I promise you all that ENOIS is on the way, (will be uploaded after this in fact) I promise. I'm sorry for those waiting for it….really I am.

Beta'd by mercyn~

Afterlife.

Summary: Sometimes, no matter your belief and the promise you make you are selfish. You are selfish in the most selfless way possible; cast yourself into the shadows, boss, for your friends do not deserve their sentence.

Tsuna stood at the podium with his head held high and his shoulders straight. His eyes were blazing in a bright orange that showed his resolve and power, but they were ever so heavy with something sad and despairing; still resolved, but accepting of whatever sentence he was about to be given.

The podium, so black and dark stood before him, not four paces away. It looked like any other, plain and with a kind of finality to it. Silver framework outlined the box, and a crest like none he had seen before, yet a primal instinct in Tsuna had him fear and respect that crest.

There was the rushing of power in the room suddenly, and Tsuna noticed the shadows at the top of the podium move, he heard the rustle of papers before the familiar sound of a chair being tucked under a desk. Then Tsuna caught a glimpse of bright, intelligent green and a deep frown, accompanied by furrowed eyebrows.

"Please, release this man's hands; he isn't like our usual guests." the voice boomed out, and though Tsuna could hear the impossible authority there he recognised the softness to it, the man who spoke was a stern leader who knew when his subordinates needed love and not discipline. Much like himself, Tsuna realised.

All of a sudden Tsuna's wrists, which had beforehand been bound behind his back uncomfortably, were released and he was able to rub at the tender skin.

"Thank you sir." Tsuna's voice carried oddly in the vacant room, it was much like the man addressing him, authoritative in that soft way.

A couch was placed against Tsuna's knees though he couldn't see it in the murky gloom of the room, and he sat straight and true, looking up into the face of his judge and jury with eyes still blazing with the life flames in Tsuna's chest.

The man was intimidating and grand. He was all sharp corners and panels of muscle. Older in the face and body, with a tightly-cropped scalp of hair and a long, messy beard, both of which were an array of salt-and-pepper. His eyes were deep set, lined with wrinkles and laughter-lines, making his stare more intimidating that even Kyouya's. However, the soft green the lit his irises softened the glare, and Tsuna was comfortable with the suffocating aura he gave off.

"Sawada Tsunayoshi, tenth boss of the Vongola famiglia; occasionally know as Neo Vongola Primo. Am I correct?" he asked briskly, voice booking across the hall.

"You are correct, sir." Tsuna answered just as briskly.

"You and your 'guardians' all died in a mass explosion, do you remember?" the salt-and-pepper man asked only because a majority of the time such a traumatic death were not remembered by the soul; a protection mechanism carried over from the conscious brain.

Three of the young man's own 'guardians' had forgotten all the details of their death.

When Tsunayoshi paled beneath his gaze the man was assured that the boy didn't needed reminding; the soft, sickly sounding, "Yes, I remember sir." simply reassured that and the man continued with only a nod.

"As you know, you are the last to be judged; as per tradition of these things." Boredom. That was the feeling Tsuna got from the man as he spoke; he had done this many a time, like paperwork Tsuna would have joked had the mood not been so severe.

"Ah, I know." Tsuna sighed lightly, not happy about that tradition.

"What are your beliefs of the afterlife, Tsunayoshi Sawada? Your friends all differed quite significantly." The gleaming man almost laughed, eased by the presence of this newest convict's soul. Tsuna thought it an odd question, given the place where they sat. Wasn't sitting before the king of paradise, awaiting judgement –hell, heaven, purgatory, or rebirth –proof enough that all along they had been wrong in their beliefs; while knowing the whole truth all along?

"I don't know that I have a belief." Tsuna hummed, not eased but at least able to breathe now that the speaking had begun. "I do not believe any of us are evil; not even my most sadistic famiglia member. We did not want this life; I reckon that counts for something."

"Indeed." The man hummed, he shuffled some papers around, another bored look crossing his planar face. His dark green eyes looked at Tsuna, watching with a mild curiosity as the man watched him with intense, orange eyes.

"You have been pardoned of your 'sins'." He spoke suddenly, a smile on his lips; as if happy with his own decision. "You will be led to heaven from here, young man. You are clean of sin and you are a worthy soul. It upsets me to know that you lived such a short life; you could have done wonders."

Tsuna smiled sadly, he knew he lived a short life –dying before his twenty-ninth birthday, his older guardians before their thirtieth –but he had done all he could in that time and he had no regrets, which is why he was not still living on in a stupor of a dying will induced coma. "And my guardians?" he was sure they had the same fate, after all if he could be granted access through the heavenly gates his guardians would too; he was the tainted and wicked one.

"They will be sent to the second level of hell to serve their millennia of repentance."

Suddenly the room dropped to a near freezing chill as that punishment loomed.

