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Reborn! fic - Indeterminism, Part Two
Title: Indeterminism (Part Two)Rating: R (for language, brief violence, and character death)
Characters: Gokudera, Yamamoto, and a handful of others. No pairings (just love! and friendship!!).
Notes/Warnings: Takes place 5-6 years after the start of the series, and contains spoilers through the end of the Future Arc.
Also, this probably should have been edited more thoroughly, but since parts of this fic will almost certainly be jossed when chapter 314 rolls out, I kind of rushed through the process to get this up this weekend. ;;
Summary: Yamamoto is dead. Which makes the fact that Gokudera can see, hear, and talk to him rather interesting.
Part One
“What was that all about?” I ask Gokudera as soon as we’ve left Irie’s house.
“What was what all about?” he says indifferently as he unlocks the car.
I phase through the door, taking my seat beside him. “‘What would happen if they died?’”
“Just ironing out the details.” He puts the keys in the ignition.
“Hey,” I say a little more firmly, because this is important, after all. He rolls his eyes, but still pauses to listen. “He’s right, you know. Irie. You need to be careful.”
“What, you think I’m trying to get myself killed?”
“I’m just saying, you shouldn’t rush into all this without thinking.”
“For you of all people to tell me that…” His hand instinctively moves toward the side pocket where he used to keep his cigarettes before quitting; then he makes a noise of irritation and turns back to scowl at me. “I’m doing all this for you, you know. Least you could do is show a little fucking gratitude.”
“I am grateful, you know I am. I just don’t want anything to happen to you because of me.”
“Nothing’s going to happen, all right?” He gives a frustrated shake of his head, then starts the engine.
“From what he was saying, it sounds like a whole lot’s going to happen.”
“Nothing’s going to happen that I don’t have under control.”
I frown and turn to look out the window. “All right. Then what’s going to happen to me when you go back?”
Silence. Then he puts the car back in park, and leans his head back against his seat.
“…I don’t know,” he admits.
More silence.
I move my hand to the window. It passes right on through, and I hold it out in front of the rearview mirror, giving a few halfhearted waves back and forth.
To me, the hand looks solid. But to the mirror, there might as well be nothing there at all.
“I still don’t even know if you’re real,” Gokudera says beside me, and I chuckle in spite of myself, because that’s one thing that hasn’t and never will change, at least: that stubbornness of his.
“…Tch. You’re the only idiot I know who’d ever laugh in a situation like this.” I look back at him, and he’s smirking too, ever so slightly. I guess I’m not the only one who laughs at the absurd, sometimes.
“Hey, Gokudera?”
He looks at me questioningly.
“Then, since neither of us really knows what’s going to happen tomorrow… can you do me one favor?”
“…What?”
I give him a small smile. “I’d like to leave a message for Tsuna, and my dad.”
It’s a little embarrassing, I guess, since he’s the one who actually has to do the writing. I give him the login to my email so he can do it from my account, since it’s the simplest way I can think of to convince Dad and Tsuna that the messages really are from me. (It occurs to me that it ought to be enough to convince Gokudera too, but when I mention that to him he just snorts and informs me that only a complete moron would use his birthday as his password.)
In the end, the letters don’t turn out to be all that long. Really just a few I-love-yous, some I’m-sorrys and I’ll-miss-yous, with a don’t-blame-yourself or two mixed in. I tell them both that I’m at peace and I want them to be at peace too. The second part is true. The first… well, I’m working on it.
To his credit, Gokudera isn’t as awkward as I worried he might be. He doesn’t comment on any of it, just writes down what I say, looking as solemn as I’ve ever seen him. When I’m finished, he lets me read over both emails before setting them up to be sent out tomorrow night, right before we put the time-traveling plan in action.
After that, there’s not much the two of us can think to say, so he excuses himself and heads off to bed, while I settle in for another long night of doing nothing, touching nothing, and generally not existing.
I wonder if I really will disappear tomorrow, when he leaves. And I wonder if maybe that isn’t for the best.
“This is unbelievable,” Gokudera says as I nod in stunned agreement.
