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Reborn! fic - Indemnity
Title - Indemnity
Author -![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
makeste
Rating - PG-13 for language.
Characters/Pairings - Gokudera, gen.
Warnings - Spoilers up to chapter 193.
Summary - It hasn’t happened yet, and with any luck it never will. All the same, he needs to make up for it.
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Sixteen boxes. Twelve of which don’t open no matter how strong a flame he creates. Sixteen boxes, and a name: the Sistema C.A.I. No instructions. He left a letter telling him how to get back to the past, but he couldn’t be bothered with anything to explain his stupid system. “Defeat Byakuran,” but first he has to figure out how to turn some bones, a useless cat, and twelve defective containers into something resembling a weapon.
Gokudera’s been sitting there for hours, but he still can’t figure it out. He wonders, not for the first time, just what his future self was thinking.
How did you figure this out? How do I make it work?
It’s frustrating, because it shouldn’t be beyond him. He’s done it before—or will do it, anyway. It’s his system. Him, in the future. He’s the same person, isn’t he?
Then again, maybe not. Because that other him is from a future he’s actively trying to prevent. The other him has made mistakes he won’t repeat. Somehow he fucked up; somehow he let the Tenth…
…Somehow he let that happen to the Tenth.
So maybe it’s better not to think of him as the same person after all. It’s a different world… so many horrible things have happened here. Things he wants to prevent at any cost. This is his family, damn it. He was lucky to find it, and he’s barely deserving of it, but he’ll fight to his last fucking breath if anyone even thinks about trying to take it away from him. He won’t let that happen.
It shouldn’t have happened in the first place. What the hell went wrong? What did you do? What did you do wrong?
Ten years. A long damn time. He should have been stronger by then, smarter. More experienced. Didn’t people always talk about experience, how it made such a huge difference? You didn’t last a whole fucking decade in the mafia world without learning something about how to keep yourself and the people you care about alive. Enough to not be taken by surprise.
So how did they manage to surprise you?
How. What. Why. Answers that his older self will never be able to give, and he hates it, because he needs to know those answers. Weren’t you strong? Weren’t you always by his side? Weren’t you his Right Hand, his Guardian? Wouldn’t you have given your own life to save his?
Ten years doesn’t change things that much. Tsuna is his whole world; he would die for him. No matter how much time passes, that will never change. Shouldn’t have ever changed.
…Didn’t ever change. Some part of him knows that, deep down.
You couldn’t stop it.
Why couldn’t you stop it?
He has the will. What he wants to think is, it’ll be all right, no matter what, as long as he doesn’t give up. As long as he’s determined.
What he is thinking, is that his determination isn’t even enough to open these twelve boxes.
How can I save him if I can’t even get this to work?
What he’s also thinking, is that he ran out on his sister’s training because he thought he could do this on his own. That he never managed to destroy more than two of her twenty scorpions. That Yamamoto is getting stronger, and the Tenth is getting stronger, but him, he’s just sitting here at a table because he’s failed at everything and now he’s failing at this too.
How could you let him down?
He can’t let it happen again.
How do I fix it? I need to know how to fix it.
I need to know how to make it work.
The cat leaps onto the desk, suddenly, knocking aside a few of his boxes and grabbing one of the weapons as if it were a toy. Angry, he shouts at it, and the thing—it’s vicious—leaps at his face instead. A minute later it stalks off proudly, very much the victor, and Gokudera ponders that maybe “Uri” is too sweet a name. It lacks that killer edge.
One of the boxes is open. There’s something new on the table. A ring.
He picks it up, puts it on. A flame appears, but it’s blue.
Rain.
Like parts of a puzzle clicking into place, the rest comes together in no time at all. Sixteen boxes, five rings, five different types of flames. C.A.I.—Cambio Arma Instantaneo. An instantaneous armament changing system.
It’s not perfect yet, but he’ll practice. He’ll get it right.
All of it. He will make it right.
I don’t know what happened. I don’t know why you couldn’t protect him. But I’m going to try again. I’m going to save him this time.
He can learn from his mistakes. Even ones he hasn’t made yet.
All it means is that I’m going to stop it here.
You are not my future, because I’m going to fix your past.
Author -
makesteRating - PG-13 for language.
Characters/Pairings - Gokudera, gen.
Warnings - Spoilers up to chapter 193.
