Chapter 66

A chair appears next to him, between Verde and Skull, and he sits. The Mist, Viper, gasps quietly next to her. "A solid illusion."

She doesn't know the implication of a solid illusion, but she can guess. Especially when it surprises an information broker. She's now wary of the blue-haired man, who chooses not to sit, simply deciding to lean on Tsuna's chair.

"Mou. It's curious how you've met all of us while we all know you by different names," Viper starts, speaking for the first time. "It's obvious this not a simple job offer, so let's start with, who are you, really, and what do you want with us?"

Tsuna nods. "My name's Tsunayoshi. My last name is of no importance. Just know that I'm part of the Vongola lineage. I—I don't want anything but to help you and, believe me, you'll need that help." He eyes the center of the table where all the pacifiers are. "It's too late to save you, after all ."

"What do you mean?" she asks, trying to ignore the glance the martial artist and the hitman share. "And I'm to guess these two are on it?"

"No, they don't know. They're just my friends. And actually, I didn't know everything until an hour ago. But that doesn't matter, the important thing is that you're cursed." He nods in the direction of the pacifiers. "The moment you touched those things you were cursed."

The Chinese man leans forward. "You keep mentioning that word, Tsuna."

"I know and I'm sorry. I suck at explaining things and..." he trails off to look up at the masked man with a pleading look.

The Mist sighs and nods, before saying. "I think we should start by talking about the tri-ni-set, a device that guides the growth and development of life on Earth while maintaining the balance of its life force. This device was separated into two sets of rings and one set of pacifiers currently administered by who you know as the man in the Iron Hat. Each set has its own notion of time they safeguard."

At this he glances at Tsuna, who nods, not daring to look up from the table. "The Vongola rings safeguard the past, while the Mare rings are in charge of the parallel timelines. The Arcobaleno pacifiers instead are fixed points in time, maintaining the balance of both sets of rings.

"Each has its own type of course, of course. However, the rings are mostly sealed as to not drive the user crazy, though that doesn't change the fact that their souls will never move forward from the rings after they die."

He takes a deep breath, seemingly preparing to say something heavier, "The pacifiers are not sealed at all. They can't be, not really. In short, it uses your souls as batteries, making the flames of the Earth pass through you to cleanse them. You're cursed to take a purer form of yourselves to do so."

There's a moment of silence.

"And you really think we will believe this?" Lal snorts, ready to stand up, but one look at the serious face of the young Sky in front of her stops her. "What?"

He turns away, towards Verde. "Do you have my phone on you?"

What?

The Verde guy pulls some kind of rectangle out of the inside of his jacket and gives it to Tsuna, who starts fiddling with it immediately. Lal is amazed to see the seeming crystal light up, icons appearing inside.

"What's that? It's so pretty," Skull asks, Lal silently agreeing with him.

"This is a phone," he says as if he were talking about the weather. "But you're right, it's not from this time. I'm not from this time either. I—I wanted to help you." His fingers paused, his eyes becoming watery. "Usually after the role of an arcobaleno is done, they die. And I couldn't let you die like that. Not after being cursed in those bodies for so long."

Lal frowns, not understanding. Luckily, she's not the only one. The Chinese man places his hand on top of Tsuna's when he falls silent, causing him to startle a little. "Tsuna."

"I'm sp sorry," he whispers, looking at them all. "I didn't recognize you when I met you. I thought. I—" The hand around his own tightens briefly before it lets go. Tsuna seems to gain strength from that touch as he presses one last finger on the screen of the 'phone'. It opens an image. One Tsuna turns for them to have a better look on.

It's of a couple of babies, all surrounding a small girl. She doesn't find anything weird about it at first glance but by the sudden intake of breath coming from the other Sky in the room, she seems to understand.

"Is that...?"

"Yes, she's Yuni. Your granddaughter." He looks down again. "And those babies are you all, with the curse on."

Lal wants to question what he does mean but then she inspects better the image and looks at the babies on it, especially at the one with blue hair and an injured face. The clothes are of the familiar style she prefers, the same color as her hair. And those eyes. Those eyes are hers. She looks at the others and sees similarities with the other people in this room, but there's one more. A blonde baby with a familiar bandana.

"That's..." she doesn't finish. She doesn't think she can with the sudden weight settling in her stomach.

Because that's Colonello.

.

Again, I'm back online. With a new computer and finally having paid Office for this year, I now have Word and will stop fumbling with Google documents for a while.

I think that's what mostly put me off of writing as Google Docs was not really good for me to use (It was Hell). So hopefully I'll be writing more. I've been mostly writing this fic on my phone and is the one with the most chapters so I'll be updating this in the meantime.

Thank you for your support! And if you want to give even more support (Or read more chapters ahead and the Smut), then go to my pa_treon/JorieDS