Irie beams modestly. “I told you, I already had the blueprints worked out; it was just a matter of recreating them and then getting this put together and calibrated. It was really the calibration that took the longest.”
“And you’ve got that all fixed now, right?”
“Pretty sure. Everything checks out.”
Gokudera takes a deep breath. “Okay.” He steps up to the machine, though I can see a hint of nerves starting to settle in now. “Let’s do this before I change my mind.”
“Yeah, me too.” Irie doesn’t look quite as nervous, but there’s definitely some uncertainty there. “First I’ll need to do a scan, though. Please step onto the pad, Gokudera-kun.”
He indicates a circular area on the floor that looks for all the world like one of the teleporter things from Star Trek. Gokudera obediently moves to the platform and stands still.
“Can I ask you one last question?” he says as Irie begins the scanning process.
“Of course.”
“If I do change the timeline by going back… what will happen to this universe when I leave?”
Irie smiles, but I notice he doesn’t meet Gokudera’s eyes when he answers. “Well, to put it metaphorically… save.”
“…Save?”
“Imagine a computer file, Gokudera-kun.”
“All right.”
“Now imagine you want to save that file. In general, there are two options: save, and save as. With the second option, you save all of the new data onto a brand new file. With the first one, however, you simply modify the original file, saving all the new data under the original filename.”
There’s a very heavy pause. Then, “You’re saying that everything in this original timeline…”
“Will be erased. Overwritten, by the new timeline that you create.”
Gokudera looks horrified. “So you’ll all disappear?”
“No, of course not. To be honest, it really won’t affect us at all. You have to understand that the only person who will even remember that there was a change to begin with is you. —Ah, please don’t shake your head, Gokudera-kun; it will throw off the scanner.”
“Fuck the scanner! And just because you won’t remember doesn’t mean anything! You’re basically saying I’m going to wipe you from existence!”
“Gokudera, just calm down for a sec,” I cut in, trying to keep him from getting any more agitated.
“That’s not true! I wouldn’t allow you to do it if that was the case!” Irie’s voice has taken on a decidedly more pleading tone by this point. “Please, just listen! The only thing that will be erased is our memory of what’s happened in this timeline. Everything else will still be here exactly as it was before. It’s more like we’re being reset.” He pauses to wipe his brow. “You’re not destroying anything, you’re just… starting over. Aside from Yamamoto-kun’s fate, everything else will hopefully proceed exactly the same way it did before.”
“Hopefully?” There’s more than a trace of skepticism in Gokudera’s voice.
“There is a slight risk. The butterfly effect is mostly exaggerated, but it does exist. There’s no way to know with one hundred percent certainty what kind of ripple effect even a very small change in the timeline will have. But it’s no greater than the same risk we take whenever we make any choice. You never know for sure if it will turn out for good or bad.”
“Shit.” Gokudera glances over at me for a long moment, and then finally sighs. “…I guess there’s no other way.”
“You don’t have to do this, you know,” I tell him. He just mouths the words ‘shut up’ at me before turning back to Irie.
“If anything, the change you’re enacting is for the better, Gokudera-kun. Just try to keep that in mind. Anyway, it’s not like the rest of us will even know the difference, either way.” He breathes out slowly, then hits a few final keys on his computer. “Okay, the scan’s complete.”
“Great. Now what?”
“Just stay right there. Well, assuming you’re ready to go.”
Gokudera briefly meets my eyes again, then nods. “Yeah, I’m ready.”
“How far back do you want to travel?”
“Eighty-three hours,” Gokudera replies without hesitation.
Eighty-three… eighty-three… so that would be about…
“So approximately noon on Tuesday?” Irie says, inputting the coordinates.
Noon on Tuesday… our meeting with Tsuna. When we talked about the Bartolli family. The last thing I told him I remembered. I shoot him a confused glance; this time, he ignores me. “Yes,” he answers Irie.
“All right.” Irie finishes entering the numbers, then hesitates, looking back at Gokudera. “…This is it.”
Gokudera takes a deep breath, and nods.
