There was no sound save for a gentle drip, drip, drip as if someone hadn't closed the faucet all the way. The culprit, Tsuna knew, would most likely be Lambo; the boy was always leaving the refrigerator door open and the showerhead leaking. Except… that's right. Lambo wasn't here anymore. Or, more correctly, Tsuna wasn't where Lambo was anymore.
Tsuna knew that he was not yet awake, for when he opened his eyes, there was only light as far as he could see. No colors presented themselves to his eyes; or rather, maybe it would be better said that all colors were shining down on him, combining to make the white light that embraced him softly.
He felt rather odd just standing in the middle of whiteness, so he tried sitting down. To his surprise, found that the white had formed a nice ledge for him so that he could rest his legs. He contented himself with the feeling of being conscious but not really quite alive, listening to the drip, drip, drip until a different sound brushed aside the peace.
"Have you enjoyed your sleep?"
"It was certainly refreshing," Tsuna answered without skipping a beat, allowing a soft chuckle to escape his lips. "How long has it been?"
"Time doesn't matter, not here."
A shadow suddenly broke the white light, resembling a leg that had just popped through a door. Tsuna smiled and held his hands out.
"So it's been a while, Tsuna."
"It has been, hasn't it?"
And Reborn stepped through the door of white in the sea of white to join Tsuna where he sat. They remained in that state for a while, looking at the bands of yellow rippling through the white void, shoulders barely brushing. Like a dream, Reborn didn't seem tangible, so Tsuna hardly dared touch him for fear that if he did, Reborn would vanish like a candle's flame.
Tsuna waited before he spoke, wanting to be ready to talk. And more than anything, he wanted to wait until Reborn was ready to converse. He had a feeling that Reborn himself was quite, quite tired, as if he'd just returned from a long trip that had lasted his entire life.
"So it's finally over."
"Yes. You did well. Or, should I say, your past self did well. Very well."
"It feels weird to hear you praising me like that."
"Then just think of it as me talking about another person."
"That's still weird."
"Was I so terrible a person?"
"Yes."
They laughed together and then relapsed into silence again.
"So I'll take it that the plan succeeded?"
Reborn shrugged. "I wouldn't be here otherwise. You wouldn't be here, either."
"Right. And… everyone else? Where are they now?"
"Waiting."
"For?"
Reborn sighed and pulled his fedora low over his face. He jumped off the sedge and onto nothing, turning to Tsuna as if waiting for him to follow suit. Tsuna joined Reborn, and together, they began to stroll down the white sea.
"For your decision."
"I always hate making those," Tsuna said airily. "I always feel like I might be making the wrong one."
"I know. But in this particular case, I don't think you can make the wrong decision."
"Oh?"
Reborn shrugged again and slipped his hands into his pockets. "There's no right or wrong decision for anybody. It's just something you'll decide—if you pick one option, it will be so, and no one will know that you ever made the choice, not even yourself, not even me."
Tsuna stopped. Reborn didn't wait until Tsuna called out to him.
"What about the alternative?"
"You and I will know, but no one else will, lest you determine it to be better to inform them."
Confused, Tsuna blinked. As he thought about what Reborn had just told him, a hole opened up underneath him, like transparent glass, revealing a bird's-eye view of what seemed to be a bustling city.
"What's that?"
"A glimpse of the present. Or the past. Or the future. Here, it's impossible to tell which of the three it is."
"Where is this? Er—what is this place?"
"There's no name for it, really," Reborn said. His dark eyes were turned away from Tsuna—Tsuna realized that not once had Reborn looked at him. He wondered why—but supposed that Reborn had his reasons.
"You can call it the End of Time, or the Beginning of Time, or the Middle of Time, or anything you please really, because after you leave, it will become Nothing again."
"That's… rather lonely, isn't it?"
"I suppose. Regardless, you can just consider this place to be a loophole in Time itself. Now that we are here, we can waste an eternity away or even talk for a negative amount of hours. It's a special place. Very lonely. It likes to keep people here because it hardly ever gets any visitors."
"You speak as if it's a living entity."
"You speak to me as if I'm alive."
Tsuna blinked. "You're not?"
Reborn shrugged. "Not here. And maybe not even anywhere. It's up to you, really."
Reborn turned away and began to walk. Tsuna's eyebrows knitted together in consternation.
"What do you mean it's up to me?"
"I'm saying that that's part of the choice you'll have to make."
"What kind of choice is that?"
