Title: The Benefits of Dying
Summary: Bianca had a lot of regrets in her life. Yes, she wants a second chance, but not this way! Not in the world of Katekyo Hitman Reborn, and most importantly, not in the body of Hibari Kyoya!
Ratings: ratings may change.
Disclaimer and Warning: KHR belongs to Akira Amano. AU. Slowbuild.
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Chapter 1: The Benefits of Dying is Not Worth It
1: Wherein Angels Are Dealers.
Bianca Moricelle decided that she's either dreaming or hallucinating.
Why? Because she's sitting in a white, comfy chair—in an office room—with a self-proclaimed angel. An angel who was wearing a tuxedo.
She continued to stare at the man and his choice of clothing, switching her gaze back and forth from his face to his tuxedo. She can't believe this. Did she...did she really die?
"Yes, yes you did." the man—er, angel—said, reading her thoughts. "As a matter of fact, you saved a little girl from a ten-wheeler truck."
For a few seconds, there was silence.
"What?" Bianca asked, eyes wide and mind focused on what the angel-man said. She tried to remember any memory that resembles that, but came up with nothing.
"You don't remember." the angel smiled. His reaction and words were so out of place in a zone that was supposed to cater dead people.
Where was the 'I am sorry ma'am, but rest assured the afterlife is a good place' or the 'Your family would be fine in your permanent absence'? If he was an angel, where was the wings or the halo? He looked more like a businessman who was about to meet a fellow businessman for a proposal.
"Yes, yes, I do have a proposal to give."
And here comes the mind reading, again.
"Would you please quit it, sir?" Bianca pleaded through her teeth. She fought the urge to twitch in front of the self-proclaimed angel. "The mind reading is a bit...annoying."
The angel smirked. "It's not my problem, Miss Moricelle, it's yours. You're the one who's broadcasting her thoughts."
This time, Bianca twitched.
"But back to what I've said before, Miss Bianca Moricelle." he smiled. "I have a proposal for you. It's either you accept or not. If you reject it, you'll go to your afterlife."
His tone was mocking as he smiled that Bianca felt like she was stepping on a future problem. The glint in his eyes says a lot—it was conveying a lifetime of suffering on her side if she said no. All in all, he looked like a seasoned prankster.
Bianca threw the dread she was feeling at the back of her mind. She was already dead, what more could she lose? Bianca may not be a detective, but she can read between the lines. If she will not be sent to her afterlife, Bianca deduced that she'll either be reincarnated, the angel would offer a job, or an assignment of sorts that will keep her away from the afterlife.
Knowing that the angel was reading her thoughts, Bianca looked at him in the eye. "What is your proposal?" she asked, her tone flat and steady.
The man's smile turned into an amused one. He leaned closer to her, eyes directly cornering her eyes before speaking. "We have a slight problem on another world. Another universe, one that is slightly different from yours, had misplaced one of their important souls. I want you to replace its place."
Bianca took offence on the soul's behalf of being called an 'it'. Despite holding back her displeasure, a slight scowl graced Bianca's face.
"How does one misplace a soul?" she asked.
The angel had the balls to grin at her question. "I'm afraid I don't have the required permission to answer that, Miss Moricelle."
"Is that so?" she asked in a flat voice. "I am starting to think that you are pulling a huge BS on me, Angelman sir. Because you look and talk like a government agent on crack." Bianca quipped. The angel's grin widened.
"Thank you for that compliment. I heard that this is how you mortals act so I took a page on your kind's quirk."
That was not a compliment, you troll.
"Yes, yes, I know. But common decency must be enacted at all times." he shot back.
"Common decencies aside, where in the world are you sending me?"
The angel smiled innapropriately again. He looked like a comic book villain with how psychotic he looked at the moment. "Again, I don't have the permission tp release that information. You'll know when you get there."
Bianca decided that pushing him to answer that question might risk her safety. Not that she needs it, because she was already dead.