“Good luck,” Irie says.
“…Thanks.”
I reach over to Gokudera; my hand passes through his, but he starts at the gesture and looks up at me, seeming to catch its meaning all the same.
“See you on the other side,” I tell him.
“…Yeah.”
Then Irie’s screen flashes ‘CONFIRM’, and he hits ‘Enter’, and the world is swallowed by white light.
Gokudera is staring at me.
I stare back at him. Then blink, and look around.
And then I end up staring at me as well.
“Gokudera-kun?” asks Tsuna uncertainly.
“—Boss!” Gokudera starts, at the exact same moment that I say, “Tsuna!” Tsuna doesn’t give any indication that he’s heard me, but continues to look at Gokudera with concern. Gokudera glances back to me hurriedly, his expression flickering between confusion, panic, and that rapidly calculating look he gets when he’s thinking up a strategy right on the spot.
Then he turns back to Tsuna. “…Sorry,” he stammers. “I lost my train of thought for a second. …Uh, we were talking about…”
“Frank Bartolli,” I fill in. No, wait. He fills in. The other me.
This is really weird.
“Right,” Gokudera is saying. He looks slightly more composed now, though oddly schizophrenic, and I suddenly remember that if the time machine worked the way Irie said it would, Gokudera probably has his hands full just dealing with himself, let alone two of me.
“Wait, you can still see me, right?” I say out loud, hoping desperately that that hasn’t changed.
He shoots a discreet side glance at me in acknowledgement, then turns back to the others. “Bartolli… I don’t think we can trust the guy.”
“You don’t think the money will be enough?” the other me says.
“It still only comes to a fraction of what he was making before we chased his drug guys out of that territory. He’s gotta be pissed.”
“He definitely is,” Tsuna breaks in. “But his family doesn’t have the resources to threaten us, do they?”
“If they tried anything, they’d be wiped out by the retaliation,” Gokudera affirms. For the briefest of seconds he looks stricken; then he continues. “But if he feels like he has nothing left to lose, he might try it anyway.”
“You think he’s that desperate now?”
“I’m just saying, we can’t rule it out. We need to be on our guard.”
“Aren’t we always?” the other me laughs. Gokudera shoots him an odd look that’s sort of a combination of annoyance and unease, but other me doesn’t seem to pick up on it.
Tsuna does, however. “Gokudera-kun?” he says, fixing him with that familiar perceptive Tsuna gaze. When Gokudera turns back to him, he asks, “Is something wrong?”
For a second I’m certain Gokudera is just going to confess everything. But I’ve forgotten how good he can be at keeping everything locked in, because instead he replies, “I just think we should take this seriously, Tenth. I don’t have—”
(a good feeling about this)
“—a good feeling about this.”
I blink. What—
“All right,” Tsuna says. “If you’re that worried, I’ll get Reborn to make sure our people keep—”
(an extra-close watch)
“—an extra-close watch on them.”
And the other me is saying something too, but I can’t make out what, because all of a sudden the room is fading in and out, and I gasp, because it feels like my chest has suddenly been plunged in ice water.
Gokudera turns toward me again just as I fold in on myself, and his face is pale, but not out of concern; it’s because everything is losing its color, its focus. And I need to steady myself, but I can’t touch anything, so I close my eyes for a second, just a second…
When I open them again, everything is back to normal. I breathe a sigh of relief, and instantly feel warmer. Then confusion sets back in and I look around, realizing I’m no longer in the conference room. I’m standing outside the shrine entrance to the base, instead.
And there’s Gokudera, standing only a few feet from me, puffing away on a cigarette. “Hey,” I say, momentarily forgetting about everything else that just happened. “I thought you quit.”
And he spins around so fast he would have probably knocked me over if I were still corporeal. “There you are,” he bursts. “Shit, I thought I really did hallucinate you. What the fuck! One second you’re there, the next you’re gone!”
“Wait, what?” I ask, frowning. “What are you talking about?”
“Back at the meeting, idiot! All of a sudden you said something and grabbed yourself like you were cold and then you just disappeared!”