Reborn stopped and faced Tsuna. But even now, his gaze was not meeting Tsuna's, rather a point just below his eyes. Frustrated, Tsuna wanted to reach out and grab Reborn's shoulders, but again that fear—that fear that Reborn would fade if touched—froze him in his tracks.
"Think about it Tsuna. Think about what you've done. What we—the Arcobaleno—have done for you and your generation. We've changed the past. We've rewritten history. And now, you and I both are in this bubble outside the flow of time, waiting on you. And waiting for what, I can see you want to ask. Waiting for you to choose."
Reborn held out a hand and just in front of it opened another hole in the whiteness, revealing a building Tsuna knew very well.
"Namimori Middle School, the birthplace of your new life. From here you grew into an admirable mafia boss, inherited the Vongola, clashed with Byakuran and presumably died. That is your past, your present, and your future. We will call this timeline A."
With a whisk of Reborn's hand, the scenery transformed into a forest surrounding a black coffin that looked quite out of place. Reborn waved it to the side, and it floated a small distance away and then hovered there.
"Now this is Namimori Middle School as well," Reborn continued, snapping his fingers. "We'll call this timeline B. Now, in timeline B, you traveled to the future, fought and defeated Byakuran, returned to the present, and are continuing life as such. What happens in this future, I do not know, because it is still yet to be determined. This timeline can never be touched again; we Arcobaleno have made sure of that. In other words, this timeline is locked and cannot be altered further."
Timeline B flew to join timeline A. Timeline C, a blank patch of black, appeared between Tsuna and Reborn.
"This is timeline C. This is your blank slate. What should be here is a time without Byakuran's uprising, without the Mare Rings, without the war or deaths caused by that war. In sum, it can be said that this is a place where you will have gone from Namimori Middle straight to being an admirable boss of the Vongola without any mishaps. Here, you should not remember Byakuran; Yamamoto's father will be alive; your Family will be whole."
"Stop," Tsuna said. "Stop. I understand where this is going. This is the choice you wanted me to make, is it? Between timeline A and timeline C. You're saying that I can either live with the destruction Byakuran caused or erase every single memory of those events and bring everyone back again."
"Correct."
"And I'm guessing that timeline C is the one you were referring to when you said that no one would know that I chose it. Because if I choose timeline C, the circumstances that would have brought about that decision would never have occurred, right?"
"Correct."
"But why only this timeline? Why not the others?"
"Because this timeline was the exception. This is the timeline you used to change everything else about the past. I believe it was Shouichi himself who said it. Byakuran had taken over every other timeline except for this one. So, this was the one you chose to change future. Time has its own rules. Once you break them, you have to compensate for time paradoxes. And compensation, in this case, is either living with the consequences, or forgetting that everything ever happened. This place is the outlier; it is the aberration.
"We tried to conform this timeline to the rest. We tried to make it so that this timeline followed the new one created in the past. But no matter how we tried, it didn't work. We came back, and all the destruction was still there; the time machine was still there, the rubble, the buildings—nothing had changed. We visited other timelines, and all of those were as they should have been without Byakuran's rise to power. It was just this one. Just you. Just us."
Tsuna closed his eyes. To be accosted with such a decision so soon after he woke (was he really awake?) was nearly overwhelming.
"So… forgetting everything means…"
"Forgetting everything. Time will continue from the point before Byakuran came into existence—in other words, Byakuran will never have been born."
"What?"
"It is as I have said. Byakuran in timeline A will never be born."
"And I won't remember anything about what happened to me in this timeline?"
"None of it."
"Everyone will be alive, still, right?"
"Yes."
"Yamamoto's dad…"
"Will still be alive, yes."
"And you…"
Reborn turned away so that he was no longer looking at Tsuna. "I won't, most likely."
"What?"
He shrugged. "No big deal. I never expected to die a decent death anyways."
"What are you saying?"
"It's my curse, Tsuna, the curse put on all Arcobaleno. In the newest timeline, timeline B, you managed to defeat Checker-Face. Without Byakuran, you would never have gotten the opportunity to lift the curse on me. Or maybe the opportunity came too late. So, eradicating Byakuran's existence will simply mean… well. You understand."
Don't foist this choice on me.
"I… I can't choose."
"You must."
"I… can't do that to you."
Reborn shrugged. "You won't remember doing it to me. Because in timeline C, this entire conversation will never have happened. It's alright, Tsuna."
Tsuna clenched his eyes shut. If there was anything he had learned over the last years of being the Tenth boss of the Vongola, it was that choices were imperative. There was no skittering around the edges; no beating about the bush; no evading. You had to be strong; you had to believe in yourself.
