Title: The Chase
Author/Artist: ZiaLiaLis
Rating: T
Warnings: Death, blood, violence, genderbend... anything else I should mention? Slight OOC-ness I guess. Not so sure.
Prompt: I-27. Hibari/fem!Tsuna - femme fatale; she was a crime boss he chased for years (Hibari as a federal agent)
Word count: 3000+ I think.
Summary: She slipped away from his revenge once. Years later, he gets another chance.
...
At The first time he had met her, she was fifteen. He was seventeen.
She had seemed normal at first, extremely normal. She did normal things like going to high school, hanging out with friends.
If not for the fact that most of her friends were boys and she had a boyish sounding name, yeah, everything seemed perfectly normal. After all, she could have just been a tomboy right?
But he was wrong.
In his subconscious, he knew he was so utterly wrong about everything.
…
Insert cliché openings here for a perfect day. You know, birds chirping, sun shining stuff? Yeah. And then in a story, something bad has to ruin it all right? Well, here's that story.
...
Hibari walked through the streets of Namimori, his tiny eight year old hand in his father's.
It was his birthday and the day was just perfect.
His father was on a break from chasing the mafia, his mother was healthy enough to go outside, and the day was absolutely brilliant.
The trio were on their way to la vostra torta, to get him a birthday cake.
It was supposed to be a normal, no accidents journey.
No murdering.
Free of jobs.
Free of mishaps.
…
"Dad? Mum! What's wrong?"
I touched their abdomens, only to feel sticky red liquid pouring out.
Blood.
…
They walked down a dark alley, the frigid wind biting at their exposed skin.
The weather had taken a turn for the worse. The sky was cloudingover and it threatened to rain.
Their steps increased in pace, hoping to escape the imminent rain.
Then it happened all at once.
His father was shot in his arm, but he managed to retaliate with his own and the assassin fell.
They ran for their lives, cake lying on the floor, forgotten.
Another gun shot came, this time aimed towards him.
His mother pushed him out of the way, taking the bullet.
"Mum? MUM!"
More bullets.
His father fell.
"Dad?"
Then he saw her.
A little girl, younger than him was hiding behind a tall man in a fedora with an orange stripe.
Her brown hair stood up messily, wide brown – orange eyes staring at him.
"This isn't good…" The man in the suit muttered, a green chameleon suddenly appearing on his forehead.
"Come on Dame-Tsuna, we're going."
"B-but, what about him?"
"He'll live. We didn't get any orders about what to do with him. Only his father."
"They… they killed my father? My mother?"
Thoughts ran through his young mind all at once.
Something within him snapped.
…
I sat in the ambulance, rocking back and forth.
"So he's the next generation of the Hibari clan? Tough future he's got there."
I knew what they were talking about. I clenched my teeth.
I will hunt them down.
I will hunt them all down like a predator.
I will bite them all to death.
Those… those herbivores.
The mafia.
…
He prowled through the corridors of his beloved middle-high school.
Beloved, because this was what his father left him. Beloved, because this was where his office was; the office where he kept information about the mafia.
A commotion from outside the window caught his attention.
A girl, a brunette with wild brown hair, was being bullied. Hand held up in feeble attempts to protect her face as high heels jabbed her body viciously. In a valiant effort, the brunette attempted to get up and run, only to be shoved back onto the ground discordantly.
Enough was enough. He would not allow his school to be defaced with such ignominious acts.
Just as he was about to jump out the window (for that was the fastest way), a silver haired boy ran towards the girl, saving her.
He snorted. The girl was such a herbivore, needing help from someone else.
As the attackers fled, he saw that they were from a rival school, Midori Middle-High School - time to pay the student council / disciplinary committee of Midori Middle-high a visit.
He stared at the two students from his school. Strange, he thought he saw the girl's eyes flash orange for a moment. And the boy… wasn't he smoking bomb Hayato? And the baby that just appeared… No. It couldn't be.
The person who killed his father was dead. Killed.
But that baby…
"Must be lack of sleep," He thought.