“Disappeared? But I’m right…” I trail off. I’m right here now, but a moment ago, I was…
“Not to mention, I can’t believe you’re still here to begin with! It’s one thing for you to haunt me when you were actually dead, but to follow me back in time and then be standing there two feet away from your physical fucking body—Okay, what the fuck is going on?!”
“What—” I start to ask, but he interrupts me, seemingly on a completely different tangent then before.
“Why are there two of you?! What the fuck is going on with my head, and what—” He pauses, then takes on an incredulous look. “—Time travel??”
He then goes completely silent for so long that at first I’m concerned, and then very abruptly it becomes the most hilarious thing in the universe.
“Gokudera…” I begin, fighting the urge to crack up, “Are you… arguing with yourself?”
“Shut up,” he says so forcefully that it really does sound like two of him saying it at the same time, and now I do laugh, and once I start it feels so good that it takes me at least a minute to finally get myself back under control again.
Gokudera glares daggers at me. “If you weren’t already a ghost, I would fucking kill you.”
I’m trying to calm down, really I am, but I still can’t help giggling a bit more. “O… okay,” I manage at last.
“Fucking hell.” He pauses, taking another long drag from his cigarette, then sighs. “And I can’t believe I’m going to be stuck like this for another week. Fucking Irie.”
“So what’s it like, exactly?” I ask.
“Like there’s two fucking people in my head,” he says, fixing me with a look of supreme exasperation. “The fuck kind of stupid question…”
I grin. “Maybe this is a good chance for you to get to know yourself better.” He glares at me even harder, if possible, and I wave my hands pacifyingly. “I’m serious! You’re a really great guy, you know. Maybe this can help with, like… your self-esteem…”
“Oh my God,” he groans, flailing his own hands around like he wants nothing more in the world than to strangle me right here and now (I’ve never seen him look more Italian). “I mean it, you know. The second I stop that fucking asshole from shooting you, I’m going to turn around and do it myself. Maybe then I’ll finally have some goddamn peace… oi. Yamamoto? Oi, what the hell…?”
I blink a few times; the room’s started to fade again. “What’s going on?”
“You’re turning all translucent, like you’re fading out,” Gokudera says, now looking thoroughly alarmed. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know…” I look down at my hands; to me they don’t seem any paler than the rest of the world around them, but if Gokudera says I’m fading… I look back up at him, at a loss.
“Fuck, it’s happening again,” he says, panicked, and the world gets brighter again suddenly, and I open my mouth to say I think it’s okay, it’s starting to pass… and then I realize I’m no longer there. I’m on a street, and the light has changed from the bright of afternoon to the reddish tinge of early evening—
(this is where it happened)
—and I’m on the ground but I can’t remember how I got there, and the sun’s in my eyes, and then Gokudera is there, cursing, yelling at me but I can’t understand what he’s saying, and his hands are pressing on my chest—
(he can touch me)
—they feel wet, slippery, and I try to take a breath, and it hurts, and he says something else, but then suddenly the pain is gone…
And I’m back in Gokudera’s apartment…
(you’re dead, idiot)
And then back on the teleporter pad…
(approximately noon on Tuesday)
—and then—
—everything is dark.
I look around frantically, trying to orient myself. As soon as the residual panic wanes, I take a breath of relief, realizing I’m back in the apartment again. Okay. I can deal with that.
I then look around for the one constant that’s been there ever since this ghost thing started happening, and sure enough, Gokudera is seated on the couch a few feet away, his attention focused on the dim glow of his laptop screen. I lean in to see what he’s studying so intently; it looks like a map of a downtown intersection.
Weird; I wonder how long he’s been at it. “What time is it?” I say aloud, and his head snaps in my direction just like before. But this time he doesn’t curse me out; only stares at me for a long moment before he turns back to the computer again.
“What does it look like?” he says at last. “It’s the middle of the fucking night.” He sighs, pulling his glasses off to rub at one of his eyes. Then he says, quietly, “You were gone for more than twelve hours.”