But with choices like these… Tsuna couldn't help but waver.
"This isn't right," he breathed. "The reason why I put myself from ten years ago through all of this was so that I wouldn't have to choose people's lives or deaths. I intended to save them all unconditionally as best as I could. I'm tired, Reborn," Tsuna said. He winced; he hadn't meant that note of helplessness seep into his voice. "I'm tired."
"Funny to hear that from a man who's been in a deep sleep for nearly three years," Reborn chuckled. "Come now. Well, I can't tell you to hurry up, because here, time doesn't matter. But all the same, you know how much I hate being kept waiting."
Tsuna tried to laugh, but couldn't.
"You look… very tired, Reborn."
The man laughed and waved a hand in the air. "It's not as if locking away timelines is easy, you know. We Arcobaleno really worked up a sweat. It's not easy, being cursed."
"About that curse," Tsuna said. "What happens to you in our timeline—timeline C. You said that if I chose timeline A, you and the other Arcobaleno would die, but what about timeline C?"
"You might have a chance."
"How? We don't even have the Vongola Rings here."
"I'm just kidding. You don't have a snowball's chance to save us in this timeline, either."
"What?"
"I'm pulling your leg again."
"Reborn!"
"Sorry, sorry." Reborn smirked. "I'd say you have half a chance of saving us in timeline C. You'll have to seek out certain people and play different games, and it'll take a lot of work. And you still have the pieces of the rings, don't you?"
"I… meant to throw them away, but I couldn't. Not after all we've been through, so I kept them."
"Excellent. Then perhaps you have three-quarters of a chance of saving us."
"…so it all boils down to who I'd rather save, right?"
"Indeed."
"The Arcobaleno, or the lives of everyone else… Is there really zero chance of saving you in timeline A?"
"There is absolutely zero chance. You won't have grown enough, and you won't have nearly enough information to do it. But, you'll have us for a while, at least."
Conflicted, Tsuna bit his lip, closed his eyes.
"Can you… give me a moment?"
"Of course."
There was a sound like fluttering wings, and then Tsuna could no longer feel Reborn's presence beside him. He sat down, feeling very un-boss-like as he put his head in his hands and sighed.
He thought, and he thought. And he thought some more. Memories of Yamamoto's dad flashed through his mind. All the times he'd give them sushi on the house, or the times when he'd come upstairs in the middle of a busy night into Yamamoto's room to serve them a sushi snack, or how he pretended to mind when Yamamoto broke a window (or two). How Yamamoto would always call out to his father with a hey pops! and a grin; how his father was the only blood family he had because his mother had died long, long ago. How Yamamoto hadn't cried at his father's death, only grew cold and grim and red-eyed.
He thought about the trauma they would all carry throughout the rest of their lives. War wasn't pretty, especially for the younger ones. Lambo, Lambo… did Tsuna really want to let Lambo remember all these horrible things? The shock he must have felt when he saw Tsuna's 'dead' body; the battles he must have fought though he was only just fifteen. Tsuna remembered the nightmares he'd had after the Ring Battles, and those weren't half as bad as the ones fought with Byakuran.
He could erase all of these things and more. He could erase Tsuyoshi's death, Lambo's memories, Gokudera's guilt. He could set it right. They could all live a normal life—as normal as mafia could get—without pain and fear and war…
He would only lose Reborn…
Tsuna stood.
"Reborn, I'm ready," he called out. "I've made my decision."
He turned his head. Reborn was there.
"You're ready?"
Tsuna closed his eyes and nodded.
He heard Reborn step quietly towards him and shut his eyes tightly.
Reborn, I'm so sorry…
"You know that regardless of whatever choice you make… I'm proud of you," Reborn said quietly. Tsuna felt something ruffle his hair. He could have cried. But he had to be strong. That was the duty of the boss of Vongola.
"You've done well, Tsuna. I couldn't have asked more from you. Watching you grow from then till now has been a pleasure, and I thank you for that."
Why did this sound so much like a goodbye speech?
"I'm sorry you had to choose, but you deserve to determine all of our fates for fighting so hard. Just tell me what to do, Tsuna, and I'll make it happen. It'll be alright, whatever future you decide upon."
Tsuna opened his eyes, but it was pitch-black all around him. He reached out until he felt Reborn's hand. Squeezing his eyes shut, he gripped Reborn's hand tightly and opened his mouth.