He stalked away, taking note of his findings for the day.
…
The next time he had seen the brown haired girl, she bumped into him.
Her untamed mane of a hair shoved into his face and she crashed into him.
Waiting for her to get up, he saw that she was crying. For what reasons, he wouldn't know.
She got up and apologised profusely, for which she only received a piece of crumpled tissue in reply.
She wiped her eyes and blew her nose, before giving him a genial smile.
The baseball team's ace ran up to her and whisked her away, not before shooting Hibari a few curious glances with something else lying underneath the stare.
…
I continued my life, alone.
I learned martial arts and deepened my knowledge in the tonfas.
I reopened the business my father, and generations before that, had created.
I became a true carnivore.
…
"Hibari-san?" Tsuna asked.
He kept silent, eyes closed, the autumn breeze tickling his nose.
She had something to ask him, he knew.
What, he didn't know.
Though, that baby hiding behind the wall might have something to do with it.
"Will you be my cloud guardian?"
His body tensed. Was this…? Was it really…? No… she was just a girl, just another student of his school. His records told him so.
"This may sound confusing and all but… I- I'm the tenth boss of a mafia family, the famiglia Vongola."
He gritted his teeth and faster than anyone could blink, he lashed out at her.
Her eyes widened, she had taken a step back just in time because of her hyper intuition, but that didn't mean her bangs went unharmed.
"H- Hibari-san? I mean, I understand if you don't want to since you're - "
"Since my what?" He hissed, arms lashing out again.
"Since my father was killed by that baby you know as Reborn?" he snarled out, he aimed for that pretty little face of hers.
Tsunayoshi's eyes widened after turning a bright orange colour, much like the fire engulfing her forehead and hands.
And also his blocked tonfa.
He stood there in awe, but something else rooted much deeper within him, made him freeze at the name she said.
"W-what? Reborn! What is this about?" she shrilled, voice raised.
The baby stepped out from behind the wall, shadow elongated into the shape of a full grown man.
"I didn't think he'd react like this," Reborn muttered, sighing.
Hibari stayed silent, anger bubbling inside him like a shaken soda can ready to burst. Yet he didn't move, for the fear he felt yet took not notice of made him rooted there; the fear from the incident years ago.
"There seems to be a misunderstanding," Tsuna reasoned, "Reborn wouldn't have killed your father without telling me about it!"
"Don't play innocent herbivore, you were there," Hibari managed to get out from his gritted teeth.
Tsuna's eyes had confusion swimming in it. What was he talking about?
"And what's with the alias 'Reborn'? Last time I knew you, you were a full grown man going by the name of -"
Reborn's gun snapped up.
"That's enough Kyouya."
"Don't call me that!" Hibari snarled in reply.
"Let's go Dame-Tsuna. This obstinate idiot won't listen to anything we say."
Tsuna nodded shakily, more than glad to get away from one of the two killing machines.
Hibari stood there, clenching and unclenching his hands from the all too familiar grip of the tonfas, anger slowly diffusing away into something much more… emotional.
He stood there, gums hurting, eyes hidden by shadows, tears brimming.
He never saw Tsunayoshi again.
He chased, but she and Reborn have seemingly disappeared from the face of this earth.
But him being him, he chased continually.
…
I waited for years before you appeared.
And when you did, you slipped away.
And so I chased.
Now I finally hear news, after 10 years.
…
He sat in his office, papers scattered all over the desk.
It had been nearly ten years since he last saw Tsunayoshi and Reborn.
Ten years since he was offered a position in the mafia.
This year, he was going to catch her. He knew it. The tenth generation Vongola has had more and more appearances lately, as compared to the times before.
And tonight would be his lucky night.
Or so it was supposed to be.
…
Kusakabe rushed in, a cell phone gripped tightly in hand. His face was stricken with some unnameable emotion plastered clearly on his face.