“I don’t remember it,” I confess. “Just, one second I was in the shrine, and the next…”
He doesn’t look at me when he says, “…Maybe it’s a good thing. Maybe it means that this is working. —Is going to work.”
I wonder what that means for me, then decide I don’t really want to think about it right now. “What about you?” I ask, changing the subject. “Still all Doctor Hyde?”
“Doctor Jekyll,” he corrects, giving me a Look. But a moment later, he says, “…It’s not as bad as it was before. Starting to get used to it, I guess. Still annoying as hell, though.”
“You’re not going to smoke anymore, are you?”
Another Look. “Just checking,” I amend.
He shakes his head and turns back to the screen. I follow his gaze again, and suddenly it hits me why he’s looking at a map.
“That’s where it happened.”
He looks at me, surprised. “You remember?”
“Bits and pieces.” I try to concentrate. It’s almost there, but I can’t quite grasp it yet.
He’s looking at me apprehensively. Trying to hide it, of course, but it’s Gokudera.
“…Well, we’re going to stop it,” he says at last.
“Yeah,” I reply, because I can’t think of anything else to say.
“You look tired,” he says. Still looks concerned.
“I am,” I say truthfully. It’s the first time I’ve been tired in days. Ever since this started.
“Maybe because of the time travel thing? I mean, we still don’t really know how that worked.”
It feels like there’s a whole lot of things I don’t know. I shrug, but don’t reply. He’s starting to get uncomfortable, I can tell, and I feel a little guilty; it’s not often that he ends up being the one trying to keep a conversation going. But there’s just so much going on, so much to think about, and it feels like I’m running out of time to put it all together.
“When does it happen?” I say at last.
“…Tomorrow afternoon. Just after four.”
“So… we should probably get some rest now.”
He doesn’t even argue. “Yeah.” He hesitates for a moment, then sighs and folds his laptop closed. He stands up, but still seems to be hanging back, unsure.
“…You gonna be all right?” he says at last.
I have no idea.
“Yeah,” I tell him.
“Okay. …Good night, I guess.”
I wait until he closes the door to his bedroom, then close my eyes and breathe out slow.
I’m running through the street; it’s late afternoon once more. There’s an instant where I almost have another freeze-up moment, wondering how I got here. Then I realize I must have blacked out again.
Which means Gokudera… I scan the street up and down, looking for any sign of him, then hesitate. Was I looking for him… or…?
Someone else. That’s right. There’s someone else I’m after—
(the guy with the gun)
—of course—he’s the one—I have to stop him—where is he—
There.
And I’m moving already, running on instinct even before I can fully process what I’m seeing. It’s like everything’s moving in bullet time. I see him lowering the window of the car he’s in, and I move closer. He takes aim with his rifle from the backseat, and I move closer. His target takes a step forward behind me—Gokudera—
—he’s aiming at Gokudera—
—the target is Gokudera—
—and he makes a final adjustment—
—and I move closer—but not enough, it’s not enough—
—and he squeezes the trigger.
A split-second later, Shigure Kintoki cleaves his neck from his shoulders. And I stumble back, the world spinning around me.
And I’m on the ground…
(I remember now)
And the sun’s in my eyes…
—but it’s early, just after dawn, and the light is bleeding in through the window blinds.
I’m back in the apartment.
I am on the floor, though. And Gokudera is crouching in front of me.
I blink at him.
“You were asleep,” he says. He doesn’t look like he’s gotten much sleep himself.
“I remember,” I tell him.
He’s quiet. Then he sits down beside me.
“How much?” he asks.
“You didn’t tell me he was aiming for you.”
He stiffens. “I didn’t…” He shifts guiltily, avoiding my gaze. “…It doesn’t matter,” he says at last.
“I know.”
He doesn’t reply.
“Is that what this is all about?” I ask him.
“Shut up.”
“Because it wasn’t your fault, you know. The guy came out of nowhere, it just happened. There wasn’t any time to react differently—”
“I said shut up,” he hisses, but I can’t, because I know him too well, and there’s a twisting fear working its way into my gut. I don’t want him to get hurt.
“Just tell me you’re not gonna do anything stupid.”