"My decision is—"
He was strolling in a forest. Overhead, birds flitted from branch to branch and squirrels nibbled on acorns and pinecones. There was nothing but wilderness all around; untouched, beautiful wilderness. He walked aimlessly like that for a while, feeling at peace and calm with a serene smile on his face.
Having reached his destination he stopped. He turned to look the way he'd come. He could see his faint trail in the vast wild; small footsteps that had broken twigs and crushed leaves and plants. His feet shifted and now he was looking ahead of him. In his sight, there was nothing but unexplored, untouched forest.
A noise perked his ear. It sounded like a distant elephant crashing through the woods. Voices reached his ears, too far to be discerned, but close enough to alert him to one fact:
They were coming.
They were coming to find him. Such a fun game of hide and seek. He figured he'd been hiding for long enough.
"Tsuna! Tsuna!"
Tsuna turned in time to see what looked like a cow barreling towards him before he was knocked off his feet. With a loud oomph! he landed on his back, laughing wildly as a wet face buried into his neck and a deafening wail pounded his ears.
"Hey, Lambo. It's been a while hasn't it?"
His only response was a loud sob and a bone-crushing hug.
But even the vice around his ribs couldn't stop his heart from bursting out of his chest.
Yes, his family was here. He was looking at them now after a three-year absence. They were haggard and tired and some looked heartbroken, but they were his family.
A broken family, but a family.
Tsuna had forsaken the opportunities of timeline C for the hardships of timeline A. Yes, the painlessness of timeline C was tantalizing. But how could he throw away the memories that made him who he was today? How could he throw away the events that made his family what it was today? Though it had been a bitter journey, they had stuck together through thick and thin, and he couldn't throw that away. He couldn't eradicate their accomplishments, their failures, their love, and their hate. Because erasing those indicated that they meant absolutely nothing. That everything that had made his family grow was worthless. And that wasn't true at all.
There was importance in every little thing that had happened in their lives, no matter how excruciating it was. Part of moving forward was embracing the past. Part of growing up was accepting the consequences generated by your past self. Part of the meaning of life was struggling through the difficulties in order to come out alright, albeit a little tattered around the edges.
Tsuna hoped they would forgive him for choosing to keep their suffering. Tsuna hoped they wouldn't hate him for not bringing back the ones they lost.
He struggled up to a sitting position and unglued Lambo's face from his shoulder.
"Tsuna… Tsuna, I thought you would never come back… I thought you were… I'm so sorry I didn't hang out with you more… I'm sorry I just asked for an airplane or whatever it was when you asked me what I wanted for my birthday… You know, my birthday's coming up soon, right? I don't need anything this year. I just… I'm just… I don't need anything so long as all of you are here… so please, don't leave again…"
Oh, god, what had Tsuna done to Lambo? Pain filled his heart as he hugged the fifteen-year-old boy tightly.
"It's okay, Lambo. I won't leave."
I made the right choice, didn't I?
As soon as Lambo gathered himself together and was out of Tsuna's arms, hot white pain popped in Tsuna's face. He stumbled back, horribly confused.
"You—crazy—son of a bitch!"
"Gokudera—hey, Gokudera, calm down!"
"No!" Gokudera seethed. "Don't tell me to calm down, you stupid baseball-freak!"
Tsuna got to his feet. This wasn't the reception he was expecting from Gokudera at all.
"You… suddenly disappeared, just leaving those letters in your wake as if they were supposed to console us or something! You never told us anything, just threw us into chaos and hell, hoping that we would flounder our way out of it… You could have given us a sign, something… some hope…"
Tsuna closed his eyes, but he didn't say a word. Tsuna had been blind to think that the reunion would be all happy sunshine and rainbows. In his ecstasy, he'd forgotten about the scars he had caused himself… he'd forgotten what it meant to be left behind.
"After all these years… all these goddamn years we spent together, you didn't tell me anything!" Gokudera seethed. "You didn't share your plans with anyone except for Hibari, and even then, you kept some truths from him until the very end. Do you know… how I felt when I found out? It was as if you didn't trust me enough to tell me your intentions!