"T-that's impossible; how can I, the boss be granted pardon! Surely the boss is the one to deserve punishment! I ordered every slaugh-"

"It's because you are the boss, Tsunayoshi. Your subordinates' duty is to take the blame for you, to take the punishment while you stay perched in your office signing more death certificates. Your pawns are for your sacrifice after all." The man's voice was smug, and it carried like thunder against Tsuna's chest.

The young, brunet man rocketed out of his seat upon hearing his judge's disgusting words, and even when chains lashed out to try to pin him back in place he strained. He realised, as whispers and screams echoed from the chains that they were made of all his sins; all the sins of his famiglia. Fitting, Tsuna mused in the back of his mind, that his shackles should be made of the bones he had made, and had caused his guardians to make. Even when bruises and blood seeped into his soul's body from the strain against his fetters Tsuna did not yield. Would not yield.

"They are not subordinates, and that was never their duty." He seethed at the man spitting every word as if it were poison on his tongue, flashing orange blasted from Tsuna's core in exactly the way the judge had expected. "Their sins are mine, and mine will never be theirs." Tsuna continued, blood dropping from behind his lips as his sin chains bruised his soul.

"Will you take them then?" the judge asked, all humour gone from his voice and action, "If you are so adamant and resolved will you take their punishment for them and allow them all to travel to paradise?"

Tsuna startled, aware all of a sudden of the world on his shoulders again. "They'll go to heaven, all of them?" He almost screamed, straining against the shackles and chains of darkness and sin that lashed him.

The man but nodded, shocked at the man's sudden desperation; shocked but not surprised. He knew as soon as Tsuna had stepped into his court that this man would be different than all the others. He was orange so bright and blazing that it threatened to bleach away the darkness of the sins he wore like damned scars.

"Yes, they will. But you will never join them. For them to travel to their heaven an exchange must be made; someone must pay for their sins and the suffering they have caused."

Tsuna was nodding even before the man made his reasonable offering, "I'll do it. I'll take their sin; just promise me they won't be separated. Promise me they'll all remain together and go where they deserve!" Tsuna almost screamed, his eyes burning with tears of so many emotions.

The man startled as he watched the boy struggle, the places where the chains touched skin and broke blood were beginning to bleach to white from black, and the judge and jury frowned. He would try one more time, he thought, to change this saint's decision; heaven needed angels like this soul to help protect the innocent.

"Are you sure, Tsunayoshi?" The man's tone turned sombre, and Tsuna caught it immediately, frowning at the change. He was expecting retaliation and punishment for his impudence in the presence of such a noble man. "Your soul is so clean; had you been older –amassed more years and karma on your shoulders –you could have saved them all with no suffering on your part; it's a waste of your perfect soul."

Tsuna smiled then, a bright smile that caused the entire judgement room to light up in an array of warm orange, the murk was banished to the furthest edges and light shone into the room; returning it to how it looked when children and the pure were brought in and lead to their heaven… a rare occurrence for such a trial. "I am surer about this than anything, sir. My friends are what make me so 'clean' without them there would be no purpose to me; I will endure everything knowing they are finally happy." He bowed his head and tears fell onto the marble floor made of such a cocktail of emotion that the judge could not tell whether Tsunayoshi was distraught or elated. "Finally free."

The man looked contemplative, sadness in his eyes as if he recognised this path that Tsunayoshi was taking. He nodded though, and gestured to the guards all around Tsuna to take him to his prison; the eternal damnation of the lowest level of hell.

Eternal damnation equivalent of seven murder's souls; for as the man had said, Tsuna's soul was not included.

Tsuna felt, as he was washed over with a painfully dark and suffocating weight, that he was probably betraying not only his guardians, but himself with his decision. He had promised them that, heaven hell or purgatory, if they were together it would be fine and they would make it work. Like they always did no matter their joy or turmoil

But it was just too painful to imagine his friends suffering in even the mildest levels of Hell while he was allowed the peace he had dreamed of. Especially when, as far Takeshi and Ryohei were convinced, their group were good people. They saved lives and they killed with so much remorse that it permeated the walls of their mansion. They did not deserve to suffer. Especially not Tsuna's friends, when he had dragged them into the mafia.

It hurts so much that Tsuna was willing to cast himself into the shadows, for his friends did not deserve their sentence.

He was selfish in the most selfless way and he knew it. He knew if they ever got to meet again that he would be punched and beaten before his friends cried and clung to him; in thanks and reprimand. But Tsuna was selfish enough to not care, to force his friends' fate at his own cost; he loved them too much to care about their feelings on the matter.

"What a waste."

Tsuna wanted to reprimand his judge for such a comment; Tsuna's soul was not worth such a comment. "It's not a waste if they are happy."

With that Tsuna was consumed in a darkness he would never escape from, but still he smiled and his eyes still blazed with that drowning orange, a reflection of the tranquillity of his soul as the pain and suffering descended.

I have no idea where this came from…I was reading ChirpChirp1827's drabble fic Like a Boss chapter 12 and this suddenly smacked me in the face. But meh, you have to ride the muse when it hits you.

Thanks for reading,

Bleach-ed-Na-tsu :3