“I told you, I don’t have a fucking death wish, all right?” He pushes himself to his feet.
“But you think that’s why I’m haunting you, don’t you? Because it was supposed to be you? And I’m saying, that’s not true!”
He opens his mouth to reply, but nothing comes out. He just stands there, breathing slowly.
“…You don’t know that for sure,” he says at last.
I look him straight in the eye. “I’d rather be a ghost forever.”
“That’s because you’re a fucking self-martyring idiot.”
Look who’s talking, I think, but what I say is, “Neither of us has to be, Gokudera. That’s my point. We know how it’s going to happen now, so all we have to do is change things around, so that we’re not on that street, or we leave at a different time.”
“No,” he breaks in, “we can’t change anything around. It has to be the same.”
“What, because of the timeline?”
“Because this is what we know,” he says, and at last he sounds confident about something. “That intersection. That car. That time. If we’re not there, then what? The fucker goes and ambushes us at some other place and time, and we lose the only fucking advantage we’ve got.”
“Okay, so then we tag the guy before he can do anything. I’m just saying, we don’t have to trade places!”
“What exactly do you think I’m planning to do, Baseball Idiot?”
Kill yourself for me. The same as I’d have done if it were you.
But what I say is, “Gokudera… it’s no good if both of us don’t make it out alive.”
And it scares me that I can’t physically do anything to stop him, that the most I can do is try as hard as I can to persuade him and then hope to hell he’ll keep his word. Because he can’t do this, he can’t.
And he is listening, but I can see that in the back of his mind, he’s reluctant to put this away completely. Because we’re too similar, the both of us, when it comes to things like this. Both too stubborn.
But he can’t. He can’t.
It seems like an eternity before he finally meets my eyes again, but…
“…Okay. Fine. Shoot the guy before either of us gets hit. And both of us make it out alive.”
…Neither of us is any good at giving up, either.
I smile, giving in to the tide of relief flooding through me.
“And then it’ll finally be over,” I say.
“I sure as hell hope so,” he answers.
It’s both the longest and the shortest day of my life.
Or, you know. Unlife.
The tension is unimaginable, and all day, I can’t seem to shake this sort of jumpy, shaky feeling, the kind I sometimes get before a big game. The hours seem to drag by, and it’s made all the worse by the fact that I still can’t do anything, and the only person who can even hear me has to pretend that I don’t exist.
On the other side of things, the dizzy, fade-out feeling from yesterday hasn’t gone away. Has only gotten stronger, in fact, so that one second I’ll be standing next to Gokudera in a hallway, and the next I’ll find myself in a different room more than an hour later. And all I need to do is look at his face to confirm that I disappeared, yet again.
It’s clear that something is happening, but I don’t have a clue what. And it’s not just the fading out, either. I’m also remembering more and more, getting feelings of déjà vu during random moments and conversations. I’ll be watching the other me do or say something, and all of a sudden I’ll remember saying it myself. Piece by piece, my mind is finally starting to fill in the blanks.
Just in time for the grand finale.
Four o’clock, Gokudera said, and I remember that now, too. The way the day was just beginning to fade. The way the traffic was just starting to build. Just enough to help the sniper’s car blend in, to keep us from spotting him until it was too late.
Not this time, though.
(this time I’ll save him)
And I frown, because there was something else just now, something important.
The last piece of the puzzle.
And it’s close, so close, on the tip of my tongue, almost…
(the target is Gokudera)
And there it is, I have it, just for a second, I have it—
—and then—
—I’m on the street.
The street. The same street.
I start to panic.
Is this real? Am I remembering?
And I fling my arm out wildly, not even thinking, and it passes through a fire hydrant, of all things.
Not a dream, then. This is happening. This is happening now.
“This is it,” says a voice beside me, and I spin around—it’s Gokudera. “You were gone again,” he says, more quietly. But he barely even glances at me before he returns his hawk-eyed gaze to the street, and I realize—this really is it.
He’s looking for the car.
Looking for the guy with the gun.
