I do not own Katekyo Hitman Reborn!

"I fell in to a burning ring of fire
I went down,down,down
and the flames went higher.
And it burns,burns,burns
the ring of fire
the ring of fire."

-Johnny Cash, 'Ring of Fire'

PIROUETTES ON CLOUD NINE
;;prologue

People crossed the bridge behind her as she sourly leaned against the rail. There were mothers coming home with groceries for dinner, mailmen making their final rounds, younger kids drinking soda and jeering. On the banks, old people sat on their porches in rocking chairs, telling each other the evening was wonderful, drinking tea and basking in the normal peace that skims the world like the cream of milk. Yuka was the only one with this lead ball of angst consuming her like a violent scribble. Oh dear. We are beginning from the middle, aren't we? Let me flip to another dog-ear...

What is the recipe for a normal day? Nothing is normal – ever normal – in the world of reborn or even in reality for that matter! We each have secrets, tasty tales mocked on soap operas. The girl who sits behind you in English, well, she's rather bitter about her parents' divorce. That guy over there, grinning with the soccer ball under his arm, he beats his little brother up all the time and likes to sneak his dad's beer. (He thinks he's cool, you know?) War. Cancer. STDs. Let me set a stage like Shakespeare reads the tabloids.

Are there girls who talks about their boyfriends so often that all their single friends turn their shoulders? Are there guys reading porn on there phone when their mothers merely assume they are obnoxiously texting at the dinner table? We complain that girls hate each other and that guys are stupid perverted assholes, but when is this true? Boys are sensitive but can never admit it. Girls are scared about confronting their issues because it's embarrassing. In the end, everyone speaks too much and says too little. No one can read minds. Misunderstandings ensue. Cruel intentions. Boring friends. Pestering cell phone ring tones. Crushes. Stalking. Confessing. Confessing! What is this, a manga? Sort of? (Don't ask me!) Confessing? Alcohol! (Durr!) And a string of events that will end in a divorce, and then, living through your children.

Whoops, no, that's just what's on my Vitamin Water bottle. Yamamoto loves'em, but he usually just gets a coke like his friends because its cheaper. He's also a little too simple to admit that the world is really a collection of isolated fishbowl towns just like Namimori. His chemistry grade is too low for him to really appreciate how every man is made of islands of atoms nudging each other. Let's not be pretentious. Let's be more like Yamamoto for a second. Kids! Children! The sun will smile in its snazzy aviators as the storm clouds waddle about the horizon. Girls will discuss this over kawaii cakes as rain will splash the windows. Thunder will hover over the radio tower and strike where once the Shinto hermits hummed in their gardens. And the sky will be saturated with color. Oh, the sky! It's on every page! We are always looking up, not down! Never read between the lines. A drawing might tell a thousand words, but I can tell you far more in this corner of a manga plot, isolated in the cave of a fan fiction URL.

So Yuka, another spin-the-bottle protagonist chick, had secrets, problems, and strife like gnats in her eyes. The Namimori citizenry had no reason to suspect the innocuous schoolgirl, meditating upon the current, to be plotting murder or mutiny. Yuka munched her gum with a vengeance while her dark eyes followed the dancing ripples below. She pinched her lips and pulled her gum, a disgusting habit really. Her heel scratched at her socks. What a kid. The air vibrated with the heat of teenage angst and the fermentation of plowed feelings. Oh god.

A storm was coming in from the pacific, giving the river an inky, mysterious darkness. Namimori, district of suburbs and Tokyo commuters, homeland of the average Takeshi, was having a pretty gorgeous moment – nature stretching its poetry. Those dark depths—they threatened her with their suffocating power. Yuka stared into the murkiness, vexed and uncomfortable as she pressed her thumb to her chin and leaned her weight on the rail. If she could only eliminate that renegade School Disciplinary President, Hibari Kyoya. She was having trouble with school, too. Children these days the old folks would mumble – lessons, rules, pavement where there feet should touch grass – what ever happened to a real childhood? Even Tsuna will grow up with the rottenness of exams that emphasize the zero of his hero. Yeah, Yuka wondered what time it was, and then, stubbornly threw the thought away. Why should she care?