"And yet I… like a fool, I clung to your words. I held onto them with my life because it was a sign that you still trusted me. I grasped everything you left me…
"You left us behind… without a single word… I was lost for a while… for a long time… I thought you were dead for the longest time; I believed it to be my fault that you were dead… I suffered so much, and a single word from you could have stopped my agony! But you said nothing!" Gokudera clenched his fists. "You said nothing…"
Breathing hard, Gokudera cleared his throat and straightened up. Finally, Tsuna dared to look into his eyes. He was shaken; the smoldering emotions in Gokudera's smoky green eyes nearly burned him with their intensity. Like a storm, they swirled, but under the surface. So many emotions, but something was strange—not one of them signaled a feeling of betrayal or distrust…
"But that in and of itself was a sign that you trusted me. Even though you told me nothing, you believed that I would continue on loyally and never give up on you. And you were right. I never did give up on you. I believed in you enough to entrust my life to your plans, though I didn't know what they entailed. I realize that it was necessary that only a very select few know the plan. So, Tenth, I just… I just want to say now…"
Gokudera grabbed Tsuna and pulled him into a tight embrace.
"Welcome home."
There was an explosion of noise. Ryohei was punching him now, roaring something about 24/7 boxing matches and training videos now that he was back; Mukuro chuckled at him and Chrome gave him a soft nod; Hibari gave him a scathing glance that told him clearly you conniving herbivore; Yamamoto pulled the willing ones into a great group hug with an infectious laughter that spread through their bodies.
As the exhilaration wore off, Tsuna steeled himself to tell them what happened to him during his slumber. He called for their attention and took a deep breath and relayed to them the decision he had made. When he was done, nobody said anything for a long time. His heart sank. Did they hate him now for what he did? Yamamoto in particular was looking troubled. Tsuna opened his mouth, ready to apologize, but Yamamoto gave a shrug and grinned.
"Why do you look so worried, Tsuna?" he said.
Tsuna gulped down his apology and stuttered out, "a-aren't you angry? I could have brought back your dad, Yamamoto."
The grin slid off Yamamoto's face, replaced by a more melancholy undertone, but he shrugged again. "You could have, right? I do miss him a lot, but… Pops, I think, would have wanted this. He went down fighting, after all, which is way more exciting than dying of old age, don't you think?"
"But—"
"And besides, you were right in thinking that the past shouldn't be thrown away. What's happened has happened, right? And even if you did change our timeline so that we wouldn't have had to experience any of this… no one would remember you doing it. No one would remember the people you saved and such… and I know that you don't save people to be remembered, but..." Yamamoto gave a grin. "Like you said, everything that's ever happened is just a part of us, right?
"And so… well… I actually don't know how to explain this, but… it's like…" Yamamoto gestured helplessly with his hands. "It's like getting hit with a baseball in the head. It hurts some, but in the end, you're mostly, okay, right? It might leave a mark but…" Yamamoto fingered the scar on his chin. "…But you're okay." He turned to Tsuna and smiled at him. "And I think I'm okay."
"Yeah, Tsuna, I'm okay, too!" Lambo said indignantly. "It's not like I'm a kid anymore! I've grown up. I can handle what's happened. All the scary crap that's happened to me is nothing now that we're all…" Lambo coughed and turned red. "Now that we're all back together again."
Gokudera scoffed, muttering something about how that was so cheesy, and Lambo turned purple in embarrassment, but Gokudera had the faintest of smiles on his face.
"That's right, Sawada," Ryohei said, clapping Tsuna on the back a little too hard. "I think you made the right decision. Just… never do something so extreme that you have to make another choice like that again, agreed? I really will make you do extreme boxing with me 24/7 if it happens."
Tsuna laughed, and it felt good. The sounds from his mouth were bubbly and free, like a great burden had been lifted off his chest. It was good. He hadn't screwed up again. He'd been right to choose timeline A over timeline C.
"It's okay, right? Timeline A."
"Of course."
"We'll have to work hard to make this world whole again. It's going to take a long time."
"What's life without a little lemons, huh, Tsuna?" Yamamoto said, nudging his shoulder. "C'mon, quit worrying. There's been enough worrying to fill an entire lifetime."
"Yeah…" Tsuna said, smiling. "You're right."
"Celebration time, come on!" Yamamoto cheered. "Where are we gonna go? Maybe we can have a barbecue or something, or drop by old man Kawahira's shop…"
As the rest of them began to excitedly make plans, Tsuna stepped back to talk with those lurking in the corners.
"I'm glad you're okay, boss," Chrome said as he approached. "It's nice to see you again."
"I'm glad I'm back," Tsuna said. "I really am. And it's good to see you, too. Both of you."
Mukuro chuckled. "It's been a wild ride, Sawada Tsunayoshi. And now that this game is over… I do believe it's time I start the fight for your body again, isn't it?"
Tsuna chuckled, remembering his letter to Mukuro. "Indeed it is."
Mukuro rested his mismatched eyes on Tsuna for a while, a smile growing on his face. But, before the curve to his lips became too noticeable, he turned and raised a hand in salute.