I should be too, it occurs to me. And a second later, I realize that I already am. Because there he is, standing just a few feet away from Gokudera. The other me.
I sure hope you have better luck than I did, I can’t help but think at him.
And for what it’s worth, he’s on guard, just as much as Gokudera is. Gokudera must have told him, finally. Or at least he told him enough to know what to look for.
And we’re doing it all so obviously, in fact, that I almost wonder whether a sniper with any common sense would try to go through with the hit at all. I’m just about to open my mouth to say so, even.
And that’s when I see him. In the car.
Lowering the window.
And there’s no time.
“Ten o’clock,” I say hurriedly, and then again, louder: “Gokudera, ten o’clock.”
And his box weapon is already out, so fast it’s just a red blur—
And the other me has seen the car, too, and he’s starting to move—
“No!” Gokudera shouts, and his shields are out now, and the C.A.I. is locked on. “Get down!”
—do it, listen to him, please listen—
—and I do—he does—and so do a bunch of the bystanders—
And Gokudera fires.
And he hits the gun, which explodes in the sniper’s face.
And my heart is pounding a million beats per minute, but—we did it.
We did it.
And I look at Gokudera, and he looks at me, at both of us, elated, and the other me starts to climb to his feet—
And that’s when the second sniper fires.
My last moments are drawn out in unbearable detail.
The bullet hurtles through my neck before I can fully stand, arresting my momentum as I rise, sending me toppling backwards instead. Two more bullets arrive before I even hit the ground.
And as I do, a shout lashes through the air, not my voice, but Gokudera’s. Simultaneously a cry of devastation and a howl of pure rage. And he spins, and the man who shot me—the other man, the second sniper who was there all along, must have been, but we never knew it—is already in full sprint, running for his life. And it makes absolutely no difference to Gokudera, who dispatches him in less time than it takes to blink. Still roaring in outrage.
Because of course, it’s already too late.
And he’s turning again, even as his target collapses, and he drops to his knees beside me, the other me, and his hands are pressing down to stem the flow of blood from my throat and chest, and his mouth’s still moving but now there’s no sound coming out. And it doesn’t matter, because other people are screaming now, too, bystanders from all around, some moving in closer and others backing away from the scene as though their lives depend on it.
Gokudera’s lips are still moving, and now I can make out the intended words, a stream of “no, no, no”s. Not even cursing, just pleading. And he’s trying, pushing down hard, but the blood is everywhere, there’s no stopping it.
And none of it matters anyway, because I’m already dead. Was before I even hit the pavement. And he can’t see it yet, won’t, but he’ll realize soon enough.
And I watch it all, rooted in place, never moving an inch from where I stood when the man fired.
I watch it all, and at the same time, none of it.
Because what I see is not me lying dead on the ground.
What is I see is Gokudera.
Gokudera, covered in blood.
Gokudera lying dead.
(my fault)
And I remember it all now, I remember—
—I remember—
It was Gokudera who they shot.
Gokudera who they killed.
Killed him because I was too slow, because I couldn’t save him in time.
Not my fault, everyone said. Tsuna, Reborn, Dad. Even Bianchi forgave me eventually, after Reborn intervened, talked with her.
They forgave, but I couldn’t. Couldn’t forget, either. Night after night, I saw it happen in my dreams. The car, the shooter. Me running. Not fast enough.
Again and again, I saw him die. And I saw him live, too, and all the ways I could have saved him, could have done it differently.
And it was months before I thought of time travel, before I thought of Irie, before I finally convinced him it could be done, and finally convinced him I needed to do it.
I’d already convinced myself.
And then the machine, and the platform. We set the date—
(approximately noon on Tuesday)
—and I was there again, back again, with him—
—alive—
—and there were two of me in my head, but it was all right, I explained what we had to do—
—and just after four the next day, sure enough, there was the car—
—and I saw him, this time, I saw him—
(but not the second one)
(neither of us ever noticed the second one)
—almost in time to save us both; fast enough to save him…
But not fast enough to save myself.
(what would happen if they died?)
