3Slipping-
Summary: In which the world lives through years but Sawada Tsunayoshi lives in lifetimes. AU
When he sinks, it's quick; dark and almost as if everything changed from one scene to another.
But in that one second of transition from one life to another, is something he could never forget, something that cannot be conjured, played away at a screen for it is too delicate, something you would never let anyone see, buried within the depths of your lies and dreams and hopes.
It is a moment of judgement, a moment where all your layers are stripped, a scene where you are exposed, a breathtaking and somewhat sorrowful act like the birthing of a new mouldable being.
(Because there is death as well as life)
It is where you are poked and prodded by bored Gods, expected to pick yourself up from wastelands and dry deserts and from within your own filth. It is where you are humiliated and everyone stares at you with knowing gazes.
(Imagine slipping away, piece by piece, wisp of a flame he cannot reach and eyes dimmer then his teenage years-)
This is death.
It was as if the Vindice night flames were sucking his resolve from him, the cold, the ice spreading throughout his body as a five-year old and the childish mantra of 'Why? WHY?' before there is unimaginable pain in the soul. An unnatural blankness, unnatural stillness which holds the world, the very sky hostage and threatens to end all.
(He is Sawa-)
It was hell, that one second of transition, that one second where he is sinking, where all his nightmares and insecurity and sins come together, encasing him.
(I'm sorry-)
Burning him, shouting and shaking his body, delving into what should not be touched, the memories of an easily broken, fragile being whose threads of life, whose connection to death have already been severed at the same time.
Simultaneously.
Who is he?
(It was reincarnation, time-travel, a phenomenon without the effect of anyone actively trying anything, it was a miracle).
It was death.
(With my dying will-)
When he awoke, it is to soft lights and sunshine so with a flutter of his eyelids he is face to face with a ceiling and even though he should not since it's been years he knows, exactly where he is but he cannot comprehend exactly why-
His Hyper Intuition is barely here, far from his control like his flames currently, a pinprick that he cannot reach, and the thought scares him.
Yes, he, (I am-), Neo Primo, Vongola Decimo, man who changed the Mafia world is afraid.
But he, (Sa-Sawada! Sawada…), Neo Primo, Vongola Decimo, man who changed the Mafia World, is also twenty-seven years of age and now dead.
Dead.
And he does not know his name.
Sawada?
That is not his name.
Death.
The thought is surreal, the word something unimaginable, unattainable, unexplainable.
Well, unattainable for those who are living and still want to be living.
(Humans fear the unknown)
Dead.
I'm… dead?
Bright lights shining on his form, breathing, flames out of reach but still there; a resting comfort and so the statement confuses him.
Dead? How am I dead? I'm breathing, aren't I? I'm living, aren't I? My flames are still here.
My bonds… my (fraying, fraying, futilely grabbing for something that is not there) bonds are gone…
The last few hours almost seem like a dream but the choking and stench of vomit and overwhelming feeling of weightlessness and his resolve slipping through his fingers along with darkness and Sawada stretches out a hand.
(And among the tears blurring his vision, the breath his body refused to take, he can still remember the empty silence and empty space which his own hand grasped).
It was all so confusing to Sawada who was told, with spittle and red faces of those who lay below him, facing what is most feared: death, that he was going to hell, he was to burn for all the blood on his hands and the screams and tears he caused.
And yet, despite all, they applaud him, clapping him on the back with a grin and yet, they do not see the dark flames hidden within the purity of another- the same, pushed to the back where not even bonds that transcend what couldn't be believed can reach.
(They made Sawada, taking an easily mouldable being, a flame of purity in shock, awe and vulnerability and tell it to love with all of it's being and resolve and warmth and teach it to kill those who dare attempt to fight against that love.
-This is the darkest thought, a buzzing that comes when he one step away from broken, one step away from I'm done, I'm done-
Mama's teaching never stood a chance.)
Sawada has sins, has regrets, has blood, weaknesses.