"Hibari-san! It's the Vongola decimo! She and the other guardians have been spotted on the central town's brid-"
He was cut off by the disappearance of Hibari and his needed materials (with the exception of his federal badge; it wasn't like he really needed it anyway), chair flung back across the room, the window for the 4th story room open.
…
He leaped into the air, landing on his feet gracefully like a cat. He hit the ground running – literally.
Dashing through the hostile night air with nothing but his suit jacket on, he didn't care how his stinging feet, how his immobile face or the freezing air whistling down his trachea and into his lungs were hurting him.
He merely ran. Ran and ran and ran.
The sparkles in the distance, once blurred and indistinct, focused into his view as the central town's bridge.
And soon enough, there were gunshots.
Loud, popping gunshots which induced fear and adrenaline into him as each individual bullet was released. Each gunshot echoed through the air reverberatingly, sounding similar to that of fireworks. Only this was much closer, much more real.
His feet didn't miss a beat, each dancing rhythmically to the cacophony of gunshots which sounded like a masterpiece to his ears.
He was closer now; the smell of gunpowder invaded his nostrils.
It was a like a dream.
A dream that felt so real yet so hard to believe.
He gave himself a final push and turned sharply at the corner where he knew the guardians of both the Millefiore and the Vongola were, catchphrase threatening to jump out of his mouth.
But what greeted him was not the sight he had expected. What he saw was gruesome.
Gruesome was an understatement.
A cloud-coloured haired man was disappearing into a – was that right? Was he really disappearing into a black hole?
That wasn't important. What was important was his prey lying there in front of him, crouched over a baby in an all too familiar suit. The baby's fedora laid some metres away from them and blood covered the whole alley.
Blood. Crimson blood.
Still wet, still fresh. Still dripping down the walls.
He could hear it, the neatly timed drip drip of the blood. And with that, he was suddenly in the past.
His parent's blood laid out before him, some on his clothes, a drop rolling down his face.
Then a pained cry brought him back.
He hadn't noticed before, but the other guardians were there too, all on the floor with major wounds of their own. Not only guardians, normal Mafioso too.
Some lay there peacefully, as if they were sleeping. The other's had their face contorted in agony.
One of them, Gokudera he remembered, had his hand stretched out towards his boss. From the state of his fingers, he had obviously tried to drag himself over.
Tsunayoshi finally looked up. A sob had escaped her lips, a soft, heart wrenching sob which was not befitting for a mafia boss.
Over the years, he had thought that Tsunayoshi would have grown up.
Grown taller, had hard cold eyes that could kill mercilessly.
But no.
This… this girl in front of him was far from a Mafioso. Her wide brown eyes stared up at him, on the verge of staining her already tear-stained face even more. Her hair, wilder than the last time he had met her, was clumped with blood and dirt.
Her eyes suddenly flashed a brilliant orange, the flame he had once seen appearing again.
Her voice almost a growl, she asked, "What do you want?"
He made his way over, careful not to step on any bodies. Or body parts, he grimaced as he saw a hand with two missing fingers in his way.
His tonfas in reach, he took off his suit and threw it at a surprised Tsuna.
Her eyes and forehead no longer burned. She glanced up at him wearily, as if she had just fought the battle of her life – which was probably it. She knew he meant no harm and with that, she wrapped herself in his suit.
She promptly fell into slumber.
He fished out his cell and punched a number in.
"We need a lot of ambulances."
…
I didn't think our next meeting would be like this.
I thought there would be blood, but on my tonfas or somewhere on me.
I thought there would be an epic battle of out blown proportions.
I thought we would fight.
So why am I helping her?
…
He sat by her bed, sitting on the uncomfortable plastic chair the hospital could offer.
He sat there, staring at her with an impassive face.
She was there on the bed.
The person who he had been chasing all this time.
A low rumble emerged from his throat.
He glared at the innocent pasty whitish yellow wall across the room.
Tsuna stirred.
Her eyes opened slowly, adjusting to the fluorescent light which made everything seem so unreal.
At first, she stayed quiet.
Then she screamed.
Not a high pitched girl scream, a loud terrifying one.
