There had been a woman killed in Namimori.
The eyewitness said he didn't actually see it happen. But how else could it have gone down? There was a woman in a traditional yukata running this way, and there were men in black running that way. And not long after that there was an unnerving scream coming from an abandoned warehouse. The men in black came out after a short pause.
The woman in the traditional yukata had not come out again.
The eyewitness had called 110.
A police had shown up and examined the crime scene, waiting for the eyewitness to finish up.
Finally he had had a close connection.
He had had Hibari Koishi.
His mother was killed when he was five.
He was informed about that while he was eating supper with his father. They were having kaiseki ryori for the meal. It was nice, until one of his father's subordinates came in and broke the news.
His father immediately stopped eating. He didn't. His father started jumping around and panicking about the security system. He didn't. His father asked a lot of questions. He didn't. His father begged to see the witness. He didn't. His father came to see the dead body. He didn't. His father cried at the funeral. He didn't.
Oh, he did, just a little bit.
To be fair, he was just five years old. Five-year-old kids didn't think much of anything, especially things that were not familiar to them. But he did admit that he didn't have a very close relationship with his mother. Not that he hated her. He actually felt comfortable being around her indeed. And she cooked and dressed him. Provided him with vital necessaries. We should never hate someone who did that for us.
But he didn't understand her. She was a depressed woman, with a very depressing outlook on life. She often lied around the house all day, waiting for him to finish school, and for his father to finish work. She didn't have that kind of 'the Tokugawa attitude' their family had always been proud of.
Being the descendants of Tokugawa Ieyasu meant being the descendants of the greatest rulers of Japan during the Edo period, who had changed the late nineteenth century Japan into a restless, aggressive one. The Tokugawa shoguns saw no merit in Western culture, and they isolated Japan from it for just over two centuries. They sought to produce social stability by imposing on the Japanese people a social order based on clearly defined and rigidly maintained class lines. And so did his father, what he had done to Namimori.
But his mother highly objected to the belief. She was westernized; she was seeking out for peace and equality. She didn't really appreciate the idea of Namimori being divided into ranks like a military base. She played well her role in the family, but she was displeased, she was still somehow rebellious, and she put them all on her pretty face. But his father loved her anyway. And that was what he didn't understand the most.
He was heavily influenced by his family's history. He was brought up traditionally. He was taught traditionally. Everything about him was traditional. He had learnt pretty clear by the age of five that, to serve Namimori well, you ought to be tough, military-like and of course, passionate about it. He had learnt to love and to stick to the town ever since he was born there, ever since he was first called by the name, Hibari Kyoya.
After the fateful incident, Hibari Koichi locked himself up and drank nearly to death every day.
And eventually, he passed away.
On his deathbed, he had made his son to swear loyalty to Namimori, and to the old but vicious Tokugawa Shogunate.
To which his son answered 'yes', without a second to think about it.
He peacefully closed his eyes. At last.
A year after his mother's death, his dad followed.
In the funeral, he cried a lot, a lot more than he had expected.
He was his son after all.
Two years after his mother's death and one after his father's. Kyoya was now under his uncle's supervision, which was cold and brutal and full of blood.
But he didn't think much about it. He still didn't think much of everything.
So many things had passed that he found it hard to keep track of them all. And if he hadn't been very careful with his memory, maybe he would have forgotten all of them, including how much he had cried in his father's funeral, and how little he had cried in his mother's.
He was only seven. He was only a child.
Until he met a thing.
Note: Giotto, Iemitsu and Tsuna are all somehow named after the Tokugawa shoguns.