Summary - It hasn’t happened yet, and with any luck it never will. All the same, he needs to make up for it.
---Sixteen boxes. Twelve of which don’t open no matter how strong a flame he creates. Sixteen boxes, and a name: the Sistema C.A.I. No instructions. He left a letter telling him how to get back to the past, but he couldn’t be bothered with anything to explain his stupid system. “Defeat Byakuran,” but first he has to figure out how to turn some bones, a useless cat, and twelve defective containers into something resembling a weapon.
Gokudera’s been sitting there for hours, but he still can’t figure it out. He wonders, not for the first time, just what his future self was thinking.
How did you figure this out? How do I make it work?
It’s frustrating, because it shouldn’t be beyond him. He’s done it before—or will do it, anyway. It’s his system. Him, in the future. He’s the same person, isn’t he?
Then again, maybe not. Because that other him is from a future he’s actively trying to prevent. The other him has made mistakes he won’t repeat. Somehow he fucked up; somehow he let the Tenth…
…Somehow he let that happen to the Tenth.
So maybe it’s better not to think of him as the same person after all. It’s a different world… so many horrible things have happened here. Things he wants to prevent at any cost. This is his family, damn it. He was lucky to find it, and he’s barely deserving of it, but he’ll fight to his last fucking breath if anyone even thinks about trying to take it away from him. He won’t let that happen.
It shouldn’t have happened in the first place. What the hell went wrong? What did you do? What did you do wrong?
Ten years. A long damn time. He should have been stronger by then, smarter. More experienced. Didn’t people always talk about experience, how it made such a huge difference? You didn’t last a whole fucking decade in the mafia world without learning something about how to keep yourself and the people you care about alive. Enough to not be taken by surprise.
So how did they manage to surprise you?
How. What. Why. Answers that his older self will never be able to give, and he hates it, because he needs to know those answers. Weren’t you strong? Weren’t you always by his side? Weren’t you his Right Hand, his Guardian? Wouldn’t you have given your own life to save his?
Ten years doesn’t change things that much. Tsuna is his whole world; he would die for him. No matter how much time passes, that will never change. Shouldn’t have ever changed.
…Didn’t ever change. Some part of him knows that, deep down.
You couldn’t stop it.
Why couldn’t you stop it?
He has the will. What he wants to think is, it’ll be all right, no matter what, as long as he doesn’t give up. As long as he’s determined.
What he is thinking, is that his determination isn’t even enough to open these twelve boxes.
How can I save him if I can’t even get this to work?
What he’s also thinking, is that he ran out on his sister’s training because he thought he could do this on his own. That he never managed to destroy more than two of her twenty scorpions. That Yamamoto is getting stronger, and the Tenth is getting stronger, but him, he’s just sitting here at a table because he’s failed at everything and now he’s failing at this too.
How could you let him down?
He can’t let it happen again.
How do I fix it? I need to know how to fix it.
I need to know how to make it work.
The cat leaps onto the desk, suddenly, knocking aside a few of his boxes and grabbing one of the weapons as if it were a toy. Angry, he shouts at it, and the thing—it’s vicious—leaps at his face instead. A minute later it stalks off proudly, very much the victor, and Gokudera ponders that maybe “Uri” is too sweet a name. It lacks that killer edge.
One of the boxes is open. There’s something new on the table. A ring.
He picks it up, puts it on. A flame appears, but it’s blue.
Rain.
Like parts of a puzzle clicking into place, the rest comes together in no time at all. Sixteen boxes, five rings, five different types of flames. C.A.I.—Cambio Arma Instantaneo. An instantaneous armament changing system.
It’s not perfect yet, but he’ll practice. He’ll get it right.
All of it. He will make it right.
I don’t know what happened. I don’t know why you couldn’t protect him. But I’m going to try again. I’m going to save him this time.
He can learn from his mistakes. Even ones he hasn’t made yet.
All it means is that I’m going to stop it here.
You are not my future, because I’m going to fix your past.
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wahh <3
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Anyway, I loved this! I love your writing and I love Gokudera, so it's not all that strange that I'd like this and then some. I like the Uri part, 'it lacks that killer edge', so brilliant~
I like it when people incorporate questions into Gokudera's thought processes, because he's definitely a thinker. I imagine it has to be hard, finding a balance between his rather 'loud' exterior and the more intellectual, thoughtful side of him -- though I've never seen anyone deny either part. You seem to get the latter down really well, I think.