If she hadn't brawled with the Head Prefect on Wednesday, she would have never gotten in trouble with her guardian, the ferocious Lal Mirch. No dilly-dallying. Smelling roses was for day-dreaming wimps. Roses didn't grow into our noses, after all. "See, even in Wonderland, smelling a flower was ridiculous idea," Lal would once scoff behind the large storybook she once read, pointing at the illustration. "Like I always would tell you." Oh, the commentaries that girl suffered as she hugged her teddy.

But transferring from Midori to Namimori last week had been a mistake. Why not Kokuyo? She already knew a couple people there, vaguely. But Lal Mirch had preferred the flagship academy and that was why Yuka had switched from a buttercup yellow jersey to a white button-up.

But why switch at all?

The Varia hunting dogs had her scarf in their nose. Lal Mirch didn't like it. Their smoke bombs and swords weren't Lal Mirch's gig. "School, then University, and then, the military," Lal had prompted. "The Varia are a pack of idiots." She was Lal Mirch's puppy dog. 'Like hell anyone would touch her.'

The girl puzzled over her life with an impatient stare. She saw nothing but the swirl of her thoughts in the inky lines of the current. Every time she thought for herself, she realized how defenseless she was against the Varia. Their dark coats, their secret agent technology, and their reputation alone, why, she should have a bullet through her forehead by now. But Hibari, he was just Hibari. One guy. Same age. How much training had he over her? She fumed like a sour brat at violin lessons that hated practicing and jealously watched the best player in the class fiddle the national anthem. What made Hibari so special? Why couldn't he have this attention thrown at him. Why couldn't he be the miserable and angry one? Oh, the governor of Namimori, king of the castle, with the thumping-red stamp to veto and the old man's frown to match.

Unfortunately, it was difficult for such a rough-and-tumble girl to qualm her monkey king kung-fu fury. How could she really stop fighting? Look how long it takes for a war to fizzle into the gutter, and then remind yourself that Yuka is the result of a military education honed by the she-devil herself. The Jane Austen cunning of an all Girl's preparatory school doesn't help either. Lot of hot air in this one. A cute little paradox, you know, to match that black and white photograph of delinquent disciplinarian. You know, neither of them wants a hero.

At Namimori, she could judge the prefect as if she had voted against him in the primary. You can bet he got it worse than G.W. from her.

Yeah, what an idiot! Men could be so pushy! Pushy like riptides. You had to fight with all your mettle to reach dry land. And this violence, this language men chattered, trying to silence her with their ruckus, well, she had become pretty fluent. But for now, her fists were silenced, mute, tied. Because women didn't fight back. Women that did, well, rumors spread, and rumors were dangerous when an assassination team was combing the town. She would have to bury her fighting spirit once more. Maybe her happily ever after could come one day. She scried the river for revenge as Rapunzel might have scanned the horizon for her prince, which was maybe what finally made her decide that this entire boo-fucking-hoo display was stupid. The water leaped up the support columns, chorusing her thoughts.

She had fought too long and too hard. Her stitched uniform symbolized her struggle. Girlhood was at stake. No system, no man, no submissive gender role would make her go silently into the night. Midori middle, that elitist girl's prep school down the road, well, it had tried to break her feisty "bad attitude." They had tried to teach her a wife's place: to smile sweetly and quietly. Bow like this, curtsy like that, god forbid your shit didn't smell like lavender. But what if she wanted to grow up to be an independent woman? A woman who made do on her own, without a man ruling her life? Nor a military commander in the reserve. Yuka's clay heart had yet to be fired. Lumpy and useless and uncertain. Today, particularly wet and heavy.

Hastily, Yuka smushed another stick of gum into her gnashing mouth and exploded:

"Augh! Alpha-Jerkface Hibari Kyoya can shove his tonfas up his ass!"

She yanked up her bag and whipped it over her shoulder, flipped her hair, the works. Everybody needs to vent.

"What did you just call me?"

And lo and behold, behind her stood Mr. Alpha-Jerkface himself, eyes narrowed, tonfas bared. He frowned at what he saw.