumbling from Shamal later, but when it happens, Takeshi laughs in pleasant surprise.

"Yo, Takeshi! I'm extremely glad you're awake!" He bellows, wrapping Takeshi in a crushing hug. Upon releasing him, Ryohei pats his back with a little too much force, but he finds he doesn't really mind. "I had no doubt you'd pull through!"

Kyoko smiles sweetly at him after pulling him into a quick hug of her own. "It's so good to see that you're recovering, Takeshi-kun. We were all really worried about you."

Takeshi grins sheepishly. "Maa, sorry about that."

"You can make it up to me by joining my extreme training!" Ryohei chimes in excitedly, and he and Kyoko share a fond glance as Takeshi laughs. Heedless, Ryohei goes on, "I'll see you in the gym as soon as you're cleared to train."

Helpless to deny the man who's the closest thing to an older brother he's ever had in this life after being without him for so long, Takeshi agrees, and the Sasagawa siblings eventually depart with as much exuberance as when they'd arrived. Another missing piece returns.

Chrome slips into his room late that night, and he hugs her shaking frame much the same as he'd held Lambo. She doesn't cry, as her tears have long since dried up, but the tremble in her voice and her reluctance to leave are indicative enough.

"I'm okay," he reassures her with a gentle smile, and she believes him. She doesn't move from her chair, though, and he suspects she stays there long after Takeshi falls asleep. The room is empty in the morning, but she has already reclaimed her place in his heart. She's never too far from him, not really.

Kyoya strides into the room a little after lunch, quietly furious, and Takeshi has barely enough time to dodge the sudden strike at his jugular.

The battle lasts only an hour, cut short once Takeshi collapses to one knee, blood soaking through his bandages and breathing heavily, but it's intense and fast-paced. Takeshi is stronger now with Sasuke Uchiha's experience under his belt, and Kyoya has always been a force to be reckoned with. Wordlessly, Kyoya helps him back to his private room - the fight having spilled into the larger hallway - and then he strides out of the room with little fanfare.

"Thanks!" Takeshi calls out after him, smiling so hard his face hurts or maybe it's from the black eye, and there's another part of him slotting into place.

Mukuro appears without warning, perched against the wall near the window and thus bathed in moonlight, and Takeshi beams at him, utterly pleased.

They don't speak to one another, and like his other half, Mukuro remains at Takeshi's side until the sun peeks through the blinds. Takeshi has never felt more loved.

Haru visits him with Fuuta and I-Pin, and later, Bianchi comes to see him, leaving a home made pie behind as a gift. Tsuna's mom brings him her own delicious food, and she's kind enough to lend him her cell phone, which he uses to call his father. His dad hadn't been told about Takeshi's near-death experience, and Takeshi doesn't tell him now, merely relishes his jovial voice and laugh and funny stories about the shop that he shares at Takeshi's request. Nana-san hugs him when he hangs up, and it's only then that he realizes he's been crying.

He doesn't see Reborn until he's released from Shamal's care. The Hitman lays a hand on his shoulder that lingers a little too long, and then it's back to thinly veiled taunts mixed with compliments.

Takeshi takes it as the concession of worry it is, and finally that gaping, empty hole is overflowing with fondness and exasperation and amusement and desperation and love and love and love.

End Notes: Remember to brush your teeth on the way out. The next chapter of red sky will be up soon.