Sawada is not perfect and so, when he hears the unmistakable voice of his mother all he can think is why?
Why the hell am I reincarnated? Or maybe the better words to describe this situation is time-travel or some sorts.
Sawada didn't ask for this, he was content with roaring flames of hell because in all honesty he deserved it.
Sawada had pure flames, yes?
But his intentions were selfish, his flames are selfish, his entire being selfish.
All Sawada wants to do is protect his friends, family.
If it means destroying the Mafia world, so be it.
If it means killing, killing, all senseless, wasteful killing and losing himself, losing his way.
So be it.
(And that's the final statement, the echo of a mallet in a room that judges and the place where the promises and mantra that held all the pieces crumble and crumble-)
Sawada would carve the blood, bury the bones, commit sins, drown the world with tears and burn the very fire itself; all this dragging behind him in his reign to his ideals.
His ideals.
For family.
(For them).
But who is he?
And when he enters his safe place-
all dark, lonely, nothing never, ever lively, grey patches of everything and Sawada sets himself free. Slumping, hands shaking and eyes all teary and head clouded with regrets thicker then what mists attempt to go through to delve in what must not because we are all broken people who try to shine and stand and survive
This is where Sawada mourns, missing all the parts of himself-
the weakness, fungi that would've have gotten everyone killed
-left on a shelf to rot and die.
His kindness.
His mother's teaching.
Weakness, they hiss.
Sawada squeezes his eyes closed, regretful of conforming, of all this normal he has squeezed his heart inside, folded his soul into.
Tonight, I am all the things
I was told that I should be;
but none of those
I have always wanted to.
Starting with his first kill.
Ending with his empty eyes.
This is how Sawada slowly dies.
(Thoughts slowly poisoning his own mind and flames weaker, dimmer-)
And so begins the decay of Sawada-
Hours passing by, one after the other.
Phone beeping and mouth full of liquor.
(Sawada Tsu- Natsu?)
This is how he spends his days, curling up in his dingy home, vomiting and sobbing, pleading, arms outstretched for what, he does not know.
Maybe, in another universe, the warmth of a ring will snap him out of his 'Tantrum', as Reborn would have called it.
(Sawada Tsu-Natsu doesn't believe, not for one second, his tutor would have said that if he were alive.
Hyper Intuition never lies).
Renato Sinclair is a man raised with knives and dead lives and webs of lies that trap those who take an outstretched hand with a false smile and teach you not to cry or you will die.
Tsu-Natsu is not.
And that, is the crucial difference between the two.
(Where Tsu-Natsu is Sunshine and somehow still sadly murky, and hopeful and young.
Where Reborn is broken, cracked mirrors and stains and sins he will encase with a false smile).
And there is nobody else in his twenty-seven years of age that Tsu-Natsu can rely on like Reborn to go to.
This is how Sawada Tsu-Nastu dies.
Sweaty and broken and alone and-
reminiscing
Ah, that is my name.
I am-
"Dame-Tsuna
Vongola Decimo
Neo Primo."
And yet, has anyone ever called him Sawada Tsunayoshi for the sake of calling him Sawada Tsunayoshi?
Has anyone ever befriended him because he is Tsunayoshi, not Sawada, but Tsunayoshi?
This is how Sawada Tsunayoshi dies.
Imagine living though one second of hell itself and before that point sacrificing morals and dreams and before even that, saving the world.
Now, imagine waking up-
imagine waking up in the past
(Where everyone else has not, in fact, gone through everything he has, who are blank slates and are easily mouldable beings and are able to laugh without guilt and blood-soaked fingers-)
Is it any wonder-
and this is how Sawada Tsunayoshi lives.
notes: this just came to me out of nowhere. I think I have a vague idea of what this fic is going to be about but still debating so don't expect updates from me anytime soon...
Extra Note: Ignore Mukuro. Let's just say that Mukuro is an impure soul, because he has never witnessed 'true' death because no matter what happens in his reincarnations, he will always has attachment to his real body.
Tsuna doesn't.