Title: Bed of Nails

Rating: T (may rise later on).

Full summary: Koizumi Maho never thought life could be so complicated, despite being best friends with Yamamoto Takeshi since she can remember and being a true magnet to all kind of trouble – especially hurtful ones. But, when she's introduced to the Tenth Boss of the Vongola Famiglia, and meets the troublesome yet intriguing leader of Namimori's Disciplinary Committee, Kyouya Hibari, everything seems to turn upside down to never be the same again.

Disclaimer: I definitely don't own Katekyo Hitman Reborn! nor any of its characters (which is a shame, because I would make really good use of Yamamoto, Hibari, Mukuro and the Varia). They all belong to Akira Amano (for the time being), and I only use them to write these things I like to call "stories".

Hello there! I will be brief. English is not my mother language, but Spanish, so if there would be some kind of atrocious and unforgivable grammatical mistake, please tell me and I will fix it. I'm truly sorry if there's any (being such a grammar freak, I search that stupid perfection…). Now, you may finally read :3


PROLOGUE.


«Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans. »

John Lennon


"So you have come, after all," the delinquent smirked. "Koizumi Maho."

The girl stepped out of the crowd, gathered in that empty street exclusively to see the spectacle.

"Did you expect otherwise?" asked her, dropping her school bag on the floor. Then, she yawned and stretched her arms over her head. "Let's try and finish this as soon as possible. I'm tired."

The spectators murmured among themselves, as they watched how that little girl stood in front of that gorilla of a young man, defiantly, awfully serene. Any other guy would have runaway for then, but she seemed almost… excited. They all had heard from Koizumi Maho. They said she was able to defeat every single foolish bastard that had dared to defy her – and those were many foolish bastards who attempted to take the challenge. She always beat them. No one knew much about her, indeed, but she was known throughout the entire city as the Green Dragon of Namimori. She was enigmatic, she was skillful, and she was really fast.

"Come on, babe, we don't have all day," laughed the idiotic thug.

The girl smirked, putting on a pair of black leather fingerless gloves. "We do not, don't we?" Once she was ready, the huge guy charged at her with the strength of a wild rhinoceros. The crowd wasn't sure at all when she had exactly moved, but she had moved. The girl had jumped over the thug, sinking heavily her right feet in his neck, while using the other to impulse herself again upwards on his wide back. They couldn't believe what they just saw, but the bully on the ground seemed unconscious, a little pool of blood around his head where his nose had cracked against the hard concrete. The petite girl landed gracefully on the opposite side of the road.

"As I thought, much ado about nothing," she sighed, picking up her black satchel from the floor. Then, under the astonished gaze of the crowd moving away as the girl passed, she walked away.


Maho hadn't ever considered herself to be different from the rest. She only… attracted a lot of unwanted attention.

She was the youngest in a small family of three siblings. There was Hideki, her older brother, and there was Madoka, her older sister. There was also Miss Minami, their sixty-years-old landlady, who had taken care of her since she was able to remember. Their parents had died five years ago in a terrible car accident when a truck had pushed them out of the road. It was a rainy night, and the trucker couldn't see the car coming. The police said they had died in the spot, but she hadn't believed it, not once, because of the dreadful nightmares that assaulted her mind in stormy nights like that one. Her siblings said they were only dreams, but Maho couldn't help it, when that happened she always woke up covered in sweat in the middle of the night, screaming.

Hideki was a really successful lawyer, known throughout Japan, and who often received work from the very United States of America. Hideki also was truly handsome. He had jet black hair, and the shining green eyes from their foreign mother. Hideki always had a word for everything, was awesome, intelligent, and very overprotective regarding people around Maho. He was twenty-five.

Madoka, on the other hand, was like a fiery hurricane. She was twenty-one, and had a prestigious scholarship to study acting abroad, in California. She had worked as a model since sixteen, for her being a definitely exotic beauty. Madoka had long wavy dark hair, lightly tanned skin, and piercing grey eyes. She had an awful temper and a deep sense of pride and honor; she couldn't stand men at all.

In that environment, Maho felt safe and out of place equally.

Maho was currently fifteen, but there was nothing that indicated she was going to succeed in life as her brother and sister. Though she really didn't care too much. The only things she was good at were both fighting and taking pictures and, even if she liked photography much, she still was way better at battling. Her luck. Maho hadn't joined any of Namimori martial arts' club because she wasn't proud at all of her abilities. She had been fighting since she could remember, learning from her siblings – her family had something about knowing how to defend yourself –, and there was nothing more to tell about it.

While other girls received love letters, she received challenges. A lot of written challenges every day, most of them usually from other schools, since she tried to hide her skills in Namimori. She didn't want her classmates too, to think weird about her.

It was a relief that in her school everybody wondered who Namimori's Green Dragon actually was, not knowing about her, although the whole city could recognize her walking on the streets. She was doing a good job hiding it all, it seemed.

Maho neither had her brother's brilliance nor her sister's grace, but she was somewhat attractive herself. She didn't know why, though. People always said that her being short for her age was something that made her cute, but she hated being small; she had creamy skin and soft features, much like her mother's, and she was enviably curvy despite her height, but she normally hide it all wearing always baggy shirts, jeans and military boots – which made her actually feel taller. Her dark chocolate hair was divided into two layers, a longer one up to the elbows, straight, and one upper, up to the chin, which tended to curl lightly. And she also had big green-grayish eyes.

Hideki was always babbling about how all the guys at her school should be going after her – for him to kill them for doing it, though –, and Madoka constantly reminded her she was beautiful. But she thought otherwise, much to their exasperation.

She wasn't too good at making and keep friends, either. Throughout her life, she just had had a real friend. His name was Yamamoto Takeshi. Her father was the owner of a sushi store near the Koizumi's house, and he was a year younger than Maho. They had been together since she could remember, so Maho couldn't imagine her life without Takeshi's reassuring smiles. They went to the Namimori Middle School, and she cheered him in his baseball matches while he did the same in her swimming competitions – because Maho was also the star member in the swimming team, since Takeshi had obliged her to join last year. Now, if she decided to quit, her teammates would kill her.

Maho's life wasn't the best, and it wasn't peaceful, but she liked it. How could she know, it was going to change so soon?


This was just some kind of... introduction to the main character, though there's a lot more to discover about her along with the story. Maho is a really complicated girl, I don't even fully understand her, but she's one of the most interesting characters I have ever developped and I hope she remains the object of my pride despite of my useless writer's skills. I truly hope not to destroy her personality in the following chapters.