For now, she would settle on trying to fill her curiousity.
"Why did you choose me?" she asked.
"Hm...it's easy: you're the only compatible candidate at this moment."
Bianca frowned at his words. "What do mean?"
"I mean what I mean." the angel replied. "We have at least a billion of souls to guide every day from every universe, and we could have picked someone else. We could, but it wouldn't be as compatible as you.
"You, Bianca Moricelle, have the right temperament, experience and knowledge to spice things up. Despite some requirements that you don't have, you are the only one that could replace the missing soul because you could have been its equivalent on your home universe."
"And?" Bianca asked, urging him to continue his words. The mention of equivalent piqued her interest.
The angel did not answer. Bianca gave him an 'spill-or-else' look, which made him sigh.
"Don't tempt fate, girl. When I say that we need a soul right now, that is it. No more questions, please." his shoulders sagged.
"But how can I—
Her questions finally made the angel grit his teeth. "We need someone there or else one of the main parrallel timelines in a known universe will collapse. We need someone who'll say yes at being reincarnated." he snapped.
Bianca managed to not flinch. She did not ignore the statement of the angel, far from it. Now that the problem was aired, Bianca looked at the angel seriously—eyes focused on her only companion in the room. "You're that desperate?"
"...Yes."
"Okay."
"You accept?"
"Yes. On one condition, Mister Angel, sir." she teased, trying to lift the angel's spirit. "Answer three of my questions."
The angel smiled. "If it does not need the higher up's permission, then yes."
Bianca closed her eyes and sighed. "Will my family miss me?"
"Yes, they do."
"Will my family live in comfort and happiness?" she asked.
The angel was silent for awhile as if he was thinking, then nodded. "Yes, eventually."
That cleared a lot of her worries.
"Okay, one last question: will I see them again? I mean—Mom, Dad and Din—my family." Bianca asked, hope flashing in her eyes. The angel gave her a mysterious smile.
"Probably."
Probably. Probably they'll meet again. Probably.
"So what now?" she demanded.
The angel smiled like a loon, again. It made her shiver in dread.
"It's time for you to go." he grinned cheerfully.
"Wait! Do I get any advice about—
"Toddles!" he waved his hands.
Bianca's vision started to blur as a white smoke engulfed her. She looked at her hands to see that it was missing. In fact, both of her two hands disappeared, and her whole surroundings was spinning. As her sight started to darken, she mentally cursed the angel.
She haven't asked for advice yet. Damn it.
—TBoD—
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2: Wherein Bianca pulled a Hao Asakura.
She woke up trying to catch her breath while being squizzed in a slimy tube.
As if dying once was bad enough, now, she's dying for the second time. She was losing oxygen—fast. What's worst is that her eyes and ears were malfunctioning, for she can't see nor hear anything.
Man, this sucks. This totally sucks. Did the angel reincarnated her as someone with disabilities? Not that she have anything against people with disabilities—infact she respects them—but not seeing or hearing anything is the Earth's version of hell on her opinion.
She was about to go on another mental monologue when the tube she was in tightened. The lack of oxygen continued and Bianca could not move.
She. Couldn't. Move!
Damn it, not again. This is unfair. She did not say yes to a creepy angel just to die again. She's no Dean or Sam Winchester to experience this. She's not a meatsuit, damn it to hell.
Bianca stopped panicking when the slimy tube tightened and pushed her to somewhere cold, open and white. That made her cry in relied.
Finally, she's out of that stupid thing!
Not a few seconds later, she was scooped up. Someone—or something—was touching her entire back and she could feel the tremor and the unevenness of her location as it sways up and down, like she was being carried.
Carried.
Carried?!
How stupid of her! She was not blind or dead—well, she hoped not—but there's no doubt yhat she was shoved on an infant's body!
Damn it to hell!
Why can't the damn angel shove her on a new body with sealed memories and then slowly break the said seal during a better time? Elementary years would be a better time than this, right?
Right?!
