The Summoning Pact

Chapter Five - Stumbling Onwards

The whispering started on a winter Saturday when Tsuna was eleven. Following the whispers came the sympathetic looks, the pointing, and the avoiding him in the corridors.

On Sunday morning, he found out what was going on. While walking into the communal dining hall, someone, he never saw who, passed by and dropped a newspaper in front of him, missing his breakfast by a bare inch. Everyone in the hall felt the air go tense. The place went cold.

Ever curious, Tsuna unrolled the newspaper. His whole world came crashing down as he read the front page, heart dropping into his stomach, what felt like ice shards were stuck in his throat as he swallowed abortively.

No one stopped him as he stumbled to his feet, paper clasped in numb fingers, and fled the hall.

Unnoticed, in the corner of the room, a young man frowned as he watched the distraught boy run.

When Tsuna came to, he felt like someone had punched him in the face several times. His eyes were slightly swollen, his mouth tasted of blood and was inexplicably dry and his head was pounding.

An attempt to move resulted in a flare of pure agony across the side of his body, but before the whimper had left him, Reborn was there, sitting on the edge of the bed and reaching across to brush his fingertips against the brunette's cheek.

Tsuna liked to think he was taking the pain away, the burn fading to a soft ache.

"You're an idiot," Reborn deadpanned, hand moving to smooth Tsuna's hair back from his forehead. That was when Tsuna became aware of the loud beeping and the tightness of his chest.

"Reborn?" Tsuna asked, his voice little more than a croak. He winced before panic rushed through him as he realised that he couldn't feel his arm, just a mess of pain connected to his shoulder. He tried to sit up to turn and look.

"You purposefully annoyed a demon. A dangerous demon. And then you died for approximately three minutes due to blood loss." Reborn's voice was flat, devoid of any emotion. Tsuna felt a shiver of fear run down his spine, the emotion briefly dwarfing the almost overwhelming pain.

Emboldened, Tsuna muttered back, eyes darting across the room without really looking at the other, "It killed fifteen people in less than four minutes. I couldn't let it continue. So I shouted at it. I'm not cruel enough to stand by and do nothing while it killed people."

Reborn's hand moved to tangle in his hair tightly, almost painfully, to force Tsuna to make eye contact with him as he reiterated, voice with more conviction, more emotion, "You died, Tsuna. You don't get to do that."

"Oh, and what part of you dictates what I do with my life?" Tsuna shot back, trying to pull Reborn's hand from his hair, but the movement caused pain to rattle in his body and his vision briefly turned white as he jerked against the bed, dry retching as Reborn shoved a bowl under his nose, dragging him – carefully – to a seated position.

"Because you're mine and I'm yours. And I don't want to lose what we have." Reborn sounded softer now. His free hand pressed to Tsuna's back to keep him steady and upright. "You might notice you can't feel your arm, but can feel the pain. The healers put a status rune on you so you can't move and damage it further. There's nothing they can do about the pain without disturbing the rune."

"My...arm?" Tsuna asked, voice breaking. The memories of what he had done came rushing back and he doubled over the bowl again, bringing up bile and something awful that burned his throat.

"Yeah. Your arm. It was almost ripped from your shoulder by the demon."

"Where were you?" Tsuna questioned blearily though, swaying in his position until Reborn propped pillows behind him, stolen from the adjacent bed behind him. "...People died. And then I remember it biting me and…"