Title: The Definition of Insanity
Characters: Hibari, Tsuna
Summary: Hibari has seen all this before.
Notes: For Cliché Bingo, prompt: "Thank God it's Friday... Again: Time Loops." Confusion, time loops and traveling, repeatedly killing off Tsuna. 1278 words.

The Definition of Insanity

Sawada Tsunayoshi was dead.

Again.

This time they hadn't even made it as far as the first raid on Irie's base. Was that just their bad luck, or had they finally reached too far back?

No. Not that. Sawada had been coming along well, towards the end. He'd practically been the Tenth, before it had all come apart. Bad luck, then. No surprise, that; bad luck had dogged Sawada's steps for a while now.

Kyouya stooped over the body, dispassionate, and closed Sawada's staring eyes. That snapped Gokudera out of his stupor; he came to his feet in one smooth motion, Flame crackling around his hands.

Right on schedule, Kyouya thought, and caught him before he could rush off and get himself killed raining death down on the Black Spell squad who'd managed to get Tsuna this time. "Wait," he said, and held his ground when Gokudera rounded on him, face wet and eyes blazing. "What would he say if he knew what you were planning?"

Gokudera flinched, but the question brought him up short, like always. "What's the point?" he demanded, hoarse. "Bringing him back from the past was our only hope."

"As usual, you manage to be both right and wrong," Kyouya told him, earning a blank stare for his pains. No matter. So what if Gokudera didn't understand what that meant? His confusion would be wiped away soon enough. "Take him home; we need to regroup."

Gokudera's jaw flexed, but after a moment he knelt and gathered the body up, gently, as if it could matter to Sawada now. "Where are you going?"

Kyouya looked over his shoulder as he slid rings onto his fingers. "To explain to the Black Spell how much I dislike having my plans interfered with," he said, and smiled.

Irie Shouichi is a genius, and quite possibly mad. Kyouya himself is no intellectual slouch, but even he can't quite follow the things that Irie has done to bend space and time in order to let them do this.

But that's not important. What's important is that they can.

Sawada doesn't understand, either, but he listens intently as Irie explains what his machine can do, and how it will let them avert Sawada's death and Byakuran's plans. When Irie finishes, Sawada is silent as usual, absorbing this. Kyouya and Irie wait, letting him work through all that they've laid before him in his own time. When he finally breaks his silence, it's to say, "Maybe I'm not supposed to live."

"You always say that," Kyouya informs him.

"Maybe that's because it's true," Sawada retorts.

It's as reliable as clockwork. Kyouya turns away from him. "You always say that too." He stares out the window, not really seeing anything at all of the view--not that it matters; he's seen it all before. "Thirteen."

"What?"

"You were wondering how many attempts we've made. That's your answer."

The sound of the breath Sawada takes at that is sharp. "I... see."

Irie's voice crackles over the comm. "You have to understand, Sawada-san. You're our only hope against Byakuran." He's urgent--he's always urgent. He's explained, a bit, about the future he's seen, the one where Byakuran is triumphant; if half of what Irie says is true, Kyouya can't begrudge him his panic.

"What a terrifying thought," Sawada says, and draws another breath. "All right. What do I need to do?"

It's amazing how he nearly always says the same thing, in the same way, Kyouya muses, and turns away from the window to tell him.

Sawada Tsunayoshi was dead. Again.

This time there was no body. No Gokudera, either; he'd gone down defending Sawada from Kikyou. Not that Kyouya had much time to spend on that fact; he'd barely made it out himself, although that had more to do with dragging Yamamoto's half-dead carcass after him than anything else.

Damn it. They'd been close, this time. Closer than they'd ever been before.

That was the only good thing he could say about this iteration, he decided, ripping Yamamoto's shirt into strips for a rough field dressing. They'd managed to learn something new, so it wasn't a complete waste.

Every little bit helped.

"You... want to let me get killed, and then drag me out of the past to take on Byakuran?" Sawada frowns. "Why should that work, when I can't do it as I am now?"

"You don't understand," Kyouya tells him. "As you are now, you die. Nothing changes that. Bringing you out of the past is a chance for the rest of us to live."

Sawada blinks, and closes his eyes as that sinks in. "Oh," he says, quietly, getting it. "I see."

Sawada Tsunayoshi was dead again.

The useful thing about having learned Italian was how much more room the language had in it for cursing. Kyouya felt very much like cursing just at that moment, although he didn't dare, not with a pair of Gola Moskas hunting him. Nonetheless, there was a corner of his mind devoted to running through a litany of invective.

What a stupid trap to fall into.

When the day finally came, Kyouya was going to take great pleasure in seeing Byakuran die. Perhaps Irie could be convinced to use his machine to loop Byakuran through several deaths, just for the sake of all the aggravation the man had given the Vongola.

He hoped that day was going to come soon. The body he'd had to leave behind him had only been seventeen years old.

"Wait," Sawada says, and opens his eyes again. "How many times have you done this, again?" He frowns, fingers drumming on the desk in front of him. "It's not working."

"Not working yet," Irie says. "But we're getting closer."

"Tell me how you're doing it again, please," Sawada says, eyes clear and intent.

Kyouya blinks, and leans forward, curiosity piqued: this is something new.

When Sawada says, "You're going about it all wrong," Kyouya begins to smile.

Sawada Tsunayoshi was dead--again.

They'd laid him in a coffin lined with lilies and adorned with the Vongola crest, and left it in the wooded area outside Namimori, not too far from one of the entrances to the underground compound. No one had time to question the strangeness of the orders; Millefiore's full-out assault on the Vongola was entering its second full day.

Kyouya ignored all that and lurked in the undergrowth, keeping vigil, waiting for the arrival of Sawada Tsunayoshi's younger self. He'd seen this before, many times now. It never entirely stopped being surprising how young Sawada looked whenever he slid the coffin's lid aside and sat up.

Gokudera's expression never changed, either: shock to see a younger Sawada, when he'd expected to find nothing but a grave, paired with sudden wild hope. So far, nothing was particularly different from the other reunions he'd observed.

Kyouya kept on watching, until the change Sawada had insisted upon making happened, and Gokudera was replaced with his teenaged self.

They'd argued against the change, but Sawada had insisted. I am nothing without my Family, he had said, with a faint smile. If you want me to defeat Byakuran, I need them around me.

Foolishness, perhaps, to have given in. Kyouya didn't quite know how a pack of teenagers were supposed to do what grown men hadn't been able to do, but Sawada had been adamant.

He kept watch over the Sawada and Gokudera for a bit longer, until Lal Mirch came upon them. Then he slipped away to continue his own preparations. Time would tell whether Sawada's gamble had been the right one.

And time, after all, was still something they had plenty of.

- end -

Comments, as always, are welcome.