"I'll be seeing you, Sawada Tsunayoshi."
With a flick of a hand, he and Chrome both vanished into mist.
Tsuna's heart lifted even higher; so glad was he to see all of his family again. He turned to Hibari and held out a hand.
"I think I owe you a thank you."
Hibari snorted. "It was… fun."
Tsuna read the hesitation in Hibari's voice and knew that he had been right in guessing Hibari's emotions when he killed Tsuna.
"I owe you a big thank you."
"Keep your thanks to yourself," Hibari said. A sly smile flickered across his face, lighting up his steely grey eyes. "I'm glad you're back."
Stunned, Tsuna let his jaw drop a little.
Hibari smirked widely and turned away. "It means I can have endless amounts of fun beating you to the point of death."
Tsuna broke out laughing. "Of course."
Realizing his hand was still held up for a handshake, Tsuna hastily began to drop it. It wasn't as if he were truly expecting Hibari to accept his extended hand, but… it would have been nice.
Pain pricked his hand as he closed it. Tsuna looked down. His heart leaped, and even more warmth flooded his body as happiness filled him to the brim. Hibari's hedgehog chirped in his hand, its spines pricking the skin, stinging, but not bleeding. Tsuna looked up, but Hibari was gone. When he turned his gaze back down to his hand, the hedgehog had disappeared. Tsuna smiled. He guessed that was Hibari's way of saying welcome home.
Finished, Tsuna bounded to catch up with the rest, who were hollering at him to get moving already. Yamamoto, Gokudera, Ryohei, and Lambo—his closest friends since middle school. It felt so good to be back with them again. So refreshing, warm, and happy. Tsuna would never exchange that feeling with anything in the world. This feeling made turning timeline C down worth the pain.
"Feels like middle school again, doesn't it?" Yamamoto almost sang. "You, me, Gokudera, and Ryohei going home and Lambo tagging along as usual. And we know that Hibari's lurking around somewhere nearby because he always is looking for trouble and fights. And Mukuro and Chrome are out there scheming something or another, but it's okay, because you know that they're on your side. And it's sunny and the sky is blue, and the world is great because we're coming home after a long day."
"You're not making any sense, you know that baseball idiot?"
"It's only because you're too stupid to understand, octopus-head!"
"What did you say, turf-head—"
"Ah, Tsuna, I'm hungry!"
Tsuna felt so happy that he could cry, and he discovered that he really was crying when Yamamoto pointed it out in surprise, and when Gokudera hastily began wiping Tsuna's tears for him with a dirty handkerchief, and when Ryohei began sobbing with his fists held up to the sky, and when Lambo began crying yet again, and when even Gokudera covered his eyes with an arm and blew his nose loudly, and when Yamamoto, the eternally effervescent baseball-idiot, began tearing up as well. It felt good to cry in happiness for once, and even better to share happy tears with old friends, and it felt the best to do all those things while laughing in the warm wind and walking under the sun hanging in the bright blue sky all the way home.
"Well, what on earth are you guys doing," a drawling voice said in a tone that badly concealed delight. "Having a sobbing festival?"
An infant twirled his fedora on a finger before swinging it back on his head. "Having an idiots-only celebration, it seems."
"Oh, be nice, Spanner, Reborn. Sorry for the mess," Irie said hastily, knocking the wrench from Spanner's hand. "We were trying to clean up a bit before you all came, but…"
"Kind of failed," Spanner finished. He held up a bag and shook it lightly. "Lollipop?"
"Oh, and," Irie said clapping his hands as they all took one from the bag. "I almost forgot!"
"That's right, we can't forget," Reborn said, leaping from his perch on Irie's head and onto Tsuna's.
"Welcome home!"
I would like to say first off, thank you for sticking with this story over the many, many years it has been running. I have been very irresponsible with this, and cannot thank you enough for the support and kindness I have received. This chapter marks the close of Days of Mourning. It has been a great experience for me, and I hope for you, too, and I hope this ending was satisfactory.
I never really gave up on this story. I have about five files on my computer labeled something along the lines of 'final chapter' for Days of Morning that I compiled over the years. It just goes to show how much your reviews motivate me (and make me feel guilty, hehehe).
/edit: to the reviewer who pointed out that I got timelines A and C all mixed up, thank you! How embarrassing, haha, the author getting confused ;u; I tried to fix most of it, but sheesh, was it confusing.
Thank you again for your support and kindness.
Love and luck from your grateful author,
hokkyokukou