(I can’t say for sure. But it probably wouldn’t be good)
But it was okay; he was the important one. I changed that part, I saved him…
(like there’s two fucking people in my head)
Only…
(if your consciousness had a physical body to anchor itself to…)
(you’re a ghost that’s haunting me, specifically)
Only, I think part of me got left behind.
I’m back in the apartment again.
And he’s there too, of course. Gokudera. Sitting hunched with his forehead resting on his hand, his other hand fiddling idly with a cigarette lighter. Lost, defeated. Beaten down by the situation that I forced him to be in.
And I remember all the months I spent reliving his death, and then I think one of the most selfish things I’ve ever thought: I don’t regret what I did. Even if he’s hurting because of it. Because at least he’s alive to do that much.
He notices me then, before I can say anything to him, and his eyes take on focus once more. And what he says to me is: “I’ll try again.”
And what I want to say to him back is, It’s not your fault.
And, It’s my fault, I’m sorry.
And, I’m glad you’re okay, please always be okay.
And I want to explain everything that’s happened, explain to him why I’ve been a burden on him for the past five days, and exactly what’s really going on.
But I can’t. Because once again my senses have been plunged in ice, and the world around me is starting to flicker, and everything is beginning to go faint.
And now I finally understand why. Because it’s been just about a week, after all.
And that’s all the time I had.
So instead, I swallow back the rest of it, the guilt and the regret.
And I tell him: “…Don’t give up, okay?”
Because I know now exactly what I’m leaving him to. And I know how hard it will be.
But…
(it’s no good if both of us don’t make it out alive)
…But he’s stubborn, after all.
Just like me.
I meet his eyes, and he nods, biting his lip but saying nothing more.
And then…
Nothing.
Gokudera pauses by the curb, and does a long, thorough scan of the street.
“Looking for something?” I ask.
“Huh?” He looks up.
“You’ve been doing that an awful lot lately,” I say. Ever since that assassination attempt last Wednesday, in fact. But I don’t mention that part.
He makes a face and looks away. “It’s fine. Mind your own fucking business.”
I laugh, slinging an arm around his shoulders. “Hey, hey. Anyone ever tell you that you worry too much?”
To my surprise, he doesn’t try to shove me off. “That’s because you don’t worry enough,” he grumbles.
“Hmm… then I guess it’s a good thing I’ve got you to look out for me, right?”
He makes a noncommittal noise in response. But there’s an expression on his face that I can’t describe, when he looks back at me. Surprised, thoughtful, maybe even a little touched. It’s strange, because normally he doesn’t open up that easily. But he’s been acting like this a lot these last few days.
I chuckle softly, and grip his shoulders a little tighter, since he’s still not pushing me away. “Everything okay?” I ask as lightheartedly as I can. Letting him know that if he wants to talk about it, it’s okay. And if not, that’s fine too.
He’s quiet for a long moment.
“…I’ll tell you someday,” he says at last.
“Okay,” I smile, because if he says he will, he will. “So that’s a ‘yes’, then?”
And whatever it is that’s on his mind, whatever else he may be hiding, when he looks at me to answer, I know that this, at least, is the absolute truth.
“Aa,” he says. “Everything’s fine.”
- Haha, so. DID ANY OF THAT MAKE ANY SENSE? I had these long, elaborate notes written out explaining exactly what happened there in the end, but since Shouichi's hours-long time travel explanation already violated the "show, don't tell" rule more than enough, I tried my best to avoid straight-up exposition. If anything was particularly unclear, feel free to ask/comment and I'll do my best to answer.
- I swear I do not get my jollies from killing off Yamamoto, really. XD It's just that I love all of the resulting angst too much. Especially when it involves Gokudera, and especially the kinder/gentler/fuzzier Gokudera from post-Future Arc.
- WAY TO BRING BACK BYAKURAN RIGHT WHEN I'M ON THE VERGE OF FINISHING MY FIRST-EVER FIC THAT ACTUALLY BREAKS THE LJ POST LIMIT AND HAPPENS TO FEATURE A CAMEO FROM HIM, AMANO.
...and okay, I think that's all now.