Decay (Of What the Gods Know)

Summary: There's a man hanging from the chandelier, candle grease dripping onto his dress coat.

This was written for the lovely MetronomeIHear!

Disclaimer: I don't own Katekyo Hitman Reborn

The beautiful poem at the end is by Icarvus on Tumblr! Sadly, ff net's formatting doesn't allow for me to link back to the original, but you should be able to find them easily by the name! I'm very grateful to them for giving me permission to quote it!

Tsuna runs his fingers along the line of the (body) doll's cheek. "So pretty," he muses softly. "You would look even better in red I think." (like the blood you wore in battle, splattered along your clothes, woven from pure hatred) He turns away from the table it lay on with a flourish and throws the closet open. Where was that little satin number? The perfect red dress.

He did so love his Kyoya, after all.

It's time for dinner.

Tsuna's mama was a witch. A very fine one, indeed. She drew lines of power across his stomach, drew sigils of love around his throat, carved beauty into his bones and breathed life into his stone. A statue come to life.

(Do you want to know about the child who was born to the Amazons? For there were only two, and both were made of clay. The Gods blessed it, gifting them with powers each. Godkillers- the last gods created.

The first was a daughter, all as it should, made of poison and acid, of dripping flowers withering in her leave. They called her Persephone, as she fed off decay, the picture of death in life.

The second was a son, but no man may dwell among the Amazons, not even if he were a god. The Queen took him from his mother's arms and put him in a boat where the child cried so pitifully the sea reached for him. Love me, love me, the loveliest creature on earth he was.

It was no wonder Nana Tidechild dove after him- she would bear anything for the son she formed from the ground herself. It deserved the chance to take to the sky.).

It is not all his mama gives him. She teaches him how to be polite. How to be terribly rude. How to be a man, how to be a woman, how to be nothing and everything at once.

''All you are,'' she whispered in his ear, ''Is what you decide to be, my darling. Ask me not to give you gifts, ask me to teach you how to have gifts, and you will have the world.''

Tsuna is not a fool, so he listens.

His clay-sister sits across the table. Her pink hair falls across her shoulder- it's shorter than his, at the time. Ruby red liquid glistens in her glass, crystal teardrops catching the low light. Candles all around them, rich velvet drapes covering the windows. Dolls lined up on the fireplace mantle, the fire long smothered.

''How have you been?''

''Excellent. Black suits me.'' Tsuna smoothes the widow's veil down over his hair.

''Oh, how nice to hear! I like what you did with the place, by the way.''

Tsuna smiles.

''Thank you, Bianchi.''

There's a man hanging from the chandelier, candle grease dripping onto his dress coat.

Once upon a time, the Greek goddesses put all the women murdered by men on an island. The amount of them was so large that it looked like a continent, and their Queen, Lavina, was the most peaceful of all.

Her daughter, however, wasn't. She left.

''I believe I have something of yours.''

Bianchi scoffed. ''Please, I prefer heels, darling brother!''

''But winged sandals are so useful when you're getting creative! Honestly, sister, giving away your uncle's present, Hermes won't be pleased!''

''…What did your husband do?''

Tsuna wrinkled his nose. ''He saw my rendezvous with Kyoya in the yard. I wasn't about to let that go down.''

''Why not just use him as a toothpick?''

''And get that from between Kyoya's teeth? Please! I know how to take care of my Hound, thank you very much!''

''If you say so, Aphrodite.''

Tsuna is not a fool, he knows how to accept teachings. Bianchi's path simple and yet complex. The way of falling- Falling in love, falling from grace, falling into Fall after summer, falling to your death. From an extraordinary height, by preference. It's her trademark, just like the elegant poisons that boil her partners' brains out. Petals crushed of flowers in full bloom, rot from roses, snakes' venom, for snakes venture to warmer pastures, so they always follow Spring.

Persephone is her name, and she is Death to man.

(Tongues lolling, drool dripping, eyes rolling up as the poison makes its way to their hearts. Bloated bodies floating in fountains, heads on pikes on the docks. Sirens singing them down the waves, sailors willingly jumping overboard. There is no escape, not when it comes-

Comes down, down, down to it)

Tsuna wants to try it out, and her little present gives him the perfect opportunity.

''Bermuda, sweetheart, won't you come with me?''

It's like taking candy from a baby. Slip on the sandals, grab the man, and soar. Higher and higher, a thousand miles above the city, lights twinkling beneath them, the moon full above. Clouds whirl around them like smoke, wetting his skin, his hair, his everything- even his victim.

Bermuda struggles and Tsuna lets him, gleefully watching as- he slips, friction wavering, falls and falls and falls and-

Splat.

Another doll to add to his collection.

(No more young boys will fall victim to this man)

The siblings like to get creative.

Once upon a time, there were two children. They were the offspring of the murdered, the ones killed in cold blood. The ones that cried and raged, hid away and loved. The Amazons and Gods both. It was all kept contained, until one day, a woman left, for she had committed a sin that could not be forgiven. Birthing a male child.

Bianchi watched her go- the child, the sin, the brother of earth- cradled in the crook of her arms.

There was a time when she wondered whether her mother had been right. Whether that child was a sin because he was a man.

She wondered. She wondered. She wondered and wished to know and went to the world she did not know. The world outside the sphere. The world outside the paradise. The world outside the island especially made for them.

She strode out, Amazon pride. Tall and wide, and proud and bright, so she stalked to Rome. Pounding the earth with her very feet, looking for the creature called Man.

She found it. It was everywhere.