I love that he finds it frustrating because he's 'done it before', because that seems so right. All of your writing seems to contain details, like that, which make the overall story believable and (perhaps more pertinent to the writer) fun to read. The whole thing seems perfectly in character to me.
Also, I think it flows really nicely, so that you're anticipating the conclusion rather than wandering down a wide road in the dark. That last line just nails it. I really, really love it. And it suits the moments earlier on where he seems reluctant to admit that any version of himself could have let Tsuna die. Again, perfectly in character.
Ahh, I just like this fic! I've run out of constructive things to say! :)
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Yeah, he's always struck me as the type who's probably got a lot going on beneath the surface, because we know he's very intelligent, and when he's not LOUDLY AFFIRMING HIS LOYALTY TO TENTH~ or BLOWING HIS TOP at anyone who looks at him wrong or breathes too loudly, he does tend toward the quiet side. (SUCH A NICE GUY TO HAVE A CONVERSATION WITH, amirite.) It's a pretty interesting contrast. Of course, with fics like these it's easy to cheat, since the entire thing is solitary meta/introspection. :P I'm really glad it came out in-character, though. And that you liked the last line, and yaaaay thank you. |D
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oh god i just want to tackleglompcuddletakehome gokudera here. i'm really glad he's so resilient emotionally, because his mind IS prone to going in directions like this, isn't it?
He picks it up, puts it on. A flame appears, but it’s blue.
Rain.
I SQUEED. UNBELIEVABLY HARD XD XD XD man it's amazing how i squee more over the subtle 8059 hints than the overt ones, even in canon.
i enjoyed this so much. it's very much in-character and it just made me love amano's gokudera all the more. it's natural that he'll hate his 10yl self without even knowing him all that well, just because HE LET THE TENTH DIE and that is the one sin he's always told himself he'll never be guilty of.
What the hell went wrong? What did you do? What did you do wrong? i can easily see that until he's gotten past the point where he can breathe comfortably because tsuna's still alive, tsuna's still the vongola tenth, he's the forever reliable right-hand man and that future where things were different will never happen, these questions will keep knocking around at the back of his mind. and it'll take YEARS. the poor messed-up kid T_T
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I am starting to think that just as I'm incapable of writing KHR without mentioning Gokudera, I might be equally incapable of writing it without mention of 8059. I STILL squee over that bit in canon, so I had to add it in here. XD
Heh, ever since I read that scene where he freaks out at TYL!Yamamoto--"What have you done?! Why is the Tenth like that?!", and then Reborn points out that he was there in the future too, I've wondered what he must think about that. I could easily see him trying to distance his future self enough to be able to freely blame him, hence the line of thinking in this. Of course, years down the line when he starts approaching his TYL!age that'll be a hell of a lot harder, but he never did make it easy on himself. XD
At any rate, thank you for the review, I always love love love reading your comments. ♥
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The final sentence sent a chill down my spine. It's immaculate.
Your Gokudera has an additional dimension that's - how do I say it - almost bittersweet. He's very intelligent, and though he seems brash at times when it comes to Tsuna, I also believe that he can be very calculating and perfectionist when he needs to be. And you captured that very well here.
Now you have another instant fan. XD I can't wait to see more!
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I'm very glad you liked the fic (and the others), and especially that you enjoyed the characterization, since I always fret about that. XD I do think Gokudera has a lot of layers to his personality, some of which don't show up so often in canon; he's usually too busy
overreacting to things for us to get a chance to see him in a more contemplative mood. But I love to explore that sort of thing, so yeah... this fell together pretty quickly when I wrote it.Thanks again for all your comments! ♥
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Under those circumstances, I would've never come across your works. But on that particular night, I happened to be bored and read your fics. Luck or fate, I don't know, but I'm sure glad it happened!
I look forward to reading your minibang entry. I don't know which of the summaries is yours, but it doesn't matter because I know it'll be great. <3
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Heh, mine is the GokuHaru fic ("It had taken years for her to reach a point with Gokudera where they could even be called friends, but it had happened, slowly and surely."). I actually have it posted under lock (the fic is more or less complete), so if you want I can add you to that filter.
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*friends you*
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