At the end of time where the souls are being judged, a man in a tuxedo evilly cackled as he watched an infant cry.
Looks like the first prank victim of the century discovered the first surprise.
—TBoD—
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Being an infant was boring.
No, let her rephrase that: Being shoved in an infant's body was bloody annoying.
All she does is drink bottled milk, sh*t, sleep and repeat. She blacks out all the time and her eyesight was worse than what she had in her last life.
Oh, her hearing improved and she can see the colors around her, but everything looks blurred and her new parents—they have to be her parents or she'll eat soup number five—doesn't take her seriously.
Of course they wouldn't, but hearing 'Ochuchuchuchu, Hi-chan, kawaii Hi-chan ochuchuchuchu' in a cute voice became irritating after the third time.
The only thing that came from listening from those cooing was information. Based by the language, Bianca was either in Japan or China—because her mother spoke in Chinese a few times—and that they were either action movie fans, police officers or criminals.
Hearing the words 'oyabun', 'corpse' and 'car chase' from her father on some rapid nihongo conversation also helps.
She was also grateful that her mother decided to feed her with milk formula, because if she didn't, Bianca would have spent a her infancy with breastfeeding. That could have been traumatic for her.
Not that living as an infant was not traumatic.
—TBoD—
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3. Wherein Bianca was cursed.
After two months, Bianca's eyes became clear.
The day that she realised that yes, she can see it all now was the day where she laughed like a madman. Yes, it was freaking inappropriate with her infant form, but bloody f*ck if she cared.
It was a perfect day and nobody would stop her as she celebrates.
She would read anything, age be damned, and nobody would stop her. Not even a surprise could crush her spirits right now.
Her eyes roamed around the place. She was on her wooden crib and the whole place screamed 'Japanese'. There was a wooden sliding door a few meters away from her and the floor—which was also made of wood—was polished to the point that it shined. She turned around and saw two dragon paintings on a white fabric and an honest to god jade dragon statue on a short table.
Overall, it looked like a spare room, except there was a crib and a toy box full of stuff toys.
And...this place was her room. Well, to be exact, this is her baby room.
At least it was not neon pink, because she doesn't want an embarassing baby pictures. Having a baby picture was embarassing as it is, and Bianca doesn't want a pink room to the mix.
Her internal musings were cut off when her mother entered, narrow grey eyes scanning the room. When she saw Bianca in the crib, Mei Ling—yes, she was Chinese, or probably a half Jap and yes, that was her mother's name—smiled.
"Hi-chan," Mei Ling called. "You have a visitor.
Bianca, or Hi-chan in this life, looked at her mother—her narrowed grey eyes, porcelain skin and soft smile.
Who was the visitor?
"He came all the way to China just to see you, Hi-chan." Mei Ling's smile became softer. "Come, father, you can come in."
Bianca's eyes went into the sliding door that was slowly opening. She wanted to see her grandfather in this lifetime. She wanted to see the man who raised her mother into this woman who—
What.
Bianca's mind started to malfunction. Like a broken record, she reminded herself that yes, the man was her grandfather. Maybe. Or maybe not.
Because there was no man in front of the door.
Where she expected an old wrinkly man stood an infant wearing a red robe that would not be weird in a kung fu movie. The infant had his hair in a braid and his eyes, despited being big, was naturally narrowed. His smile would have given him a calm aura, if not for his unnatural graceful moves that screamed 'predator'.
To her he looked familiar. She just can't remember where she saw him. Or maybe the baby reminded her of someone.
Bianca was about to ignore her suspicions when the in—no—little man spoke.
"Hello Kyoya, I'm Fon, your grandfather. It is nice to finally meet my grandson."Fon, the Storm Arcobaleno from Katekyo Hitman Reborn smiled.
Bianca—no, she can't be Hibari!—fainted.
On a certain office, an entity on a tuxedo laughed uncontrolably.
"Finally, you discovered the secret without even getting a clearance." the angel cheekily said.