Women were familiar, yet not. Heels were cumbersome inventions. So were dresses so tight it made your knives cut into your skin when you slipped them into the pockets- if they had those, that was. (…Heels crushed fingers easily. The gave height, inspired fear. Corsets pushed breasts so tight together that the vial of acid between them would never be found until it was too late).

Men, she had not known before. The Amazonian island was void of the bearded, the hatred great for them- but they were like women and yet not. Men were sweet, sweet and horrible. Came in all varieties- big and small, wide and thin, double-lidded or single-lid, what did it matter if they spoke so daring? What did it matter if they said something she did not like?

Everything mattered- for Romeo was no Romeo unless death was involved, and Bianchi was no Juliet. Romeo Bovino's parents had chosen an unfortunate name, and Romeo himself had made unfortunate choices. (Suicide! The people said when they found his body. One more rapist dead whispered the milkmaids. Victory! Crowed Bianchi, high up in the tree).

It tasted like more- so much more, that even Death came to court her. ''Marriage is not my thing, Hades. Nor is romance, really. I was made from clay- I leave the fertile, the tongue-tangling, the love-making, to my brother. Give me stone hard. Give me scorching hot. I have been baked, I am clay no more.''

Hades grinned, souls wailing in his mantle as he spread his arms. ''Call me Reborn, Persephone. I think you'll enjoy the fires of Hell.''

''Sounds like the place to be, my friend.''

Her arm through his, she meets the furies. Lovely girls, really. Her kind of people.

Before all of this, before the sun rose quite so sadly, right after Bianchi's first murder, she'd found him. Crouched over a corpse, tears dripping off his face, a snarling Hound bowed over them, as if to protect.

He had raised his head and she knew this was who she had been searching for. Clay-brother, earthen-kin. Sea-born Sky-child. Aphrodite. Tsuna. The only other amazon child ever made.

''It was his stepmother. He just- He wanted to belong.''

Pushing the Hound aside, the man easily going, moving around the boy as if he was the only thing that mattered. Drawing closer, Bianchi gasps.

A child. It's a child, fingers trampled onto the floor. Stomach ripped open. Small face still scrunched up in pain, silver hair dirtied by the mud.

No- it is earth. He is not dirtied. It is perhaps, trying to clean this boy of all it's earthly troubles.

It's a boy.

(Men are not inherently evil. Neither are women. Humankind, in general, is not. All things are good- or have the potential to be, just as they have potential to do evil. There is no such thing as being born a sin- to live is never a sin.

To kill is one.

The boy's name is Hayato, and he was killed by a woman, and Bianchi cannot reach further than that- it is when the rage overtakes her.

She is Persephone, Spring, the one who blooms on top of the bones of seasons long gone. Who flourishes because of death.

…Mankind is not evil, but Bianchi cannot bring herself to care.

A child was killed)

Dear mother,

Mankind murders. A child called Hayato perished in my brother's arms.

The letter lies crumpled between Lavina's sheets as the warhorn calls. Her mortal son (so small in her arms, when she still lived. So small, behind the piano. So small, too small to remember her. Too small to miss a woman who simply came to teach him how to play. Too small- too small, Lavina was, to fight to keep him. Hayato- Hayato- oh, she loved him so.

He's dead.

His stepmother killed him).

Bianchi wants to fight and Lavina lets her.

''Why? Kyoya, please, why do I keep doing this?'' Staring down at the body before him, caressing the corpses face, fingers gliding over lips as if he can still feel the life slipping through his fingertips. The light leaving red eyes as he looked into them.

Too late to beg.

Too late to ask for forgiveness.

Too late to save Enma from himself.

''Because you hate.''

Staring down at eyes bugging out, compasses dulled. Wild red hair curled around his face at last- Enma's beauty was in his expressions always. Broad shoulders painted with bruises- the largest of them all on his neck.

Shaped the same as the hands Tsuna hides his face in. ''I was asleep, Kyoya.'' Breath speeding up. Voice high, high, high as the heights he's let his victims fall from. Knives twisting, skies falling, torn apart like Ouranus was by his own children. Hacked into pieces, like the ones Nana had made him from. Aphrodite is choking on her own habits, love like the legends the sacrifices falling down.

Teacups shattering, faces painted, hearts breaking as prophecied.

Another doll to add to his collection and Tsuna hates himself.

He calls Enma's doll Enyo, with his wild red hair. A doll, naked, dressed only his wild lust for vengeance, his compass eyes giving away the location of those who needed to be torn down.

(The more Tsuna loved them, the more powerful the doll)

This is the thing about Aphrodite- her marries and marries and marries, and… Kills his husbands and wives. Significant others do not survive once he slips a ring onto their finger- and his one living love forever remains an affair.

Ares, his Hound, the Dog of War. Kyoya, his lovely, painted in blood.

They call him a Black Widow, and isn't that true? Love is everywhere- marriage is such an entertaining way to kill. Tsuna likes the betrayed faces just before he hangs them. (He hates the ones he did love. He hates the hands he cannot stop from strangling. He hates himself, he hates everything, but he loves it as well. There is beauty carved into his bones, and he knows it is everywhere. The world is too beautiful not to love, and lines of power cannot stop him, but love he can).

He loves War, is entangled with him the way fishes are with water. Starved for him, the same way War always hungers for Love.

From time to time he meets his sister, asks her about her latest trail of bodies, and laughs as she drinks the blood of her enemies in crystalline glasses meant for wine.

Dinner is delicious that night. Nothing tastes better than the crushing defeat of your enemies, after all. From their place on the fireplace mantle, the Dolls of Decay watch War and Love dine. (Blood still fresh, the insects moving in, Gods know everything about decay).

- instead the gods became what they feared most (l.e.h)