She screamed and trashed, throwing about incoherent phrases like, "No! Stop!", "Byakuran!", "Kill!", "Reborn don't!", "Hayato cover Takeshi!" and other such words which probably had to do with what happened last night.
He pinned her down and then her eyes focused.
She glared spitefully up at him, before her eyes watered and she broke down into tears.
He stayed silent, and after making sure she wasn't going to kill herself (or any other person really), he let her go.
She gathered up the blanket and threw it over herself.
From underneath, he could hear soft sobs and hiccups as she tried in vain to stop herself from crying.
A few minutes later, all that was left was the occasionally sniffles.
She muttered something, a question directed at him.
He stayed silent, contemplating whether to reply or not. Finally, he said.
"Yes. The arcobaleno is gone."
…
I feel empty.
The reason for my life was gone.
All that was left is this empty feeling.
What is left for me?
…
It was the funeral. Not that there was even a body to bury to begin with.
Reborn's body had mysteriously vanished after being proclaimed dead.
Mafia of various families gathered, some offering their genuine condolences.
Others? Those fake bastards were happy. Truly happy. The strongest arcobaleno had been taken out that easily.
They just didn't show it.
Tsuna, with her mummified guardians flanking each side of her, stood at the small stage which had been set up, eyes not betraying the grief they felt.
Tsuna stepped down from the stage with all the grace a mafia boss could have and whispered to Hibari as she passed him, "I need to talk to you. Sakura Park at 9 p.m. tonight."
He knew what it would be about.
…
He stepped into the cherry blossom-filled park, immediately hating the sight of the pink blossoms raining down on him.
His instincts prickled as he made his way to the largest tree in the park.
Tsuna sat there, sipping tea calmly.
Before he had a chance to even blink, she offered, "Would you like some green tea?"
His mouth stayed shut.
"My cloud guardian was killed a few days before the event."
No reply.
"Your parents were not killed by Reborn," she finally said.
Finally, a reaction from Hibari.
His posture stiffened, eyes hardened.
Everything about him screamed disbelief.
"That's not possible," he replied, voice calm.
Tsuna glanced up at him with narrow, calculating eyes.
"Did you actually see Reborn shoot your parents?"
He had no reply.
"Reborn was there to save your father. He was after all, a valuable asset to the Vongola."
"What?" A sharp retort came from him.
"Your ancestors have been working for the Vongola ever since the beginning. You know Alaude don't you?"
Of course he did. Alaude was the start of his family business after all. Alaude was his ancestor. Alaude was everything except mafia.
"Your father was working for the CEDEF. I thought you knew, that was why I asked you to be my cloud guardian. Reborn knew what was happening when I asked. And seeing how recalcitrant you were, he told me to give it up."
He stared at her. She threw a brown envelope, heavy with paper within it, at him.
He caught it mid air yet he didn't break his gaze.
"Reborn was there to save him. He was too late. And you immediately jumped to conclusions when you saw him."
Tsuna packed up her things.
"I'll be going. My offer 10 years ago still stands."
Finally, he glanced down at the brown envelope.
He climbed onto the Sakura tree and there he stayed until morning, reading and rereading the contents.
His decision however, was decided by his gut instinct.
…
Striding into the room confidently, he slammed the office's door opened and glared at any herbivores in his way. Some were unfortunately bitten to death.
"How many herbivores have you killed?" He demanded.
Tsuna shot him a rueful smile.
"More than you have on the list of people killed by Vongola ninth."
His lips curled into a sardonic grin.
"I'll bite you to death herbivore."
He approached the table and took a shiny metal ring without anyone except Tsuna's notice.
…
This is what was left for me.
Continuing the family business.
The true family business.
A new life, a new beginning.
...
A/N: So how was it? I kept feeling that Hibari was OOC at the little snippets of first person, but I couldn't help it since Hibari's character is pretty flat in the manga... Ages were made up. Reviews, flames, Concrit, whatever are all accepted. I don't have much else to say, just hoped you enjoyed it.