Silent Pain

Chapter 6

Warning: This chapter as depictions of torture. Nothing too graphic but it's mentioned nonetheless.

Tsuna found himself in his backyard standing in front of Dino, who had a baseball mitt on his hand. Tsuna looked down and saw there was one on his hand as well. He also had the ball in his other hand. "Come on," Dino said in an encouraging tone. "Throw it over here."

Tsuna sighed but gave a small and almost unnoticeable smile before he passed the ball to Dino. However, his lack of athletic skills mixed with his clumsy nature caused the ball to completely miss Dino. Tsuna winched and looked away only to hear a gentle chuckle. He looked up to see Dino giving him a reassuring smile as he went to pick up the ball. "Don't worry. You'll get better."

He passed the ball back to Tsuna and Tsuna even managed to put his mitt in front of it but failed to keep the ball there as he tumbled and dropped it. He quickly scrambled to pick it up and Dino chuckled gently again. "Relax. It's just a game of catch."

Tsuna took in a breath and tossed the ball back to Dino. He missed again but this time Dino reached out in order to catch it. Dino looked back at Tsuna, holding the mitt with the ball in it in front of him to show Tsuna, and gave a goofy smile that made Tsuna chuckle.

Suddenly, Dino's face contorted into a demonic smile and his eyes and mouth started to glow an eerily bright but menacing shade of red. His body turned pitch black as it was covered in shadows and the ball became skinnier and longer until it transformed into a whip. Tsuna tried to run but suddenly found himself tied up and lying on the ground. With a crack of the whip, pain spread its way through Tsuna's entire body and he crawled up into as much of a ball as he could with his arms and legs tied up in order to protect as much of his body as possible. A small figure covered in shadows with the same demonic face as the other appeared and held out its hand as something crawled into it before transforming into another whip. They attacked Tsuna again and he let out a muffled grunt as he tried to resist crying out in pain. As they continued Tsuna was finding it harder and harder to resist the urge to give in to the pain, but he refused to scream. He knew how to handle this situation. It was nothing he hadn't been through before. In the long run he could never hold out forever, but if he was going to be tortured for the fun of it, then he wasn't going to make it easy for them. Suddenly the endless assault stopped and the taller shadow made its way over to Tsuna. It grabbed Tsuna by the hair and forced him to look it in its demonic red eyes.

"You're a stubborn little brat," it said. "No matter. I know what will make you cry." It dropped Tsuna and took out a small book-like object. Tsuna froze as he realized it was his photo album. "Did you really think you could hide it from me?" Tsuna's eyes widened and his pupils shrunk to the size of pin needles as the figure lit a match.

'No,' he thought as the match drew closer. Once it made contact the album instantly burst into flames and was completely engulfed.

"No!" Tsuna screamed and realized that he was now in a dark room. As his eyes adjusted, he realized that it was his room and he was in bed. Tsuna let out a sigh of relief. It was just another nightmare. He had them almost every night, but it had been a long time since he had one that bad. Suddenly the door flew open with a crash and Dino was standing in the doorway, seemingly terrified.

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Dino awoke to the sound of a scream. "Tsuna!" he shouted as he jumped out of the bed and dashed through the hall. Upon reaching Tsuna's room he threw the door open so fast that it crashed into the wall. "Tsuna! Are you okay!?" Tsuna, still sitting on his bed, just tilted his head.

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Tsuna reached over to his nightstand and grabbed his notepad. [Yes.]